Berkeley City Council’s decision to support an ASUC-sponsored redistricting map is a promising step toward establishing a student supermajority district in the city. Still, the district should ultimately encompass students living in cooperative housing and dormitory housing on the north side of campus.
At its meeting July 2, the council supported the Berkeley Student District Campaign map, which creates a student-majority district south of the UC Berkeley campus and could increase the chance of a student being elected to the council. However, a new amendment that was unfairly rejected at the meeting seems to suggest that the ASUC map could leave out students who live in International House, nine student cooperatives, and three dormitories on Northside.
Though the final decision on which map to implement is not expected until September, the council should ensure that all student voices are represented in the newly drawn district by reconsidering the amendment in the fall.
The Berkeley Student Cooperative provides housing to about 1,250 UC Berkeley students, with most of those students living in the two largest Northside cooperatives, Casa Zimbabwe and Cloyne Court. International House is home to 600 students and campus affiliates. Together, campus dormitories Foothill, Stern and Bowles house 1,248 students. Though these students represent just 8 percent of the total student population, they still deserve to be represented in a student district with their peers. If they are mixed into a regular residential district, their opinions may not have enough of an impact when it comes time to make a vote.
At the July 2 meeting, Mayor Tom Bates said he did not want to call the ASUC-sponsored district a student district, but rather that he wanted to call it a campus district. Bates and other councilmembers should recognize that although they may not want it to be a student district, the ASUC map that is supported by the council has created just that. It is only fair that students get the opportunity to have their voices heard on the council.
The council has long been considering redrawing voting districts. By passing the measure to redraw the district in the fall through Measure R, city residents voted to have the job done in a timely fashion. Thus, the decision that Northside student residences be included in this student district should be made immediately after the council returns from its summer recess and not go through another long, drawn-out process.