The Santa Ana City Council majority is up to their old tricks again. This time they are trying to sneak through major changes to our local elections ordinance without much input from the public.
They are going to consider, at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, placing a ballot measure on the June Primary Election ballot that will change our City Council elections to district-specific elections instead of the current at-large model. Continue reading
Assemblyman Roger Hernandez
There is an effort underway to collect signatures to place a referendum on the ballot to change the way we elect Council Members here in Santa Ana from At Large to Ward Specific. But it may be that we won’t have to go to such lengths after all!
With the recent uptick in cities facing scrutiny over at-large elections, perhaps it’s no wonder that the issue has attracted the attention of the State Legislature. Assembly Member Roger Hernandez of West Covina announced today that he plans to introduce legislation requiring all non-charter cities that have a population of 100,000 or more to hold district-based elections, according to the California City News. Continue reading
Diverse? No!
The last time someone tried to change our City Council elections from at large to ward specific the effort failed, primarily because white voters were told that the infamous Nativo Lopez was behind the scheme. And he was. At the time the only way anyone ever figured that we would have more Latinos on the City Council would be via ward-specific elections.
Well now we have an all-Latino City Council and they’re an embarrassment. As the city reels in yet another budget crisis they wasted weeks firing our City Manager, Paul Walters, so they could hire a temp, Kevin O’Rourke, who is costing us over $22K a month. In Santa Ana that passes for progress.
If we had a ward-specific election system it is likely that former Council Member Brett Franklin would have won in Ward 3 last year. Instead a total unknown, Angelica Amezcua, who did not even campaign, won. She of course joined the other Council Members in firing Walters, proving she too is worthless. Continue reading