PLATFORM : A Different Era

I was very pleased with the decision, of course, and I certainly feel that we’re moving into a different era. Things maybe will be fairer now.

I think it comes at a very good time. It would have been better if the decision came a few months ago, before the election. But it’s better that it’s happening now than six months or a year from now, when someone would be newly in office.

I don’t think (the boundaries as drawn by the board) has been a stacked deck as such, because in fairness there are many, many factors. It’s a large county and it’s very difficult as I understand it to draw the lines, because the Hispanic population is not contiguous. The interests are spread out.

It’s different with blacks. The black population is more contiguous. The black population has made a decision about who they want to represent them and it’s been a good decision. I mean Supervisor (Kenny) Hahn. The black history has been different from this case, where there is a lack of representation.

The board should be bigger. I think a million (people per district) is a reasonable figure. If you had nine members, that would be about right. But realistically, if you increased it by two (from the current five), that would help a lot. Two is the most that people are going to vote for, because they want to keep costs down.