The redistricting process is messed up and threatens our representation in the state Legislature. On the Assembly side, the Redistricting Commission seems to think our unincorporated nowhere land is destined to be part of the City of Sacramento, so they have arranged for us to have our voices be totally drowned out by the City of Sacramento. On the Senate side, they apparently believe our old WWII fully-developed suburb has a lot in common with rural foothill communities. How does any of that make sense?  These goofy arrangements have happened because not enough people from here have spoken up. Fortunately, the draft maps aren't final yet and you can help the Redistricting Commission get it right.

ASSEMBLY. When no one was looking (12:20am last Monday), the Redistricting Commission weirdly sliced up the NE Sacramento County unincorporated area in a way that won't do us here in Arden Arcade and nearby Carmichael much good for the next 10 years. Specifically, unincorporated areas including Arden Arcade, much of Carmichael, Antelope, Elverta and Rio Linda were grouped into the same Assembly District as the City of Sacramento. Our neighbors in unincorporated North Highlands, Foothill Farms, McClellan Park, southern Carmichael and points eastward in the county were kept together in a remnant of our current Assembly District. Roughly 71,000 voters in our neck of the woods were thus effectively disenfranchised (because history has shown Sacramento will steamroll us) for the next 10 years. See the graphic, known to the Commission as AD07-WSACSAC in "Assembly District - Iteration 12-08-21".

STATE SENATE. The draft State Senate map runs from Ethan Way across from Cal-Expo to the Sierra crest. It is just bizarre. There's really no other way to describe a concept that links our long-established Sacramento County suburbs with the rapidly-growing, high-end developments in South Placer and El Dorado Hills as well as the small towns, ranches and forests in the rural foothills. Sure, we have to cope with the smoke from their wildfires and they have to deal with our traffic if we go to Apple HIll, Tahoe or Reno. But that's about it; we really don't have much in common. See the graphic, known to the Commission as SD_PLACER-ED-DRAFT.

The Commission is supposed to keep "communities of interest" together. What's a "community of interest"? It's people whose kids are in the same school district, who shop at the same neighborhood grocery stores, whose kids are in the same youth soccer league, who worship together, who go to the same dog parks, who share the same fire department and local law enforcement crews...stuff like that. It's where and with whom we and our families hang out every day. When you go to the American River Parkway, do you seek out the south side of the river? Do you go to the ATM or the post office or the library in downtown Sacramento or do you do that here in our community? Are you familiar with a whole lot of people in Land Park, North Natomas, Foresthill, or Pollack Pines? Or are you familiar with your neighbors on our side of the river and in our County?

We can help fix this by submitting comments - lots of them - to the Commission about how they are splitting our neighborhoods and messing with our "communities of interests" and politely asking that the Commission NOT do that. Our "community of interest" is right here in our unincorporated burbs. It isn't in Sacramento's Gardenland or Curtis Park. It isn't linked with forested open space in rural Placer and El Dorado Counties, either. What if 75-100 comments were submitted to the Commission about this, to help them get it right? What if that got done by next Monday the 13th?

Sometime this weekend, you could make a difference by sending short comments via the Commission's web page at https://www.wedrawthelinesca.org/contact about how our shared "community of interest" is broken up by the proposed new Assembly District (AD07-WSACSAC) and ask that instead our unincorporated NE Sacramento County communities should be grouped together within Sacramento County in AD08-WPLASAC because we have so much in common. And tell them the because our densely-populated Sacramento County suburbs have little or nothing in common with the small towns, trees and cows in Placer and El Dorado Counties or the gated communities of El Dorado Hills and the Loomis Basin, we don't belong in SD_PLACER-ED-DRAFT.