The new Congressional district boundaries being proposed by California's Redistricting Commission are turning into a nightmare for Lake County, as every change to the original draft proposal gets worse. To see for yourself, check out the user-friendly maps at http://swdb.berkeley.edu/gis/gis2011/.

According to the arrangement now being proposed, not only would Mike Thompson cease to represent us, we would be completely detached from our true geographic, economic and social "community of interest," (North Coast/wine country/northern Coastal Range) and tacked onto the southern Sacramento Valley as a glaringly discongruent appendage.

We are anything but a natural fit in the region to which the commission proposes to include us.

True, Lake County and the Central Valley are both farming communities, but we produce specialty crops, not mass-market agribusiness commodities. The future prosperity of agriculture here depends on diversification, expansion of markets and innovative value-added production: entirely different from the operative constraints in Colusa, Glenn and the rest of the rural Sacramento Valley.

Our growing identity as a premium wine-growing region is particularly important, making a connection to Napa County appropriate at the very least, and also favoring association with Mendocino and Sonoma Counties to the extent that population numbers make that possible.

The future of Lake County also requires the creative embellishment of our attraction for visitors. Preservation of the natural beauty of the area, and maintenance of the health of our air and waters is essential to our economic as well as our physical well-being and prosperity. The economic components of these considerations are of comparatively minor importance in the region to the east.

Furthermore the redistricting separates Lake County from both of the urban centers (Santa Rosa and Ukiah) where most of our residents seek out goods and services that are not locally available.

Redistricting along these lines would be particularly calamitous because as a small rural community Lake County's voice will always be comparatively feeble in any larger legislative district.

Up to now we have been fortunate in this respect, not only by the happy accident of having elected leaders who are responsive to our needs, but – much more important in the long run – because those needs have substantially coincided to a high degree with those of the larger legislative district.

Drawing the lines according to the arrangement now proposed would completely abolish the congruence that is such a necessary component of true representation for our community.

The defects of the proposed Congressional redistricting also apply, to a diminished degree, to the proposed state senatorial district, which does at least have the virtue of keeping us connected to Napa County. Our proposed Assembly district is far less objectionable.

Lake County has to speak up before it's too late. The commission is still accepting comments and they need to hear from us. Their original recommendations were far preferable to the current revisions, and we should strenuously recommend that they return to them. Comments are accepted by mail, email and telephone: the easiest way to find out about the various submission methods is to visit http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/contact.html.

Victoria Brandon lives in Lower Lake, Calif.