The long, sorry tale of redistricting 2011 is over. But certain local incumbents may find that the saga has legs well into next year. Say, into election season.

Councilmembers Bonnie Pannell, Sandy Sheedy and Kevin McCarty may find that citizens of Sacramento, especially the relative few who vote, have long memories when the incumbents run for reelection next year.

The people of Oak Park – and not just them, but their sympathizers – will long remember the removal of the UC Davis Medical Center complex out of Jay Schenirer’s District 5 into McCarty’s District 6.

The redistricting process was not just long, it was fraught with conflicts of interest, surreptitious power plays, raw politics and a citizen’s committee that ended up seeming little more than a fig leaf to cover up all the rest. It was quite a show.

It culminated with Pannell, thinking her mic was off, calling a 61-year-old female citizen of another district an “asshole.” The recording, part of the public record, is on the city’s website. (link) Go to minute 4:33:13 if you want to hear it.

As you can see by that time stamp, it was a long, impassioned meeting. Which is, I suppose, an excuse for Pannell’s behavior. And the citizen in question, Margo Rose-Bunson, shouted at Pannell from the audience during a fairly contentious debate. Gloves were off. 

But in any case, Pannell’s undignified schoolyard expletive wasn’t the insult most people who were offended by this process are focused on. Instead, they are focused on this: The council didn’t listen to the citizens of Sacramento. They heard hundreds of people protest, nodded politely, and then did what they wanted – in a way that would best serve themselves.

The council members in question don’t remember it that way. But a lot of citizens do.

McCarty’s dismissive off-the-cuff remark about “gutter discussions” rubbed a lot of residents of Oak Park the wrong way, and some even heard it as racist. I think that’s highly unlikely. Ditto Councilman Steve Cohn’s equally flip and even more ill-considered “separate but equal” crack, which surely wasn’t meant in the way it was heard.

But all of those comments are quickly becoming emblematic of the widespread public view of the council as mean-spirited, self-serving and arrogant.

And Pannell’s “apology,” issued late last week, didn’t help. Instead of apologizing directly to Rose-Bunson, whom she insulted, Pannell’s written apology was given “to my community.” Good work as far as it went – her behavior was unprofessional and beneath her office, and the community deserved the apology – but what would it have hurt her to apologize to Rose-Bunson? Her pride?

Of course, all of that is a sideshow. This is ultimately not even about the Med Center or what district it is in. According to those we have spoken to, it’s about something more crucial: It’s about this: Do our elected representatives care about their constituents, and about other people in the city, or is this all about their own political careers and perks?

That is the question for many of the pastors from across the city and beyond – including from such far-flung suburban megachurches as Capital Christian Center in Rancho Cordova and Bayside Church in Granite Bay – who showed up at the council meetings in support of Oak Park citizens attempting to keep the Med Center.

And that is the question for a multiracial group of pastors from different districts who quietly gathered last week to see what they can do to run a fresher face against Pannell, or against Sheedy, whom they see as arrogant, uninterested in their districts and their constituents, and as merely the puppets of large special interests who help them perpetuate their power.

When those pastors say that they plan to raise money, find candidates and run them against the incumbents, that matters.

Talk is cheap: Whether anything comes of this, or even should come of it, is another matter. But talk is also powerful: Enough citizens, tired of the same old cliques running things in their own best interests, can talk a lot. And talk creates energy around a subject.

So despite the fiasco of redistricting – and I have my own beefs, including that the council reduced the central city from its power position of being represented by a third of the counsel to being represented by only one representative – its legacy may be other than intended by incumbents.

It may be that the citizens of Sacramento, especially those who got burned by the politically motivated move of the Med Center from the district that also contains Oak Park, have longer memories than they are generally credited with having. In fact, those citizens may be tired of being taken for granted.

They are meeting already. And they are talking about specific political careers they’d like to see end.

Next June looms. This may have blown over by then. Or it may be that council members’ efforts to save their seats will have had exactly the opposite effect.