Malibu Voters May Be Able To Choose Their Mayor

MALIBU, CA — Malibu voters may be able to choose whether they get to choose their mayor.

On Monday, the City Council will vote on a resolution on whether to place a measure on the November ballot asking voters if they would like to be able to directly vote for their mayor.

Malibu’s government is currently classified as “Council-Manager”, in which power is shared between the city council and a city manager. The mayor is elected on a rotating basis, and serves as a figurehead leader of the council. Though the mayor serves as the public face of the city and presides over council, the council makes decisions as a whole. The city manager has administrative and managerial authority over the city’s governance, and reports to the council.

A recently released staff report details two other options for cities under California law. The first is a directly elected mayor system, in which citizens elect a mayor, but the mayor still functions as a city councilmember. The mayor may draw an additional salary, and makes all appointments to boards, commissions, and committees.

The other option is a strong mayor system, in which the mayor takes on much of the city’s administrative and managerial duties, and has the authority to hire and fire the city manager and department heads. The mayor can present budgets to the city council, and does not vote as an equal member of the city council. A strong mayor is considered a full-time job, and as a result they often draw a significantly higher salary than councilmembers.

If Malibu were to transition to a strong mayor form of government, it would also need to transition from a general law city, in which the Government Code determines the laws, to a charter city, in which a charter determines the laws. The staff report concluded that Malibu does not have enough time to transition to a charter city by November, because voters would need to help put in place a charter commission to draft a charter, a process which can take over two years.

This makes a directly elected mayor system more likely, though this could be complicated by another ballot measure being considered to make council elections by-district, rather than at-large. The City Council adopted this resolution in January after Malibu received a letter from Los Angeles attorney Milton Grimes saying that its current at-large system violates the California Voting Rights Act. A number of at-large cities received the same letter.

On Tuesday, a state appellate court ruled that Santa Monica’s at-large voting system does not violate the California Voting Rights Act.

At a recent council meeting, Malibu resident Kraig Hills said that a petition to directly elect the mayor had received 114 signatures. Councilmember Jefferson Wagner also said that he has received a number of calls and emails from residents declaring their support for such a system.