In a just a few short months, the landscape of La Mirada politics may have been changed forever as the filing period has ended and the candidates are set for the City's first district election on March 7, 2017.

The Mecican-American Legal Defense & Education Fund (MALDEF), threatened to sue the city if it did not change its election from an at-large to a district-based system, giving all areas of the city representation on the city council. The city subsequently settled with the group to create districts and paid them $30,000 for their expenses.

The boundaries have been drawn creating five new electoral districts. Districts one and two will have open seats this March for a four-year term. Districts three, four and five will hold have an election in 2019, meaning three-fifths of the La Mirada population will not be able to participate in the election this March.

The candidates for district one, which currently has no sitting council member, are Jim Emmerling, Diane Gramajo, John Lewis and our own Tony Aiello.

District two candidates pit two incumbents against each other, Andrew Sarega and Pauline Deal,  as their current four-year terms are up.