Candidates Talk City Elections: Mission Viejo City Council Survey

MISSION VIEJO, CA — This election season, Mission Viejo residents in all five city districts will have the chance to vote on who they want to represent them on the Mission Viejo City Council.

In a questionnaire released by community organization Stop The Monster, all 12 candidates responded to a series of questions regarding local issues surrounding Mission Viejo.

In anticipation of the November election, Patch will be posting the candidate responses to Stop The Monster's questionnaire throughout the rest of October.

To view the current list of Candidate Questionnaire articles published by Patch, scroll down to the bottom of the story.

The fifth question on the questionnaire addresses local elections in the community. The questions and answers published below are pulled directly from Stop The Monster's questionnaire.

In 2020, City Council members who ran for a 2-year terms in 2018 gave themselves or voted in fellow council members to an additional two year extension without the consent of the voters. In two law suites (July & Aug) Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm handed down his decision that all current city council members must run for the 2022 Mission Viejo election.

If elected, what is your vision and commitment to assure that no council member can give themselves a two year extension to their term in office?

District 1

Deborah Cunningham-Skurnik, District 1 Candidate: No response.

Linda Shepard, District 1 Candidate: This election, all seats are four-year terms. Getting back to a cycle of two seats or three seats up for election every two years, will allow some continuity of the City Council while new council members join.

I have heard the new City Council is to determine which districts in the 2026 election will be for two-year terms and which will be for four-year terms. This could be as simple as drawing districts from a hat and reporting the results to residents.

Council members should not be able to extend their own terms nor each other’s terms. The current situation seems the result of a perfect storm. The City failed to have a Plan B (with defined districts) ready if cumulative voting was rejected. Without defined districts and in the midst of restrictions due to Covid19, it would have been difficult to carve up the City such that certain “districts” could hold elections in Nov. 2020.

Residents may have questioned the “districts” as gerrymandering.

Robert "Bob "Ruesch, District 1 Candidate: I will keep to the term that I was elected to.

District 2

Brian Goodell (incumbent), District 2 Candidate: On July 12, 2022, the City Council decided the City should have all five (5) districts hold an election under the new districting plan rather than wait two months before a scheduled trial that may or may not have required all five (5) districts to have elections.

The Council acted to avoid additional confusion should the Court decide later that all must run. State Law establishes the four-year terms in our City Code. The only reason there was any discussion of two-year terms was that the Stipulated Settlement Agreement approved by Judge Schwarm attempted to resolve the charge of racially polarized voting. I believed we could implement the Cumulative Voting remedy in two years, but the Secretary of State rejected the plan.

All five seats would have been up for election simultaneously so that Cumulative Voting could work. In actuality, two Council terms were shortened by two years each, even though the Cumulative Voting remedy requiring that did not work. All terms should be for four years unless a future Council decides to stagger the terms as they were before this situation happened. My vision and commitment is to uphold the law.

Stacy Holmes, District 2 Candidate: City Council illegally extended its two-year terms to four years. Not even the corrupt city councils in some of America’s largest cities can match Mission Viejo’s City Council.

Instead of resigning when the Attorney General of California issued a quo warranto, empowering concerned citizens to sue the city, the Council members filed their own utterly meritless legal action. Judge Schwarm found three of the Council members guilty of intruding illegally in public office and declared all five seats open for the 2022 election.

Now Mission Viejo taxpayers must pay the legal bills for both sides. Somewhere beyond $500,000 was squandered.

We do not know if this plot was cooked up by Council members, leaving the City Attorney to scramble to make a horrible situation look legal. Or, as city council members have said, maybe the City Attorney constructed the scheme and assured the City Council members it was legal.

Apparently, the City Manager failed to manage the crisis. Clearly, the public cannot trust any of them. The solution requires five new law-abiding City Council members who must then seek out competent, ethical legal counsel to help them restore Mission Viejo’s disgraced image.

District 3

Ed Sachs (incumbent), District 3 Candidate: The question improperly blends two different lawsuits: an injunction on how many run and a Quo Warranto action on terms.

A. Injunction: The Court set a September 2022 trial date on the issue of who should run. The Court issues a temporary preliminary injunction noting it sees a chance that all five (5) districts may have to host elections, but the Judge was not sure of that. The temporary, preliminary decision was made to await the trial. Regardless of the Court, on July 12, 2022, months before the trial on who should run, the City Council unilaterally decided it is better for the government to have all five (5) districts host an election under the new districting plan.

