The Glendora City Council voted to proceed with moving local elections in Glendora to District Elections as opposed to the current “At Large” election process, which allows all residents to vote for all five council members.
This action was taken after the City was targeted by a Law Firm who has been instrumental in filing lawsuits throughout the State based on the California Voting Rights Act of 2001.
The Council will now be tasked to determine whether to split the City into 5 districts or 4 districts and an “At Large Mayor”. Vote in our poll below to help provide feedback before the next council meeting when they will decide.
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This decision was not arrived at without much consideration and the opinion of the Council seemed to be that fighting this action would be a losing cause and would expose the City to possibly millions of dollars or more in expenses, only to lose in the end.
Many other cities have been threatened and even sued, such as most recently, the City of Palmdale. Palmdale tried to holdout and ended up settling for 4.5 million dollars in May.
No City, School District or Special District has successfully defended this action and those who have tried have been victims of tremendous expense.
The California Voting Rights Act seems to make it so that districts made up of the minorities peers give them a better chance of winning. They further argue that at-large elections allow bloc voting that effectively keeps minorities out of office.
Mayor Boyer expressed that “there are good people throughout the city capable of sitting on the Council” but also expressed the concern of what appears to be the object of those who continue to try to polarize different ethnicities of Americans into different minority groups. “We are all Americans” said Boyer.
Mayor Pro Tem Mendell Thompson expressed similar concerns about needing members from smaller districts in our city “This is another decision handed down by Sacramento without consideration of how it will affect us locally”.
He followed up with “I am confident that future Councils will continue to make decisions based on what is best for all of Glendora and not just their own district”.
