PREVIOUSLY:

• “Scanner Traffic Indicates,” Feb. 12.

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Press release from the Eureka Police Department:

On February 12, 2022, at about 8:47 p.m., officers with the Eureka Police Department responded to the intersection of Henderson Street and A street for a report of a hit and run traffic collision involving a juvenile pedestrian on a skateboard.

Humboldt Bay Fire and City Ambulance responded and provided emergency medical care and transportation of the juvenile to the hospital. The 15-year-old juvenile pedestrian suffered moderate facial and head injuries and at the time of this report is in stable condition.

The suspect vehicle is described as a grey 4-door sedan with a rear taillight similar to a Mercedes style light. Anyone with information is asked to contact Officer Ben Altic at 707-441-4060 x1304 or baltic@ci.eureka.ca.gov, refer case number 22-000651

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Feb. 13, 2022, at about 11:53 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies responded to a residence on the 200 block of Old Dolly Varden Road in Blue Lake to conduct follow-up investigation into an ongoing trespassing issue.

During their investigation, deputies located 65-year-old William O’Brien Gammill inside a vehicle parked on the property without permission. Deputies learned that the property owner had asked Gammill to leave prior to this contact, however, Gammill did not comply with that request. Gammill was taken into custody for trespassing. During a search of Gammill and his vehicle incident to arrest, deputies located a firearm, ammunition and over 7 grams of Methamphetamine.  

Gammill was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a controlled substance (HC 11377(a)), possession of a controlled substance while armed (HS 11370.1(a)), prohibited person in possession of ammunition (PC 30305(a)), felon in possession of a firearm (PC 29800(a)) and trespassing (PC 602).

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

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Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Feb. 13, 2022, at about 11:42 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to a residence on the 1300 block of Howard Avenue, in the county’s jurisdiction of Eureka, to investigate the report of suspicious activity outside the residence.

Deputies contacted three individuals at the residence, two of whom were identified as 60-year-old Thomas Edward Schuyler and 63-year-old Kevin Bruce Couturier. Schuyler was found to have an outstanding warrant for his arrest and was taken into custody without incident. During additional investigation, deputies found Couturier to be in possession of a stolen motorcycle. During a search of Couturier incident to arrest, deputies located a concealed dagger.

Couturier was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of possession of a stolen vehicle (PC 496d(a)), carrying a concealed dagger (PC 21310) and providing false evidence of registration (VC 4463).

Schuyler was booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of violating a court order (PC 273.6(a)), inflicting corporal injury on a spouse (PC 273.5(a)), criminal threats (PC 422) and grand theft (PC 487(a)).

The third individual was released at the scene.

This case is still under investigation. Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

Press release from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office:

On Feb. 13, 2022, at about 9:52 a.m., Humboldt County Sheriff’s deputies conducted a probation search on 48-year-old Kenneth Alan Wolf at a residence on the 400 block of Briceland-Thorne Road in Redway.

Deputies contacted and detained Wolf at the residence. During a search of the residence pursuant to the terms of Wolf’s probation, deputies located 21 firearms, over 3,800 rounds of ammunition and approximately 22 grams of Methamphetamine.  

Wolf was arrested and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility on charges of felon in possession of a firearm (PC 29800(a)(1)), prohibited person in possession of ammunition (PC 30305(a)), possession of a controlled substance while armed (HS 11370.1(a)), possession of a controlled substance (HS 11377(a)) and violation of probation (PC 1203.2(a)(2)).

Anyone with information about this case or related criminal activity is encouraged to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the Sheriff’s Office Crime Tip line at (707) 268-2539.

Isabella Vanderheiden!

Today, the Lost Coast Outpost is thrilled to introduce you to the latest reporter to don the teal. She is none other than …

Isabella Vanderheiden! Three cheers for Izzy, everyone!

Some of you might already know Ms. V from her previous forays into the local journalism space — either from her days as the KMUD news director, or, more lately, as assistant managing editor of the LoCO’s crosstown rival blog, which goes by the whimsical old-timey name of “The Times-Standard.” If so, you’ll be familiar with the curiosity and dedication she brings to any number of topics — county government, the cannabis industry and environmental protection, to name but a few of her regular beats.

As of today, though, Izzy has thrown off the yoke of hedge fund capitalism and exists exclusively to serve you, the Lost Coast Outpost readership. What wonders will this new, unchained Vanderheiden perform, here in our pages, over the coming months and years and decades? Who knows! Let’s find out together!

