(Credit: José Martinez/OnCentral) L.A. City Council voted to approve the new redistricting map. It's now pending approval by the mayor.
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve the redrawing of the council district lines -- against the continued opposition of South L.A. councilmembers Jan Perry and Bernand Parks.
The council voted 13 to 2 in favor of the new redistricting map, which shifts boundaries so that Parks loses the USC campus from his Eighth District, and Perry's Ninth moves farther into South L.A. Perry has maintained throughout the map drafting process that these new district lines would create an "economic apartheid" in South L.A. and hinder the area's development by removing downtown assets.
"Redistricting should not be a process of reward and punishment," Perry said at a press conference earlier this year.
She has been open about voicing her disapproval with the entire redistricting process, and says that the commission has not fairly taken into account community feedback. Perry added that the maps have remained mostly "unchanged" since the first drafts, and said her only hope now is that the mayor vetoes the map when it comes to him for final approval.
These two South L.A. councilmembers are not the only ones who've voiced disapproval of the new map: Some members of the Korean-American community were vocal about their desire to keep Koreatown in one district, KPCC reports. They had expressed a preference for the Thirteenth District -- they ended up being kept whole but in the Tenth.
Although Perry will reach her term limit next year and has launched a campaign for L.A. mayor, she has represented the Ninth since 2001 and said she feels an ongoing obligation to her constituents.
"I feel a sense of responsibility to create an infrastructure so that people will be able to advocate for themselves, no matter who's in office," she told OnCentral.
