Rohnert Park wrestles with choosing district-based election voting boundaries

Rohnert Park is closing in on its planned shift to district-based elections for City Council seats, which could make for some uncomfortable meetings for council members as they work to finalize voting boundaries for the November 2020 election.

A majority of the five-member council signaled preference for one of eight proposed district maps when they weighed in on the direction of the city’s transition away from at-large voting earlier this month. Based on where council members live, the favored choice would pit current Mayor Joe Callinan against Councilwoman Gina Belforte, who just completed a year as mayor, for one of three open seats.

Callinan and Belforte each joined the council in 2008, serving three terms after running unopposed in 2012 and 2016. Both Belforte, a three-time mayor, and Callinan, who is now starting his second stint in the role, have announced their intent to seek a fourth term.

Callinan, who has said district boundaries in the city of almost 44,000 people should not be influenced by where current council members live, acknowledged that none of the proposed options was perfect. But he pushed for a consultant-?produced map that places him head-to-head with his longtime colleague, and also lobbied for tweaks that could draw four-term Councilwoman Pam Stafford into the same race.

“D Section should be all one section,” Callinan said of the city neighborhood where he and Stafford each live. “That makes sense to me. I think if we’re going to represent an area where someone lives, they should represent the entire area, not just part of it.”

First-term Councilwoman Susan Hollingsworth Adams also lives in the D Section neighborhood but has been open about her intent to move to the southeastern part of the city. Meanwhile, Belforte, who lives in the adjacent F Section, favored a map that would protect each of the incumbents, including longtime Councilman Jake Mackenzie, who has still yet to state whether he will run in 2020.

Noting her own frustration over the switch to district voting, Stafford endorsed the same map as Callinan. But as presented, the option splits D Section along an imaginary line that would avoid her having to also run for the district seat two years before her current term expires in 2022.

“This is really a shame that we have to do this in our community, just because I think we would all rather represent the whole community rather than just a portion of the community,” Stafford, who has also served as the city’s mayor three times, said at the Dec. 10 meeting. “And the feedback I’ve gotten from the community is very much, ‘This is not what I want.’ But besides that, we have to do this, so we’re doing it.”

A Southern California attorney sent a letter to Rohnert Park in October alleging the city has never proportionately represented on the council its growing number of Latino residents, who totaled about 22% of the population as of the most recent U.S. Census in 2010.

If the city did not voluntarily give up its citywide voting system, Malibu-based Kevin Shenkman threatened to file a lawsuit that could force Rohnert Park to abide by the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, and could cost the city millions of dollars if it attempted a legal defense. Instead, Rohnert Park will surrender a state maximum of $30,000 in legal fees to Shenkman and approve the switch by Feb. 10.

In the past two years, Shenkman has sent similar correspondence to the city of Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa City Schools and the town of Windsor, which resulted in each making the same decision to dump their at-large election systems. Rohnert Park disputes Shenkman’s claims, but will be the fourth governmental body in Sonoma County to make the change, with the Sonoma Valley Unified School District exploring a proactive switch to avoid paying the fees.

“It’s crazy how California has gotten out of control,” Callinan said. “It’s affecting this little town, and that’s terrible. … It’s just really sad how we’ve gotten here.”

In the selected map, which must balance the city’s population equally across five districts, a voting district is formed out of just Rohnert Park’s A and B Section neighborhoods that have the largest number of its roughly 9,000 Latino residents, according to city consultant National Demographics Corporation. Whether a Latino candidate or council member will emerge from the area in 2020 is not yet clear, but advocates hope the changes will help usher in a longer-term diversification of government through more minorities in leadership roles.

“That would be kind of the goal,” said Sylvia Lemus, a board member for Latino nonprofit Los Cien, and member of the Rohnert Park/?Cotati-based Latino Alliance. “You still have to have someone who runs, have a good candidate and have the money to run. It’s a wait-and-see perspective, but at the same time, I’m encouraging current leaders to do their part in appointing, mentoring and supporting Latino people into different positions.”

The deadline for residents to submit maps is Jan. 3, providing the consultant enough time to post them to the city website seven days before the Jan. 14 council meeting.

At that time, the City Council is poised to vote on final districts for the November 2020 election and to introduce an ordinance confirming Rohnert Park’s move to the district- based voting system.

If approved, it could be adopted as early as the council’s Jan. 28 meeting.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin Fixler at 707-521-5336 or kevin.fixler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @kfixler.