But even as you hoist one for Vanderheiden, spill a little out for the Outpost’s dear, departed Jacquelyn Opalach. Or spill it out for the Outpost, rather! Because Opalach, who covered the Humboldt County education beat better than any other reporter in at least the last 20 years, has left the Outpost to do the things that astoundingly precocious, shockingly young people are supposed to do, post-pandemic — travel the world and get a degree. We’re pretty sure she’s currently on the first leg of that mission, but we’re still waiting for our postcard.

While we wait: Isabella Vanderheiden! Give her a warm Lost Coast Outpost welcome.

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At 66, Edward El has a new lease on life — literally. In two weeks, he’ll move into his own apartment in Berkeley after spending the better part of the past 16 years homeless.

Years ago, a back injury and pinched nerves in his legs made standing and walking painful, and he was laid off from his construction job. He ended up in “shelter after shelter after shelter.”

But nine months ago, El moved into one of 12 Project Roomkey shelters in Alameda County designed to reduce COVID-19 among the homeless population. He was connected with a housing navigator, a counselor and medical staff. They helped El apply for affordable housing and rental assistance vouchers, and coordinated with landlords who would give homeless renters a chance. Now he’ll pay a fraction of the cost to live in an area where one-bedroom apartments often exceed $3,000 per month.

The team also made sure that El was enrolled in Medi-Cal and had transportation to his doctor’s appointments. He said he couldn’t have navigated the array of complex systems if it weren’t for his new case management team. “I’m happy. They knew about programs that I didn’t know about that allowed me to get a place,” he said.

Intensive case management like this is an example of the ambitious, sweeping changes California made to Medi-Cal beginning in January under an initiative it’s calling CalAIM, or California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal.

“This was designed to identify very high risk populations — oftentimes people who were coming to the emergency room five to 10 times a month.”
— Erica Murray, California Assn. of Public Hospitals and Health Systems

Medi-Cal offers medical insurance to low-income Californians, serving as a lifeline for nearly half of the state’s children, one in five adults and 2 million seniors and people with disabilities. But the program is inefficient: More than half of Medi-Cal’s roughly $133 billion annual budget is spent on just 5% of the program’s highest-needs individuals — people with multiple complex health problems compounded by homelessness, poverty, substance abuse, mental illness or incarceration, according the Department of Health Care Services.

Over the next five years, the goal of CalAIM is to address the upstream drivers of deteriorating health — things like food insecurity and housing instability — in an effort to reduce costly emergency department visits, hospitalizations and nursing home stays. The program redesign is based on “whole person care” principles, which help people avoid situations that worsen their physical and mental health.

“This was designed at the county level to identify very high risk populations — oftentimes people who were coming to the emergency room five to 10 times a month.” said Erica Murray, president and CEO of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems.

In his January budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed $8 billion over five years to implement the program, about 6% of Medi-Cal’s total budget. Included are temporary payments to managed care plans to offer enhanced case management and other services.

These so-called social determinants of health have not been historically covered by health insurance like Medi-Cal. Yet they have an outsized impact on people who often struggle with economic instability, poor nutrition, discrimination, violence and disproportionate exposure to polluted air and water.

“One of my patients calls it social deterrents to health,” said Alameda County Medical Director Dr. Kathleen Clanon.

No other state has mounted such a comprehensive program that wraps in so many elements. The scale is unprecedented, too: Medi-Cal provides health insurance for more than 13 million people.

“This is a big deal. Not only is California taking the lead but also setting a precedent for potentially other states to follow it,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocate group.

Pilot programs in 25 counties helped get CalAIM off the ground. Roughly 108,000 Medi-Cal patients were enrolled in county pilots and 15,000 in managed care pilots during a two-year period, according to an early analysis by UCLA researchers. As a result of the success, federal officials granted a waiver allowing CalAIM to move forward for the next five years.

A CalAIM case worker “was a hell of a godsend. If you don’t know the ins and outs, you just get spit out. You get absolutely no help at all.”
— David Norris, Medi-cal Patient

In Placer County, David Norris, 67, was one of the patients who benefited from the experimental programs.

Norris ended up in a homeless shelter after his mother, whom he was a long-term caregiver for, died. He earns $900 a month in Social Security and retirement, but it’s not enough for rent and living expenses. In April, an infected foot wound spread to the bone and cost Norris his left leg. Another infection resulted in more trips to the ER and subsequent surgeries. Several months later, a fight at the shelter ended in a shove, a fall and a broken right leg.

