[KHTS] – Hart district officials released maps for what the junior high and high school district might look like in future elections, if they abandon at-large votes in favor of trustee areas.

District maps were drawn by a firm selected by attorneys for the William S. Hart Union High School District, board President Steve Sturgeon said Friday.

The criteria used by the firm was presented at a governing board meeting Wednesday, ahead of public outreach meetings slated to gain input, he said. (Here’s a link to the presentation given by The Dolinka Group.)

Those meetings will be led by the The Dolinka Group and the district’s legal representation, Sturgeon said.

However, the potential maps provoked a caution Thursday from an attorney who sued College of the Canyons, an elementary school district and Santa Clarita over alleged California Voting Rights Actviolations, while sending letters to four other school districts, including Hart, alluding to a potential violation of the CVRA.

Hart district officials announced in June their intent to look at a district-based election, ahead of a letter from Shenkman & Hughes, the law firm suing the city and two school districts, according to district Spokeswoman Gail Pinsker. The move came two days before the district received the letter from the law firm, but after the letter was sent from Shenkman & Hughes, according to Kevin Shenkman.

The lawsuits and the letters claim local governing boards are in violation of the California Voting Rights Act because they deny minority representation due to racially polarized voting in at-large elections. Remedies in the past have included moving a district’s election to match up with the general election, employing cumulative voting and adopting district or trustee-area elections.

The Hart district announced it was seeking a move to districts before receiving a letter from the law firm, officials said. The district took part in studies looking at the district’s demographics last year.

Under the current at-large system, all five representatives are elected to represent the entirety of the William S. Hart Union High School District, which covers nearly all of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Under a trustee-based or districting system, the governing board overall would represent the same area, but each member would be elected by voters in one of five districts, which are created by the maps presented Wednesday.

District staff was directed to set up five public meetings for input on two maps, said Gail Pinsker, Hart district spokeswoman.

The proposed district maps, presented Wednesday at a governing board meeting, have each current board member in his or her own district.

While that fact in and of itself isn’t a problem, the fact that incumbency was given consideration poses a concern, according to state law.

“I think that the Hart school district would be risking legal action if they were to adopt those particular districts,” said Shenkman.

“The place of residence of any incumbent or political candidate shall not be considered in the creation of a map,” according to Article XXI of the state’s Constitution, available here. “Districts shall not be drawn for the purpose of favoring or discriminating against an incumbent, political candidate or political party.”

When pressed further, Shenkman referred to the state’s Education Code 1002, which cites the factors that can be considered: topography; geography; cohesiveness, contiguity, integrity and compactness of territory; and community of interests of the trustee areas.

The trustee-area maps were drawn up by The Dolinka Group, which was hired by Fagen, Friedman & Fulfrost, the firm representing the Hart district.

An official with The Dolinka Group did not immediately return a call or email seeking comment about the presentation.

“The district was involved in the selection process as far as pricing and services, but they were employed by the law firm,” Pinsker said. The district did not have information available as far as the cost of the maps, she said.

The Dolinka Group listed several considerations made, several of which are required by law: Each area shall contain a nearly equal number of inhabitants; drawn to comply with the Federal Voting Rights Act; compact and contiguous, as much as possible; respect communities of interest, as much as possible; follow man-made and natural geographic features, as much as possible; respect incumbency, as much as possible; and other local considerations.

“(The law firm) has done several others under CVRA,” Sturgeon said, noting the law firm the district used is the same one used by the Sulphur Springs School District, which is also moving to districts. “And (incumbency) is one of the things they’ve tried to consider in each of them is what they’ve told us.”

David Ely at Compass Demographics created the map for the Sulphur Springs School District.

There were other considerations discussed Wednesday, Sturgeon said.

“We did talk to the fact that having a high school and a junior high for each trustee area for whomever represented it,” he said, “would probably be a good thing.”