Politics & Government

Redistricting Map Approved by County Impacts Tri-Valley

Pleasanton, Livermore's neighbor to the west, shifts out of Supervisor Scott Haggerty's district and into Supervisor Nate Miley's district. Pleasanton leaders are not pleased.

Alameda County has nearly completed the thorny task of redrawing its supervisorial districts based on the 2010 U.S. Census. 

The district map unanimously approved by the County Board of Supervisors at its meeting Tuesday impacts the Tri-Valley region the most.

The new boundaries keep the City of Pleasanton intact — including the newly annexed Staples Ranch and unincorporated Happy Valley — but move it into the district represented by Supervisor Nate Miley (District 4) from the one represented by Scott Haggerty (District 1).

Find out what's happening in Livermorewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Dublin, previously split between Districts 1 and 4, moves entirely into District 1 in the final map. 

District 1 currently represents the cities of Livermore, Pleasanton, most of Fremont and portions of Dublin and Sunol.

Find out what's happening in Livermorewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Under the new map the district would include all of Livermore, Dublin, Fremont and Sunol.

The shift represents the only major change in district boundaries from the current map.

District 2 includes Hayward, Union City and Newark.

District 3 includes San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Alameda and parts of Oakland.

District 4 includes Pleasanton, Castro Valley, Ashland, Cherryland, Fairview and parts of Oakland.

District 5 includes Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Piedmont and parts of Oakland.

Miley, who serves as board president, congratulated the board for getting through the redistricting process "in a collegial manner."

"I think it’s been a good exercise," Miley said, adding that he was content to represent Pleasanton going forward.

"I know Supervisor Haggerty will introduce me to the Pleasanton community," he said.

The supervisors’ adoption of Map E_1 all but ends a monthlong process in which citizens and local government representatives lobbied for competing proposals.

The Board of Supervisors must take a second vote on the map July 26 before it becomes final, but board members indicated they weren’t likely to change their minds. 

A significant shift in boundaries in the southern part of the county was necessary because the population there has exploded in the past decade. District 1 now has nearly 30,000 more people than it should, according to districting requirements.

Meanwhile, the comparatively petite Districts 3 and 4 are more than 5 percent undersized.

A Tri-Valley group called the Alameda County Citizens Redistricting Task Force, which is closely affiliated with the Tea Party Patriots, would have split Hayward between two districts to remedy the imbalance, keeping the Tri-Valley (including Pleasanton, Livermore and Dublin) in a single district. The Tri-Valley area includes San Ramon and Danville, but those communities are in Contra Costa County.

Nevertheless, dissenting voices were absent from Tuesday’s meeting.

Only one man, Hayward resident Jesus Armas, spoke at the meeting, thanking the supervisors for keeping Hayward intact in the new map. (Armas is also on the Hayward school board, but said he was speaking as a member of the public.)

Still, county staff and Supervisor Haggerty said they had received a number of last-minute pleas from Pleasanton residents and politicians to keep the city in District 1. Haggerty expressed frustration with what he said were mixed messages from the city.

"I’m a little confused with the City of Pleasanton right now, I must say," Haggerty said at the meeting, noting that the board had made an effort to keep Pleasanton whole in the new map per requests from city leaders and residents. 

"I think we’ve responded to the preponderance of constituents…who were adamant they didn’t want the city of Pleasanton split," Haggerty said.

The supervisor added that he would continue to look out for Pleasanton’s interests, even though he wouldn’t be representing the city officially.

Still, some Pleasanton officials said they weren’t happy.

"(Haggerty) knows all the right people, he knows what our issues are and I'd hate us to get separated from that," said Pleasanton Councilman Jerry Thorne.

He said that members of the Pleasanton City Council and others were open to meeting with Miley. But, Thorne said, he worried about Miley's large district and potential competing interests from other constituents.

"It's not a matter of conflict," Thorne said, "it's just where you put your time and effort."

The Tri-Valley should remain politically unified, Thorne said.

"Splitting apart the Tri-Valley is not the right thing to do right now," he added. "That distributes us too thinly and it's confusing to the people who live here."

At the meeting, Haggerty predicted that in 2020, when the next census will spur a redistricting process, the Tri-Valley will have a large enough population to warrant its own district.

"That continues to be a goal of mine," Haggerty said. "We just couldn’t get there this time with the population."


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here