The Golden Rule - do unto others as you’d have done unto you - is not something that the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors bothers to live by.

The supervisors enlisted the support of Manteca and Ripon to back their bid not to divide San Joaquin County into two state senate districts and to keep the splits with Congress and Assembly seat redistricting at a minimal.

The supervisors’ argument had merit. It made no sense dividing San Joaquin County when it could essentially qualify as a standalone state senate district based on population.  At the same time they thought it was pure insanity that you’d toss East Bay cities like Pleasanton, Livermore, and Morgan Hill into the same Congressional District as San Joaquin County. The Altamont Pass is more than a geographic division. It is a major cultural and economic division as well. You might as well as have tossed parts of Hawaii and Alaska into the same congressional district.

They then turn around and give Manteca the Berlin treatment for another 10 years even though they could easily have included the entire city in the same supervisorial district. They also did something that mirrors the bizarre lumping of San Joaquin County and East Bay in the same district by tossing Ripon into the Lodi supervisor’s district.

The supervisors’ remapping is self-serving at best.

The bulk of the growth was in the South County cities of  Tracy, Manteca, Ripon, and Manteca. Yet everything was done to protect the status quo of four sitting supervisors - three in Stockton and one in Lodi. Why else do you think 16,000 Ripon residents were lumped in with Lodi? It was so Lodi’s power and voice on the Board of Supervisors wouldn’t be eroded by making districts reflect the growing population of the South County.

And in case any upset supervisor is concerned, the one man, one vote ruling triggered in part by events in Selma ultimately targeted such redistricting strategies that work to dilute the voice of people.

It is a sad day when a supervisor openly says at a public meeting that he’s worried about losing “my people” in reference to the people who elected him.

In other words, the redistricting was all about protecting the seats of incumbents - specifically those in Stockton - than it was about being fair and equitable.

That is why the time has come to take redistricting out of the hands of the self-serving supervisors and put it in the hands of a citizens committee as other counties have done.

A citizens committee may very well have kept Manteca divided but it is doubtful they would have tossed Ripon in with Lodi.

The more logical thing would have been to shift district lines within Stockton and push part of that city into the Lodi district.

That, of course, would disrupt the personal fiefdoms in San Joaquin County that at least four of the supervisors seem to believe they have the right to create for themsleves.

The real danger to San Joaquin County is long-range. The vast majority of the growth in the next 20 or so years will be in the South County. Instead of working to bring everyone together, the current supervisors are setting the stage for a power struggle down the road that wil simply deepen the perceived and actual rifts between the South County and Stockton.

That is certainly is how their actions are being read by a number of folks who - from the perspective of one supervisor - are not “my people.”