It looks like OC Supervisor Lou Correa will prevail after all in the 34th State Senate District, thanks to the dirty tricks of Otto Bade and Correa’s handlers in Sacramento. Congratulations to Lynn Daucher and her excellent campaign staff for their valiant effort! I wish the best to each of them in their future endeavors.
Now of course we have three holes to fill in Santa Ana – Ward 1 on our City Council, Sal Tinajero’s seat on the SAUSD School Board, and Lou Correa’s seat on the Board of Supervisors. Here is what I know about each race:
- While Garden Grove Council Members Mark Rosen and Janet Nguyen are all but announced for Correa’s seat, as is Santa Ana Councilman Carlos Bustamante, there are a couple of big fish we have yet to hear from. Tom Umberg has not decided whether to jump in, according to my sources. And today I heard that Assemblyman Van Tran may be thinking about making a run at Correa’s seat. If he does, Nguyen will pull out and run for Tran’s Assembly seat. Bustamante will stay in – and lose. Will any other Latinos run for Correa’s seat? What about Benny Diaz in Garden Grove?
- I am hearing that Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido is going to go all in behind one of his cronies for Ward 1. Who that will be is anybody’s guess. My sources tell me that Vince Sarmiento is having second thoughts. The opposition candidate figures to be backed by Claudia Alvarez, Lisa Bist, Michele Martinez and Sal Tinajero. I should know more about that person by Monday.
- Bertha Rivera was recently appointed by SAUSD trustee Rob Richardson to an SAUSD committee that is helping to pick the next SAUSD Superintendent. Could that mean that failed council candidate and Pulido puppet Tino Rivera will be in the running for Tinajero’s seat on the school board? Armando De La Libertad may also be interested.
- Keep your eyes on a couple of other items that may end up on the special election ballot: ward-specific council elections and mayoral term limits. I believe both would pass with over 70% of the vote.
I don’t expect Daucher to concede the election – State Senator Dick Ackerman will surely call for a recount. However, it doesn’t look good at this point. There will be plenty to write about though, for at least the next few months. Stay tuned!
How about Evangeline Gawronski for School board?
I’ve heard that for a special election candidates need to have lived in the ward 30 days (as oppossed to one year with an appointment) before the election. That would open it up to anyone in the city if they move into the ward right? If Solorio stays until Dec. and the Special is in Jan or Feb then lots of OJ readers can go for it! I wonder if Brian Bist would consider a run? If Hillary can do it, why not Brian???
BOS: I’m hoping Tom Umberg decides to run. Carlos is not a threat to anyone and has been an empty suit.
Ward 1: I’m open to any candidate whether or not they are back by the mayor.
School Board: Let’s look far and wide and find a candidate that has not run before or has baggage(i.e., perpetural candidate de la Libertad; Mr. Rivera Rivera).
In any event, it should get interesting quickly.
BOS: I think Claudia Alvarez will run and could win.
Art, you and others on this blog continually mention and support the ward-specific council elections. For those of us not as knowledgable and involved in our city as you and your fellow bloggers, please explain how this will be an advantage for the residents.
If Umberg wants it, it’s his. Other than that, it’s an open field. I’d like to see some fresh faces for Ward 1 and School Board. It gets old with the same cast of characters.
Anon,
Let me try to answer this question for you, from my perspective and then perhaps my co bloggers can add to this.
In the past, Santa Ana elections were determined by specific wards. For example, Ward 3 has tended to lean towards the Mayor’s side in terms of voting. Ward 3 residents have a better ability to donate to candidates, and also are much more likely to vote. Therefore, candidates would do their best to lobby support for this area predominantly. The target pool of voters is about 12K votes. This would lead to a victory in terms of city council seats. Therefore, most campaigning happened in those areas.
Once the candidate was elected, their votes would represent the wishes of those constituents as well, as they understood in order to stay in office one would have to keep them happy. Now I am not picking on Ward 3, but it just is the best example to point this out.
