City Council Preview - August 1

REMINDER – Public session starts at 6:30 this week.

The big item for Tuesday night is the transition to district elections, an item I covered previously (Click Here) following our May 2 meeting in which Councilman Robinson, Mayor Pro Tem Basile, and I provided the majority vote to move forward and avoid what could be a $7,000,000 legal bill (For whatever reasons, Mayor Voigts abstained and Councilman Hamilton voted against it).

SCHEDULE

This will be the first public meeting. Here is the proposed schedule for the rest of the meetings –

• 08/10/2017 Community Workshop 1: El Toro Branch Library - 5:30 PM. Community Workshop to inform and educate public on district-based elections and provide instruction on how to submit resident-drawn maps
• 08/17/2017 Community Workshop 2: Lake Forest Sports Park/Recreation Center - 6:30 PM. Community Workshop to inform and educate public on district-based elections and provide instruction on how to submit resident-drawn maps
• 09/05/2017 Public Hearing #2: City Hall. Further opportunity for public to comment on districting as a whole.
• 09/19/2017 Map Submittal. City Hall. Deadline Community and/or individual submittals of draft maps are due via online map tool submittal or in paper form to the City Clerk.
• 10/03/2017 Public Hearing #3: City Hall. First consideration of draft maps. Draft maps available for public review by 9/25/17.
• 11/7/2017 Public Hearing #4: City Hall. Second consideration of draft maps narrowed down from maps proposed at Public Hearing #3.
• 12/5/2017 Public Hearing #5: City Hall. Introduction of Ordinance approving proposed districts, the final map, and sequencing of districts and/or directly elected Mayor if applicable (i.e., which districts are up for election in 2018 and 2020).
• 12/19/2017 Adoption of Ordinance: City Hall. Final adoption of Ordinance approving Districts, maps, and sequencing (placed on consent).
• 11/6/2018 Election Day First district elections held (three seats open in 2018; remaining seats will be elected by district in 2020).

The major decisions are

• Whether or not to have the Mayor elected city-wide
• How many districts to create
• Which districts will go first in the 2018 election

CRITERIA

In drawing districts, the main consideration is that they be of equal size. Small population deviations are permitted if they are necessary to achieve what the U.S. Supreme Court has labeled “traditional redistricting principles.” These principles include:

• maintaining communities of interest
• creating compact, contiguous districts
• using visible natural or manmade boundaries

In addition

• Council districts known to be areas of higher-than-average population growth in the two to five years following this boundary line adjustment may be under populated within the population deviation amounts allowed by law.
• No Council district shall be drawn with race as the predominate factor in violation of the principles established by the United States Supreme Court in Shaw v. Reno, 509 U.S. 630 (1993),

It is theoretically possible to draw anywhere from 4 to 7 districts. If the Mayor is elected citywide, we could have 4 or 6 districts. Or we could have 5 or 7 districts and the Mayor could be appointed by the Council. Right now we have no districts and the Council appoints the Mayor.

The major criterion for districts is that they be about the same number of people. Given 77,264 people according to the last census, district sizes would be –

• 4 = 19,316
• 5 = 15,452
• 6 = 12,877
• 7 = 11,034

Depending on what we chose, our districts could have between 11,000 and 20,000 people. Bear in mind the 2010 census data is quite old and the more recent estimates for Lake Forest population is 83,240, and we know that another 2,000 homes (i.e., 6,000 people) have been approved but not yet built.

HOW MANY DISTRICTS SHOULD WE HAVE?

In OC we have cities with 5 or 7 districts. Larger cities usually have 7 (e.g., Anaheim, Garden Grove) and smaller cities usually have 5 (San Juan Capistrano), but some large cities (Santa Ana, Fullerton) have 5 districts and some smaller cities have 7 (Newport Beach).

Having more districts allows us to more discretely identify areas of the city. Some people don’t like this idea and refer to this as the Balkanization of the City. Others however, like the fact that similar groups can be better represented using this approach. There is no “right” or wrong”.

Some people argue that the more districts you have the more difficult it will be for special interests to control what happens at the Council. In a 7-person Council, you have to control 4 people in order to get a majority vote. That’s one extra person and one extra campaign to support compared to having a 5-person council.

In addition, having more districts means that the costs of an election will be less. Instead of mailing to 24,000 households, you will only have to mail to 7,000 or fewer households. Instead of having signs littering 15 square miles, you might only have to cover 1 square mile. Reducing the costs of an election is a big plus in allowing more people to enter the political arena.

Some people believe that having more Council members will allow the Council to get more work done, without over-loading any one or two Council members. Others argue that having too many Council members will only create more arguments.

To some extent, each city is unique, and the number of districts we end up with may depend more on how well maps can be drawn.

SHOULD THE MAYOR BE ELECTED CITY-WIDE?

Right now the Mayor is appointed by the Council. This process has led to abuses in the past. For example, until 2010 the 3 members who controlled the Council voted themselves in and out of the office of the Mayor, and the two minority members (McCullough and Rudolph) had only 1 or 2 terms over two decades while some others had as many as 8 turns. More recently, Councilman Nick, who received more votes than anyone else on the Council, was denied his turn as Mayor and became the first person ever elected to office to be denied his turn as Mayor. Electing a Mayor citywide avoids these abuses.

Some people argue that in a system in which the city is represented by people elected from districts, having a Mayor elected citywide seems to be a good idea. Of course, just because you “represent” one district doesn’t mean you would not be looking out for the well-being of the City as a whole. On the other hand, there is only so much money, so much land to be redeveloped, and so many parks to beautify. In a district system you do need to be concerned with the district itself becoming another special interest, but by having a citywide Mayor you still don’t necessarily combat this tendency.

But what happens if the person elected Mayor turns out to be a real jerk? We’ve had them. That would mean we’d sit for 4 years with the same clown in office. At least with the appointment process, when it’s clear someone is not suited for the job, he can be removed after a year.

Once again, there is no right or wrong, and if we adopt a process that proves untenable, it can always be changed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Jim Gardner is on the City Council for Lake Forest. You can check him out on LinkedIn and/or Facebook and you can share your thoughts about the City at Lake Forest Town Square on Facebook. His comments are not meant to reflect official City Policy.

Dr. Gardner has office hours every Tuesday from 4 pm to 6 pm at the City Hall. In addition, he holds a mini town meeting every month. The next meeting will be on Sept 9 at 2 pm at the El Toro Public Library.