Paul Kozakiewicz: Time to re-unite the Richmond

It' time to re-unite the Richmond!
Ten years ago, with the advent of district elections, the City was carved up into 11 districts, with each having about the same number of 75,000 residents. In the Richmond District, a large part of the northern part of the district, including Lake Street and the Seacliff neighborhoods, was cut off and put in District 2, which covers the Marina District and Pacific Heights.
Today, with an increase of some 55,000 new city residents over the past decade, the boundaries are being redrawn. That means each supervisorial district will get to increase by about 5,000 people, allowing us to end the unfair partition of the Richmond District.
When the boundaries were drawn 10 years ago, the intent was to keep the Richmond's east-west boundaries at Arguello Boulevard and Ocean Beach. I see why they wanted the boundary to be at Arguello, even if the resulting lines sliced off a portion to the north. But now we can have our northern brothers and sisters re-united into their home – the Richmond District.
The residents on Lake Street, the avenues that extend northward from Lake, and the Seacliff all share Richmond District schools, parks, roads, supermarkets, restaurants and fog. It also shares a police district, so it is only logical that the redistricting of the Richmond District be facilitated to reunite the families and friends that share common borders, and re-unite a common community.
Over the next several months, the newly-formed San Francisco redistricting committee will be meeting to determine the future shapes of our supervisorial districts. Every effort should be made to reunite the district so all of the Richmond District's residents will be voting for the same candidates and fighting for the same causes that are important to the district. If someone on Lake Street has a problem, they should take it to the District 1 supervisor since he/she is directly responsible for the people living in the Richmond.
Now is the time to unite our community.
The commission has until early next year to make its final border recommendations. I will be keeping you posted as the committee starts to do its work.
Paul Kozakiewicz is the editor of the Richmond Review.