Windsor council OKs election district boundary changes

The Windsor Town Council voted 3-1 Wednesday to approve a new redistricting map of the town after months of public hearings, prompted by 2020 census data.

Mayor Sam Salmon voted no, while Vice Mayor Esther Lemus and Council members Deb Fudge and Rose Reynoza voted yes.

The map will show adjusted boundaries for the four districts town council members represent. The fifth seat is for the mayor, who will continue to be elected to an at-large seat.

The lines are based on population, geographic continuity and communities of interest. Communities of interest can be based on school attendance areas or shared demographic characteristics such as similar levels of income, education, languages spoken at home or single-family and multifamily housing unit areas.

The map, dubbed Option 9, is a version submitted by the public that was approved by the council on a first reading at its March 9 meeting. It was slated for a second reading and was recommended for approval by city staff on Wednesday.

However, Salmon had some reservations about connecting two neighborhoods near Highway 101, one an area with older, smaller homes with big lots and a newer subdivision with larger homes, with other neighborhoods across the east-west Highway 101 divide, the Vintage Green development by the golf course and Ventana Drive near Windsor High School.

The changes creates a triangle, what Salmon called an “island,” that includes the Palms Shopping Center. Those formerly in council District 3, about 900 people, will now vote in District 4.

“I talked to people (in the triangular area). They didn’t really understand redistricting,” Salmon said Thursday.

It was his feeling that it will be hard for council candidates to campaign in the district divided by the freeway and truly represent the varied interests of those neighborhoods.

The other map options, 1 and 3, would either have divided neighborhoods near the proposed $600 million Koi Nation casino project, or the Ventana Drive neighborhood. Residents who would be affected by those changes spoke up in opposition.

Fudge, who represents District 3, and the other two members of the council all said no matter how you sliced up the town, none of the maps were perfect, but agreed that option 9 was the best compromise.

The council, now made up of a mayor, vice mayor and two council members, will be back to a full five members after the April 12 special election to fill Salmon’s old at-large seat. The term for the open seat expires at the end of November.

Salmon was appointed mayor after the town’s previous mayor, Dominic Foppoli, resigned under fire last year after he was accused of sexual assault by several women. Foppoli has denied assaulting anyone.

The new map will go into effect with the Nov. 8 election, where voters will be asked to vote on council members for Districts 1, 2 and 4. The council member elected in April will have to decide which district to run for in the fall, according to Windsor Town Clerk Irene Camacho-Werby.

The town had been represented by council members from at-large council districts until 2019, when it was forced to switch to districts after a Malibu lawyer claimed the current system was a violation of the California Voting Rights Act and threatened to sue.

Kevin Shenkman, of the law firm Shenkman and Hughes, contended that Windsor’s at-large elections hampered the ability of the town’s minority voters to elect candidates of their choice.

Some on the council investigated a return to the old at-large system last year, but a town-sponsored consultant’s study found that the new district system more equitably represented the various areas in town, and returning to at-large districts would have left the city open to expensive legal action.

“Redistricting has gotten more repulsive to me as we’ve gone along,” Salmon said Thursday.

“Because our population isn’t evenly divided we have to compromise in some neighborhoods. We have districts so that people can have more say with regard to who is elected,” he added later. “It was hard. We had to make a decision.”

You can reach Staff Writer Kathleen Coates at kathleen.coates@pressdemocrat.com or 707.521-5209.