Moving to District Elections

On May 2 Mayor Pro Tem Basile, Councilman Robinson, and I voted to move the City forward in the process of transitioning to district elections. It remains to be determined

• How many districts shall we have? (4,5,6,or7)
• Should the Mayor be elected citywide?

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 PLAN

The City has hired a demographer who will guide us through this process. Our first public meeting will be Tuesday August 1, 2017. This will be followed by 2 workshops, then another public hearing on 9/5/17. After this second public meeting the demographer will draw up suggested district maps. The public may also offer their designs. On 10/3/17 we’ll consider the maps and on 11/7/17 we will finalize the maps. On 12/5/17 we will introduce the district maps and 2 weeks later adopt the ordinance.

District elections will be held for the November 2018 election.

HOW MANY DISTRICTS

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 that’s not necessarily the case. Some large cities (Santa Ana, Fullerton) have 5 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 is 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.

To some extent, each city is unique, and whether or not we have 5 or 7 districts may depend on how well maps can be drawn.

MAYOR CITYWIDE?

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 office of the Mayor, and the two minority members (McCullough and Rudolph) had only 1 or 2 terms 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.

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, and by having a citywide Mayor you combat this tendency.

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?

One of the subtle issues in moving to district elections is who can represent a district. In some cases, anyone can represent a district and in other cases the person must live in that district. The definition of “live in” is usually primary residence.

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 Foothill Ranch Public Library.