The meeting was their third, where county residents had the opportunity to share their views on draft supervisor maps being redrawn because of the newly released 20-20 Census data.
Brooke Federico is a Public Information Officer for the County of Riverside. She said, "We invite the community to provide their input, and then the draft maps go through a revision process."
She added that things have been more in a time crunch because they received the needed census data 5 months later than expected. "While the data was released to local governments at a later date, we're still bound by the same timeline."
With the drafts have come some pushback from local state politicians and advocates concerning Latino representation in the proposed districts.
Derek Humphry is a Political Consultant for many Democrat elected officials in Riverside County and said only one of the maps has a majority Latino district. He said, "They've declined to draw Latino majority districts despite the fact that a majority of the county's population is Latino."
According to the Census Bureau, Latinos make up 49% of the county's population.
Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes was one of the local politicians to voice concern and says the county needs to draw new maps that are fair and follow the law. She is also concerned that the supervisors will ultimately be the ones to select the final map. Cervantes added, "We need to remove elected leaders from the process and put it in the hands of the people."
Cervantes added that several civil rights groups have threatened to sue if the maps are not fair. The county will have its next public feedback meeting on Nov. 9.
