City Government

Alameda County Launches New Redistricting Process

The next hearing will occur on Tuesday, Oct.12 at noon on Zoom (Access the meeting link at: https://redistricting2021.acgov.org/meetings/)

Published

5 years ago

September 21, 2021

Isabelle Price

Alameda Redistricting Flyer; "Our Community Has Changed"

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors held a Special Meeting Tuesday to hear public input on redistricting.

The county will begin redrawing districts for its five Board of Supervisors. Redistricting is the process of adjusting existing district boundaries and must occur every 10 years after the population data is available from the decennial Census.

The City of Oakland is also underway with redistricting for its city council and corresponding school board districts. Those new maps will be approved by an Independent Redistricting Commission, as was approved by voters in a 2014 ballot measure.

Alameda County’s Board of Supervisors will vote on the final maps, which must be passed with a 2/3 majority.

Census 2020 data shows that Alameda County grew by 10.7% over that last 10 years and is now home to 1,682,353 residents. More data will be released soon to reflect which Supervisorial districts are too large and which districts are too small in population as currently configured.

With the passage of the FAIR MAPS Act (Fair and Inclusive Redistricting for Municipalities and Political Subdivisions), state law now requires counties to follow specific timelines and requirements for their redistricting processes, including holding at least four public hearings, ensuring language access, publishing all materials and meeting information on a website, and collecting input from the public in multiple formats.

“Alameda County is exceeding the new transparency laws for our redistricting process. We’ve even procured a mapping tool to allow the public to draw their own “Communities of Interest” and to propose district maps,” said Casey Farmer, director of community engagement for Alameda County Redistricting 2021.

“Public input is vital to this process, so we’ve made it easy to engage in many ways,” said Farmer. “By taking a few minutes to share your “Communities of Interest,” you will ensure the Board knows which areas you want to remain intact in the new district boundaries.”

Members of the public can engage in the redistricting process in multiple ways, including sharing their Communities of Interest (a geographic area of residents who share economic or social interests) using an online mapping tool, submitting written input or phoning in feedback. The public can also speak at any of the eight Redistricting hearings.

The new district maps must abide by the following criteria: Comply with US and California Constitution (which requires equal population amongst districts), comply with federal Voting Rights Act (to protect race and language minorities), maintain geographic contiguity, and uphold geographic integrity (minimizing the division of neighborhoods, local Communities of Interest “COIs”, or unincorporated areas). District boundaries should be easily identifiable and understandable by residents, should be compactly configured, and cannot favor or discriminate against political parties.

The County’s Redistricting website contains detailed information about the process, the timeline, videos, multilingual outreach materials, and the online Community of Interest mapping tool: https://redistricting2021.acgov.org/

The next hearing will occur on Tuesday, Oct.12 at noon on Zoom (Access the meeting link at: https://redistricting2021.acgov.org/meetings/)

Isabelle Price

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 1 – 7, 2026

Published

2 days ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

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Activism

Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”