COUNTY LATINOS CHARGING BIAS IN REDISTRICTING.

Byline: TROY ANDERSON Staff Writer

The U.S. Justice Department may review the 2001 redistricting plan for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors amid claims that it discriminates against Latinos, officials said Tuesday.

Latinos comprise 47 percent of the county's population but are represented by only one of the five supervisors.

Joaquin G. Avila, special counsel to the 1,070-member Los Angeles County Chicano Employees Association, recently provided the Justice Department with what he says is new evidence that the supervisors deliberately packed Latino voters into a single district when two districts could have been drawn.

DOJ spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson said the agency will review Avila's brief to determine whether to proceed.

But Chief Deputy County Counsel Donovan Main noted that the Justice Department had previously approved the county's redistricting plan.

``We've had these claims in the past and our districting is appropriate,'' said Main, declining to comment further.

Currently, 1st District Supervisor Gloria Molina represents most of the county's Latino residents.

Avila's filing seeks the creation of two supervisorial districts with Latino majorities, said Alan Clayton, director of equal employment opportunity at the LACCEA.

Under the proposal, the 3rd District of Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky -- who now represents the Westside and the western San Fernando Valley -- would be shifted to the San Gabriel Valley. That would potentially force Yaroslavsky to run against another incumbent supervisor, or to run in the San Gabriel Valley against a Latino candidate.

Yaroslavsky declined to comment.

Currently, the San Gabriel Valley is split among three districts and no member of the Board of Supervisors lives there. The county's coastal areas also are now divided into districts represented by Yaroslavsky and 4th District Supervisor Don Knabe.

The association's proposal would unify the coastal areas into a single district, Clayton said.

The plan would also keep the foothill regions of San Gabriel Valley, Burbank, Glendale and Pasadena, the north San Fernando Valley and the Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys as one district, now represented by 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, Clayton said.

The plan would not affect the 2nd District, now represented by Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, Clayton said. And the plan does not attempt to change the partisan makeup of the districts.

The board is currently comprised of two Republicans -- Antonovich and Knabe -- and Democrats Yaroslavsky, Molina and Burke.

``If the Justice Department does sue and is successful, the Board of Supervisors would get the first opportunity to correct the districts,'' Clayton said.

In the brief, Avila argued that the current supervisorial districts disenfranchise 2.3 million Latinos, a claim similar to one filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the Justice Department in 1989.

At that time, the board consisted of three Republicans -- Antonovich, Deane Dana and Peter Schabarum -- and two Democrats, Kenneth Hahn and Edmund Edelman.

That lawsuit alleged that the district boundaries fragmented minority voting strength in East Los Angeles, Avila said. The lawsuit was successful and led to Molina's election.

troy.anderson(at)dailynews.com

[phone]