Costa Mesa council to consider splitting city into voting districts

When Costa Mesa City Council members meet next week, they won’t only discuss changing the system for future council elections — they’ll weigh asking voters to alter the makeup of the council itself.

A series of community meetings and work by city-retained consultants have resulted in four proposed maps to split Costa Mesa into voting districts.

Two of the proposals council members will consider Tuesday evening would divvy up the city into five districts. Residents in each ward would elect a council member.

Another would do the same thing, but increase the number of council members from five to seven. The last would have six council members, but also add to the mix a directly elected mayor who would be chosen by voters citywide. (The mayor is currently selected by a majority vote of the council.)

No matter what plan council members eventually endorse, it’s the voters who will have the final say. The question of whether to change election systems — and whether to accept the council’s chosen plan — will be put to a vote Nov. 8.

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If approved by voters, the first election held using districts would be November 2018. Council members are currently elected citywide.

The city held four community meetings in June for residents to give their thoughts on how the maps should be drawn.

That input combined with general rules governing the creation of voting-area maps — district boundaries should make sense geographically and population has to be as evenly distributed between them as possible, for instance — resulted in the four plans that will go to the council Tuesday.

Though the proposals differ, there are some similarities. The two five-district maps, for instance, would keep the Eastside together in one voting area, something that was brought up as an important feature during community meetings.

The two other proposals would also largely keep the Eastside intact.

David Ely, a consultant with city-retained Compass Demographics, said another major consideration is whether it’s possible to create a district — mainly in the Wetside — in which the majority of eligible voters are Latino.

All four proposed maps do so, carving out a jagged slice south of the Fairview Developmental Center — largely east of Placentia Avenue and north of 17th Street — as one voting district.

Council members agreed to kickstart the election system switch in April to avoid a lawsuit threatened by Kevin Shenkman, an attorney with the Malibu-based law firm Shenkman & Hughes.

Shenkman alleged Costa Mesa’s current election system violates the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 by diminishing the power of Latinos — who made up about 36% of the city’s population in the 2010 Census — to influence the outcome of council elections. There are no Latinos on the council.

To avoid a lawsuit, council members agreed to put the question of whether to switch to a by-district election system up for a vote this fall.

Council members will review each of the plans at their next meeting, which begins at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday in City Hall, 77 Fair Drive.

The public hearing is expected to begin as early as 7 p.m., according to information from the city.

An informational open house for residents to review the proposed maps is scheduled that same day, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., in the first floor conference room in City Hall.

Another public hearing is expected to be held July 12, during which time council members will officially pick the map to go on the ballot.

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Luke Money, [email protected]

Twitter: @LukeMMoney