His caseworker, Todd Perbetsky, helped him enroll in Medi-Cal, find a nursing home to recuperate in and apply for a housing voucher. He’s now helping Norris find permanent housing after leaving the nursing home.

“These are definitely people that are falling through the cracks,” Perbetsky said. “They may not meet the criteria of some programs. They may need linkage to services. They can have tons of barriers to even getting their CalFresh turned on or other benefits they qualify for.”

Norris called Perbetsky a “hell of a godsend. If you don’t know the ins and outs, you just get spit out. You get absolutely no help at all. That’s where Todd…helps me and people like me navigate the waters and get all squared away.”

A Byzantine system

Wraparound services aren’t new, but they haven’t always been easy to access nor have they been directly connected to medical care. Walk through the wrong door and you might not get any help at all.

A homeless patient who suffers from addiction and mental health issues and has diabetes would have to approach three different county departments and a doctor in order to get all of their needs addressed, and even then they’re likely to get lost in the system.

“It’s a little bit like if you needed to get ingredients for a meal and instead of just going to the supermarket, you had to go to different stores to get your proteins and your fruits and your grains and your vegetables. And at those stores, you had to pay with different cards and navigate different rules about what you could buy,” said Melora Simon, a senior strategist at the California Health Care Foundation.

This fragmentation frequently causes barriers to health care and is one of the primary reasons the Department of Health Care Services is focused on reforming Medi-Cal under CalAIM.

One such barrier is making sure patients don’t get lost between systems that don’t traditionally talk to one another.

Clanon, who also works as a physician in Alameda County, said a few years ago a pregnant, HIV-positive patient needed to begin HIV treatment but had left the usual encampment she stayed in and couldn’t be found. A nurse spent more than an hour calling local emergency departments, homeless shelters and case managers to see if anyone had seen the patient, with no luck.

Had the system been integrated, Clanon’s patient would have been flagged as needing critical medical care any time she entered a homeless shelter, emergency department, substance abuse center or mental health facility.

“CalAIM is trying to fix the problem of disparate systems of care both among and between different counties and among and between different parts of the healthcare system,” said Diana Douglas, a health policy expert with Health Access California.

Accountability and missing pieces

Since 2016, California has dedicated more than $3 billion in state and federal funds to experiment with doing just that.

Four years after launch, the pilots demonstrated “substantial evidence” of improved follow-up after hospitalization for mental illness, increased participation in substance abuse treatment and decreased use of emergency services, among other metrics, according to the UCLA analysis.

In Contra Costa County, more than 12,000 patients were enrolled in the pilot annually, and the county health department hired more than 100 public health nurses, mental health specialists, community health workers, homeless service specialists, substance abuse specialists and social workers to provide coordinated case management.

“Most of them were types of positions that existed in the county before, but they were very siloed,” said Emily Parmenter, the pilot’s program manager at Contra Costa County Health Services. “So we brought them all together in these multidisciplinary teams where they had a wealth of experience…and were able to provide case consultations across divisions.”

Medi-Cal patients who enrolled in the Contra Costa pilot experienced medical emergencies less frequently than non-enrolled patients.

“We found that after being involved in the program for a year, our hospital admission rates decreased by 25%…and our (emergency department) rates were 14% lower compared to the control group,” Parmenter said.

UCLA researcher Nadereh Pourat, who conducted the pilot evaluation, said her team has just begun to analyze the impact on specific health conditions, such as blood pressure and congestive heart failure, as well as cost-effectiveness.

“We found that after being involved in the program for a year, our hospital admission rates decreased by 25%.”
— Emily Parmenter, Contra Costa County Health Services

Despite their promise — or perhaps because of it — advocates say the transition from pilot programs to CalAIM will need to be watched carefully.

Responsibility has now shifted from county health departments to health care plans, which don’t always meet quality benchmarks. And health plans in the 33 counties that did not have pilots are starting from scratch.

“There are serious concerns about Medi-Cal (health care) plans on the ground being able to implement some of the work necessary for CalAIM to really be effective and live up to its potential,” health policy expert Douglas said.

“In some cases, plans struggle to deliver quality care across what we think of as very basic measures: childhood immunizations, are people getting mammograms on time, just very basic preventive care and chronic disease management.”

Accountability is especially important for improving equity among minorities, advocates say.

“Communities of color are disproportionately impacted by these same factors: lack of housing, lack of income, lack of food security,” said Cary Sanders, senior policy director for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network.

Health plans need to provide services that are “linguistically and culturally appropriate,” Sanders said.