We all know it is money which makes a candidate victorious, not necessarily their position on certain issues. Therefore, those who lobbied in those areas would have more money leading to victory.
Also, if a candidate came from lets say Ward 6, and was not very well known it is unlikely they would be for one well known, and second have a lot of money. Thus making it highly unlikely they could win that seat.
With ward specific elections, candidates running in Ward 6, would only have to campaign in Ward 6, as that is the ward they are representing. This leads to two advantages for that candidate:
1) The candidate does not have to raise as much money since he only needs to campaign in his ward. The cost of lawn signs, mail pieces, and any other promotional pieces will obviously diminish. So even a candidate with no money has a shot.
2) That candidate if elected would attempt to do the best he can to represent his own ward, and would most likely listen to the residents of Ward 6, as no one else matters to him in terms of re-election. This would cause a more balanced distribution of money, services, and projects throughout the city.
I feel this is the most important issue we need to fix in our current city Govt. We must make an attempt to get rid of all the money buying elections and do what is right. Although I dont believe this will solve the entire problem, I do believe it would be a step in the right direction.
Luis,
That was an excellent explaination of election by Ward. Except for a few small things that were not included.
If there were Ward elections:
Council members would be fighting each other for every dollar to be spent in their Wards. What would happen to the major projects needed by the City, as a whole, that might only directly benefit one or two neighborhoods?
What would happen to the special projects that were neighborhood specific, but needed more than 1/6th. of the available money?
Would all the other Council members vote against those projects because they sucked up dollars they wanted for their Wards?
What would stop the Council from forming coalitions to keep money out of a Ward in an effort to make that Council member look bad and get them defeated in the next election?
And it gives Council members another easy out. They can always blame other Council members for their failures. Oh, I forgot. That’s what they’re doing now. So I guess nothing will change there.
Vote trading would become an absolute necessity. Vote for my “this” and I’ll vote for your “that”. Talk about back room deals. Ward elections would elevate deal making to a new high!
Currently, Council members are free to speak out on every issue in the City because they represent the entire City. Election by Ward will change that. Everyone will be accused of only caring about their Ward and not other areas of the City.
And Voters would only have a say in their own Ward election. They could not influence the election of other Council members. If four Council members banded together to freeze out the other three, how do you change that?
You would be pitting neighborhoods against other neighborhoods. Watch how that changes the discussions at neighborhood meetings and ComLink.
There are always two sides to every issue. And I think people need to be aware of them and then make an informed decision.
What about mentioning Harvey de la Torre for city council or for school board?
Luis you explain some of the positive aspects of ward elections. It’s not all positive though. In Los Angeles for example the Councilmembers fight over money for their districts and it’s often at the expense of the other districts. Say for example Santa Ana goes to ward elections and the person who is elected to a specific ward is disliked by the other members of the council. He/She may not be able to get any money/programs for thier ward. As it is now, all councilmembers are accountable to all voters and there is a strong incentive to try to spread the capital improvements and programs around the entire city. Ward elections are helpful when an ethnic minority group is not represented on the council (and I guess you might say that’s true for Anglos and Asians now) but with a 100% Latino Council I doubt you would find the desire to go to ward elections for that reason. It’s an interesting subject to debate.
Would Carlos Bustamonte get re-elected to Ward 3 if he had to run only in ward 3??
An interesting fact: Alberta Chirsty never received a majority of the votes within the Ward she represents! She would never have been elected had their been ward elections.
“Would Carlos Bustamonte get re-elected to Ward 3 if he had to run only in ward 3??”
LOL, no.
Why not put Ward elections on the ballot and let the people decide?
I agree with #15. Let the voters decided. The three most powerful words in our democracy are …
We the People.
Thanks to Luis and other bloggers on explaining the ups and downs of ward elections. From where I’m sitting, I rather like the idea that the entire council is responsible to me, not just the one elected from my ward. Also, it seems that ward elections would give the mayor much more power by creating voting blocks for one ward over another. If this comes to the voters, I have to vote for city wide elections, not ward specific elections.
