The City of Costa Mesa held its first public hearing on Tuesday Oct. 19 to discuss the official 2020 Census data (State-Adjusted), the redistricting process and permissible criteria to be considered to evaluate district boundaries.

The Council heard from redistricting expert Dr. Justin Levitt, who presented the city’s 2020 estimated total population. He noted that the redistricting goal is to have all districts the same (or as close to) a population of 18,690.  Currently Costa Mesa has a deviation of 11.52%.  The City needs to bring that down to under 10%.

Click here to see the data.

To accomplish that, the City is seeking the public’s participation to redraw boundaries for City Council Districts 1 through 6.

The City of Costa Mesa will also hold its first public input workshop on Saturday Oct. 23 at 10 a.m. at the Norma Hertzog Community Center. Members of the public will have an opportunity to learn about the redistricting process, data and mapping tools.

Every 10 years, local governments use new data from the Census to redraw their district lines to reflect how populations have changed. State law requires cities to engage communities in the redistricting process by holding public hearings and doing public outreach, including to underrepresented and non-English-speaking communities.

Subsequent meetings will be scheduled in December of 2021 and January of 2022.

For more information on redistricting or to draw a district map, please visit: https://redistrictcostamesa.org/ In addition, the City has created a dedicated email address for the public to submit questions or comments regarding the City’s redistricting process. The email address is redistricting@costamesaca.gov