One critical piece of the pilot programs that was left out of CalAIM is legal aid. In counties that funded legal aid during the pilot programs, lawyers and paralegals were stationed in medical clinics to assist patients who needed help with benefit denials, eviction notices, immigration issues, or domestic abuse cases.

Frequently patients and even their doctors don’t realize that their issue could use the help of a lawyer, said Daniel Nesbit, managing attorney for medical legal partnerships with California Rural Legal Assistance. Nesbit said during the pilot program in Monterey County his team helped 700 clients with more than 1,000 cases.

“A really good example is someone struggling with some sort of medical condition, and it’s making it hard for them to go to work every day and do their job to the full extent,” Nesbit said. “They might not know, for example, that they have a possible right to a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

“There are serious concerns about Medi-Cal (health care) plans being able to implement…the work necessary for CalAIM to really be effective.”
— Diana Douglas, Health Access California

Alameda and Contra Costa counties, which contracted with Bay Area Legal Aid to participate in the pilot, hired five additional attorneys dedicated to assisting Medi-Cal patients. The partnership helped reach people who ordinarily wouldn’t be able to access legal aid because their disability prevented them from attending an appointment or they didn’t have a phone number or address. Case managers were able to link people to the attorneys, accounting for 300 referrals a year.

But when the pilot ended in December and state funding dried up, attorneys were reassigned and are no longer able to focus on Medi-Cal patients.

“I’m still getting emails and phone calls from the case managers I worked with who I think are now kind of scrambling to figure out how to help,” said Abby Khodayari, an attorney who worked in Contra Costa County’s program. “Case managers are hoping to get help analyzing eviction notices and figuring out the validity of them. It’s hard not having dedicated time to be able to spend working on those issues.”

While legal services aren’t explicitly named as one of 14 pre-approved services under CalAIM, the Department of Health Care Services said health plans could integrate them as part of supportive housing services, which are covered.

But attorneys say it’s unlikely to happen unless plans get specific guarantees that CalAIM will cover the cost. They hope that subsequent phases of CalAIM will include legal aid.

“There hasn’t been a health plan here in LA who’s come forward and said we want to offer these legal services,” said Gerson Sorto, a managing attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County has continued funding their partnership through the summer, but there’s no permanent money in sight. “As of today, there is no funding secured or confirmed beyond June 30,” Sorto said.

Life under ‘whole person care’

Back at the Radisson Hotel in Oakland, the shelter where El is waiting patiently to move into his new apartment, he watches a home renovation show on the television. He likes to see how the hosts redesign the interior and gets ideas for his own future home.

Before losing his job, El lived in an apartment near Lake Merritt but hasn’t had a place to call his own in years. After he enrolled in Alameda County’s pilot program, things started turning around for him.

“These people really respect you and help if you ask for it,” El said.

“Most importantly, someone to listen. I might not have any answer at all but there’s power in listening.”
— Michael Webb, CalAIM peer

Part of the program is connecting Medi-Cal patients to peers with similar backgrounds.

“You can’t tell them ‘do this and do that.’ You walk alongside someone and support whatever they’ve got going on,” said Michael Webb, a CalAIM peer support navigator who struggled with addiction and homelessness. “Most importantly,” he said, “someone to listen. I might not have any answer at all but there’s power in listening.”

Down the hall from El’s room, shelter monitors are delivering lunch to residents that can’t make it to the dining room. Lunch is a chicken sandwich, banana, salad and a soda, but those with dietary restrictions or certain medical conditions like diabetes get tailored meals.

As part of the CalAIM program, caretakers perform wellness checks on shelter residents with disabilities, helping them clean, bathe and use the restroom.

In the lobby, an intake worker asks a new guest about his seizure disorder and works to link him to his CalAIM team of health care providers, case workers and housing navigators. As the program grows, millions more Californians may benefit. On this day alone, the Oakland team expects to sign up eight new people.

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CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.

As the clock struck midnight on Feb. 10, 14 people scattered around California collectively exhaled in relief.

The 14 are members of the state’s independent citizens redistricting commission who drew 120 new districts for the Legislature, 52 for Congress and four for the state Board of Equalization that voters will use in this year’s election. The commissioners struggled at times to reach consensus, and their mapping was critiqued nearly every step of the way by some experts, advocates, elected officials and the public.

But after all the criticism, the commission approved the maps unanimously in late December, and Feb. 10 — the 45-day deadline for anyone to go to court to block the maps — came and went.

No one sued.