Two months before a trial was to be held that may have not required all five (5) districts to have elections, City Council did the right thing and itself decided to host election in all five (5) new districts.

B. Quo Warranto: The question of the correctness of Judge Schwarm decisions remains undecided. The Court of Appeal is reviewing Schwarm’s decision for prejudicial errors that would reverse the action.

Greg Raths (incumbent), District 3 Candidate: Future elections for 4 year terms, district voting in MV.

Cynthia Vasquez, District 3 Candidate: No response.

District 4

Ken Golemo, District 4 Write-In Candidate: I truly feel that if I'm elected to the City Council our "first session" as Council Members should be to immediately address issues that have cost most of our current Council Members credibility and the confidence of their constituents. With that said, credibility and trust is not just a one-time event but a process.

What this process looks like is first pledging that as Council Members we represent you the Citizens of Mission Viejo. Because we represent you our first priority is to be the best Neighbor and Community Leader(s) we possibly can be.

If that takes writing something into our Cities Constitution and Bi Laws that a Term is 4 years and can not be extended for any reason so be it. I'LL BE THE FIRST TO SIGN. Now if there arises some legalities like a Crisis (Example: A Massive Earthquake) and it would require leadership to maintain order and safety to the Community, then and only then we could consider a "Temporary" extension of a term not to exceed a very specific time line.

This can also go before the Citizens of Mission Viejo as vote.

Terri Aprati, District 4 Candidate: No response.

Patricia "Trish" Kelley (incumbent), District 4 Candidate: It’s important to clarify that Council Members did not extend their terms. The stipulated judgement, signed by the plaintiff’s attorney, the City, and the judge, stated that unless the City went to District Elections, the City would adopt cumulative voting.

Cumulative would have required a 2-year term for the 2018 candidates because that method of voting requires all 5 seats run at the same time. When the Secretary of State denied cumulative voting, the only choice to resolve the “polarized voting” issue was for the City to move to District Elections. This doesn’t solve the alleged problem of polarized voting (it is impossible to draw a district with a majority of minorities), but we approved District Elections to comply with the Stipulated Judgement.

Moving to districting eliminated the need for all 5 council members to run at the same time, so there was no need for the 2 year term. Thus the City followed our Municipal Code, which specifies 4-year terms. The judge’s July order was preliminary — that all five must run in 2022, but the Council was pro-active and decided that Brian Goodell and I would run (before the final judgement which would have been made in September.)

My commitment will be to follow the City’s Municipal Code and the law.

District 5

Jon Miller, District 5 Candidate: First, if I am elected, I will serve my term and stand for re-election when it is up, no extensions, no funny business, no excuses.

Second, I will bring transparency to City government. Per the recent Citizens Take Action report that assesses Orange County cities on campaign finance laws and transparency, Mission Viejo received a score of 4 out of 100. Embarrassingly we were tied for the lowest grade in the county. I will take their recommendations seriously and push for implementation.

Third, I will advocate for a review of the rules governing council members and how they are elected. For example, I was troubled that council members were able to draw and approve our districts without meaningful input from our citizens. We need to come up with a process for the citizens of Mission Viejo to draw and approve the council districts independent of the council.

Wendy Bucknum (incumbent), District 5 Candidate:

• The lawsuit referenced is currently before an appellate court, which has STAYED the lower court decision- the final determination is yet to come.
• Important to note - the council worked with the Court and the original plaintiff. It was our understanding the two-year terms were tied to CUMULATIVE VOTING – which the state did not authorize in the end.
• Council terms have been four-year terms since city inception -that ordinance remains in place currently.
• The city council decided in July 2022 to have all five districts on the ballot, due to the confusion surrounding the court direction, the lawsuit and the fact the city was moving to district elections. This was done to eliminate confusion for our residents.
• The recent lawsuits were a weaponization of the courts to impact Mission Viejo’s elections and an attempt to remove a majority of the council in an election year.
  • It appears those involved are tied to the Canyon Democrats
  • Mission Viejo has had a tradition of nonpartisan politics – this lawsuit has unfortunately changed that.
• The next duly elected city council will determine how to stagger terms going forward.
• It was not and is not my intention to extend terms in the past or the future.

READ MORE ABOUT THE 2022 MISSION VIEJO CITY COUNCIL ELECTION:

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