Vote NO on Redwood City Charter Amendment Measure

Seven years ago in 2015, I ran for Redwood City City Council in an odd-year at large election. A couple of years later the City of Redwood City received a threatening letter regarding moving elections to even-years and breaking down council member elections into districts to supposedly increase minority representation and voter equity. The reality however has turned out to be very different.

As noted in Mark Simon’s article, “Uncontested”, the reality in Redwood City is that we are now in the process of having two uncontested district elections. Beyond Redwood City:

"I am told there was the potential for 76 city council and school board races on the November ballot with the widespread implementation of new districts throughout the county.

By my count, of 29 city council races in cities with new districts, 16 of them are uncontested — a candidate is running unopposed.

South San Francisco Unified School District Trustee John Baker, undoubtedly a more reliable mathematician than I, reported that in 45 potential school board races (a total of 74 board seats), 'there are only EIGHT races in the whole county that will be voted on. Everything else is uncontested.'”

Uncontested elections result in decreased participation, inadequate representation and poor governance. (https://www.surveyandballotsys...) Who wants that? And besides wasn't the goal of these changes the very opposite.

Changing to an even-year district election process has also made a huge difference in a lot of other ways. The move to even-year elections means that local elections must now compete with state and federal elections. In effect this means that advertising and getting the word out is more expensive, but even more damaging is the fact that voters only have so much bandwidth to consider candidates and issues. When they are also dealing with state and federal candidates, focus on local issues and candidates is invariably given short shrift. And yet the funnel of future state and federal candidates is generally created at the local level.

Yes, it has been historically correct that voter participation in presidential election years is bigger. However, the goal should have been to increase voter participation every year. What if we all learned in high school that odd years we vote for our local representatives, even years state representatives and every four years a president. At the local level even-year elections also accrue to the benefit of incumbents. Who has the time to research new candidates when trying to vote on so many races at one time. Almost nobody!

The process outlined for the change in Redwood City elections includes the following ballot proposition on this year’s November ballot.

CITY OF REDWOOD CITY ELECTION PROCEDURES CHARTER AMENDMENT

MEASURE ____

City of Redwood City Election Procedures Charter Amendment. Shall the measure amending the Redwood City Charter to align the date of the Redwood City General Municipal Election with the Statewide General Election date, clarify the date by which Redwood City elections must be certified and City Councilmembers sworn in, and provide for election of City Councilmembers by-district in order to comply with State law, be adopted?

As noted on the Redwood City City Clerk’s website:

Primary arguments in favor of or against each of the above measures may be submitted in writing to the City Clerk’s Office, 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA 94063 for printing and distribution to the voters, pursuant to provisions of the California Elections Code, by 5:00 P.M. on August 19, 2022.

Rebuttal arguments by authors of said primary arguments that have been selected to be printed in the voter information guide may be filed in like manner by 5:00 P.M. on August 29, 2022.

Unfortunately, one is limited to 300 words for a primary argument and 250 words for a rebuttal argument. At this point we have the data. The change is actually detrimental to the majority of voters and needs to go. Forget gerrymandering, the new game in town will be carpetbagging. Please vote NO.