There’s still one more state hurdle to clear: critics have until March 27 to challenge the maps via a referendum — asking voters to reject them — before the new districts officially become effective. But there’s no sign any such costly effort is underway. (The maps could also be challenged in federal court as violating the U.S. constitution or the Voting Rights Act.)

“The absence of a state lawsuit challenging these maps is a testament to the effectiveness of California’s open, publicly accessible redistricting process and the design of its independent redistricting commission,” current commission Chairperson Russell Yee said in a statement.

“We worked hard to apply the constitutional redistricting criteria and consider testimony from throughout the state, especially from minority communities,” said Yee, a Republican professor and former pastor from Oakland. “While the maps do not please everyone, we believe they are fair and equitable. We would have confidently defended these maps in court, but are thankful we now won’t need to.”

The commission did face litigation earlier: An emergency petition filed on Nov. 30 on behalf of some Republican voters alleged that the commission held secret meetings with some interest groups, complained that an analysis of racially polarized voting wasn’t made public and challenged the selection of its legal counsel because the firm had previously worked for Democrats.

That emergency petition was denied by the California Supreme Court on Dec. 15.

Christian Grose, professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California, said that while the failure of prior lawsuits might explain the lack of litigation, so does how the commission did business. “A unanimous vote is a signal that something was done right,” he said.

Josue Franco, an assistant professor of political science at Cuyamaca College in San Diego, said the amount of public comment (more than 36,000 entries) as well as the failure of the petition, likely warded off more lawsuits.

“Any political process is a valve, with pressure being applied. Some have limited valves to open, so no pressure is released. So it builds up and builds up and builds up and explodes in some kind of failure of the process or judicial litigation,” he said. “ When you have processes that are public — allowing people to comment — they’re venting.”

“I think the lesson learned for any future commission is: If you continue to be as open and transparent and accessible as possible, you’ll continue to reduce the likelihood of any significant litigation,” Franco added.

That’s a bonus for taxpayers: Any of the $4.3 million set aside for litigation that isn’t used goes back into the state’s general fund.

The lack of lawsuits is somewhat surprising. After the first time California redistricting was done by an independent commission, in 2011, two lawsuits challenged the final maps, and another questioned the commission’s makeup.

And new election districts in other states are being taken to court. On Feb. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a congressional map that a lower federal court ruled would disenfranchise Black voters. In December, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas, alleging that the maps drawn by a Republican-controlled Legislature and GOP Gov. Greg Abbott disenfranchise Latino voters. In North Carolina, the state Supreme Court threw out new congressional and legislative districts that the justices said were too partisan and ordered the Republican-majority Legislature to draw new ones by Feb. 18.

Even in other states where the maps were also drawn by independent commissions, there are lawsuits. In Michigan, state lawmakers say that the new congressional districts would dilute the voting power of minority communities. In Ohio, Black voters went to federal court seeking to block legislative maps.

“If you continue to be as open and transparent and accessible as possible, you’ll continue to reduce the likelihood of any significant litigation.”
— Josue Franco, assistant professor of political science at Cuyamaca College

Just before approving California’s maps and delivering them to the secretary of state on Dec. 27, commissioners noted the exceptional challenges they faced during their 18 months of work, including the pandemic and the delay of Census data that compressed their timeline to have new districts in time for the June primary.

Meeting deadlines and avoiding lawsuits aren’t the only measures of success. Other assessments could shape what statewide and local California redistricting looks like after the 2030 Census and beyond.

Grading the new lines

Ballot measures passed in 2008 and 2010 set the minimum criteria for fair maps: equal population, compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act and compactness of districts, among others. But beyond that, some look at how well the new districts reflect California’s diverse population — with no race or ethnic group making up a majority.

According to the Public Policy Institute of California, the number of majority Latino districts increased “significantly,” with six more for U.S. House, three more for state Senate and an additional five for state Assembly – nearly matching the share of the Latino voting-eligible population at 30%.

There was less change for other ethnic groups. There are two Asian-majority state Assembly districts, up from one, but no state Senate or congressional districts. There are no majority Black districts.

Another measure of fair representation: “influence” districts, where a group makes up at least 30% of voters. While the number of Latino “influence” districts declined, there are two Black influence congressional districts and two legislative districts and six Asian influence congressional districts and 10 legislative ones.

While community groups were vocal during the process, some said the final maps attempted to address most, if not all, their concerns.

The true test of representation will be the results of elections this year and in subsequent cycles. A report by the USC Schwarzenegger Institute showed that the 2011 maps largely succeeded in helping to add elected officials of color in California between 2012 and 2020.

