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Almost 24 hours had passed since he was bushwhacked by colleagues and, if anything, Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden was angrier than ever that they tampered with his district and its boundaries.
It wasn't, Holden insisted, that he had some obsession with keeping part of the 23-acre Santa Barbara Plaza in his district. "It didn't mean one iota to me personally whether I had Santa Barbara Plaza or not," Holden said Thursday.
No, what really rankled the 10th District councilman, he said, was the fact that the council agreed to revise his district's lines-after they seemed to be set-so the aging shopping center in Crenshaw would fall entirely in the 8th District of Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas.
"It's shameful what they did," Holden said, accusing the council of betraying the public and the reapportionment process. "My intention is to file a lawsuit . . . because what you do to the citizens of this community by ramming them from one district to another is just not right.
"And with whatever influence I have in this city, I am saying this will be the last time the City Council will draw its own lines," Holden said.
Holden's ire was sparked by a nasty turf battle that led the council, by a 12-1 vote Wednesday, to place Santa Barbara Plaza entirely in...