Anons,
Well there definately is a lot of great points being made about ward specific elections, and the repurcussions of them, and I agree with a lot of this assessments, but consider this:
1) The mayor held a voting bloc when it came to making decision, so not much would change there. If anything one can see it as a null point.
2) As you saw in the last election, it isn’t always easy to find candidates willing to run. In Ward 6 for example, the mayor scrounged around trying to find a candidate and no one would do it. This would make it much more difficult to find allies within the city.
3) Fighting for ones Ward, and forming deals regarding votes is the nature of politics. I would like my politician to fight for my ward, and thus ensuring he is held accountable. The assessment that a bloc can be formed whenever they dont like a council member, is a very good argument and it makes sense but then again, that does not change how things are now. I believe, a politician is supposed to make deals with other council members and make comments such as “if you vote for this, I will vote for that.”
This is what happens in Washington and Sacramento, its called lobbying, and every member would like to represent their area, as best as they can. They compromise.
Luis,
Thank you again for another great post. Let me try to better explain my biggest concern.
If I live in Ward 6 and their is a big high rise project being planned in my Ward. The voters in Ward 6 are against it, and we tell out Council member to vote against it. He/She does, but the other 6 vote for it. We get the traffic, we get the problems and we have no recourse. Our person voted against it, either in response to our concerns or as part of a back room deal where they get to vote no to keep us happy, but the project still get’s approved.
Now what? We can only vote for or against our Ward 6 person. We can’t vote against the other Council members who voted for that project.
That’s exactly the kind of back room deals I’m afraid of. Where Council members cut deals to allow the representative from one Ward to vote against something to save their skin, but the others all vote for it and WE suffer because we can’t vote against any other Council member.
This type of deal making goes on in Los Angeles all the time. And in other places too. That’s what I meant by giving Council members another way to hide. They get to claim they voted against the project when it was nothing more than a back room deal. The next time, a different Council member get’s to vote no on something in their Ward, but all the others vote yes and the project happens anyway.
Right now, we get to lobby all the Council members because we can vote on their elections. If we give up that right, and can only vote for the Ward 6 Council member, we have no clout with the other Council members and they have no reason to even listen to us.
Anon,
You are correct. This is definately something which can happen and your ability to lobby the other council members will probably lead to very little success. This is a point definately worth trying to find a solution.
With that in mind, consider this…the Mayor would also have to respond to you as he would remain a city wide election. There would be two elected officials accountable to you.
The truth is, however, you have raised a valid point which may very well happy, and can definately cause one to think twice about ward specific elections. All I can advise, is it is worth the risk for me to have ward specific elections. The Mayor may have currently lost a small battle, but he could very well be rebuilding for 2008. We are not out of the woods yet, as a Ward 1 candidate can disrupt the balance and put the mayor back to a position of power.
Luis,
Thank you again for a great post. And for your honesty and courtesy. You are completly correct.I read your latest post in the other section where this is being discussed, and I too have seen the differences in how neighborhoods, or parts of Wards, are treated. It’s not right and it’s not fair!
I guess no system is perfect and there are many pro’s and con’s to every system. My hope is that the Council will allow the voters to make this important choice. I also hope the voters make that choice using logic and not emotion.
Perhaps I just don’t understand things, but I think too much is focused on Pulido and trying to blame Pulido (or credit him) for eveything that happens in Santa Ana. I don’t believe any one person is that powerful. I also believe that decisions, such as Ward elections, should not be based on the actions, or proported actions, of just one person.
The tragic loss of Steve Ambriz in Orange demonstrates that none of us know when our time is up. Not that I wish anyone bad, but Pulido, or others, could “not be here” tomorrow. So we have to make good decisions for the long term future of Santa Ana, beyond Pulido or any other individual.
I hope voters will take the time and make the effort to get information so they can make an informed decision. And I hope that you will stay around and continue to help make sure that voters understand *both* sides of this, and other important issues.
I’m not sure how I would vote on this, but I respect your opinion and I believe you are thinking clearly about the issue.