And while the commission is not permitted to consider the new districts’ impact on incumbents or political parties, another assessment is how politically competitive they become.

Party control, based on voter registration, flipped in three congressional, four Senate districts and four Assembly districts.

Still, Democrats will likely remain dominant based on the new maps, favored to win 41 congressional seats, 31 state Senate seats and 62 Assembly seats, according to the PPIC analysis. There were also 21 members of Congress, 13 state senators and 20 Assembly members put into the same districts as other incumbents.

Adding to the turnover and possibly changing the partisan balance, so far 21 Assembly members and state senators have resigned or have announced they’re not seeking reelection this year. Another seven senators are barred from running again by term limits.

“In the 2001 cycle, there was essentially a gentleman’s agreement that enabled everyone to run for reelection and stay in power,” said Jonathan Mehta Stein, executive director of California Common Cause, which pushed for the independent redistricting commission. “This was a process that was exactly the opposite. The commission was literally moving lines and making massively important decisions on a livestream. They’re going to stumble, and thousands of people are going to watch it. But I don’t think I would trade that for a cleaner alternative.”

Lessons from 2010, and for 2030

While this California redistricting was heavily scrutinized, the 2010 commission dealt with its own challenges, including tight timelines and budget restraints. But they also had the advantage of being the first independent commissioners.

So another measure of the current commission’s success might be how well it learned lessons from the previous group. Some prior commissioners who followed the 2021 process say the current commission was able to do more public outreach and took advantage of more advanced technology.

But some of the same problems remained: time management, a lack of clear guidance on how to assess competing communities of interest and a struggle to be consistent in making decisions.

There were also continued attempts by partisans to sway the commission — something researchers had warned after the 2011 California redistricting would only grow stronger. “Political forces that were baffled, angered, quietly involved, or generally thrown on the defensive will be much better prepared to exercise influence,” said a 2013 report commissioned by the League of Women Voters of California.

Former commissioner Jodie Filkins Webber said she was flabbergasted seeing the number of organizations that mobilized for this redistricting. Webber, a Republican, and Democratic commissioner Cynthia Dai wrote a commentary last year warning that too many closed sessions, while allowed, would erode the public’s trust in the process. The current commission routinely held private sessions during its marathon meetings.

“All of us who were commissioners are very protective of the institution and of an open process, which is why a lot of us were critical of the commission,” said Angelo Ancheta, the final chairperson of the 2010 commission.

Current commissioner J. Ray Kennedy, a Democrat from San Bernardino County who works as an international elections consultant, said that while the commission did more outreach, there is still room for more public education — for instance, explaining why the commission started from scratch, not from existing districts.

“I understood a lot of people were going to resist any redistricting, but I was still a little surprised at how many people said, ‘Don’t do anything to my district,’” Kennedy said in an interview. “I think that message did not get out as much, or it didn’t stick — that districts have to change. And so in the future, that would be a point of focus: How to help all Californians understand that districts have to change.”

Whether or not to start from a blank slate — as well as other administrative decisions — is up to each California redistricting commission. Said former commissioner Jeanne Raya: “I think it’s important that each commission not be tethered to the one that came before.”

And while, thanks to a push from the 2010 commission, the 2020 commission was given more time, its decision to count state prison inmates in drawing districts, combined with the Census delay, resulted in a time crunch.

“We need to look at the timeline in the future to make sure that there is enough time for all of these things to happen,” Kennedy said.

That and other lessons will be compiled into a report to the next commission, along with legislative recommendations. The commission is scheduled to meet Feb. 18 and 23 to discuss lessons learned and other topics.

“We built and exercised respect for each other and came up with something that all 14 of us believe isn’t perfect, but will provide good representation for California going forward.”
— J. Ray Kennedy, member of California Citizens Redistricting Commission

The current commissioners, like their predecessors, may also travel throughout California and to other states to share the impact an independent commission can have.

Members of both citizen commissions agree that other institutions should learn from having a bipartisan group work together and reach consensus, especially in these politically polarized times, when 63% of California’s likely voters are pessimistic that Americans with different political views can still work out their differences.

“We built and exercised respect for each other and came up with something that all 14 of us believe isn’t perfect, but will provide good representation for California going forward,” Kennedy said. “I think that’s the story that really needs more focus in this time of hyperpartisanship…that we can put together kind of a random group of citizens to do civic work on behalf of the entire community and get it done.”

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CALmatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.