Oakland Plans Hurry-Up Redrawing of City Council, School Board Districts

The City of Oakland plans to redraw boundaries of its seven city council districts by Dec. 31 and has already hired a consulting firm to shepherd the process, according to an article in this week's East Bay Express.

The Oakland Unified School District currently uses Oakland's council districts as the basis for its board member districts, so any changes would affect the school board as well.
Boundaries of some or all districts could change radically because the city council has rejected a recommendation from city staff that each district should include both "hill" and "flatland" areas — roughly speaking, areas from both sides of the MacArthur Freeway, the article says.

Currently, each city council and school board district includes both higher- and lower-income areas, the Express says.
"In drafting an amended proposal that removed the hills-flatlands requirement, District One Councilman Dan Kalb said that 'while taking out the provision does not prevent districts from crossing 580 or from having hills and flatlands combined, but to explicitly call that out as a requirement is unnecessary,'" it says. Kalb represents Rockridge, Temescal and other parts of North Oakland on the council.
You may read the complete Express article here.

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