Windsor mulls response to Southern California attorney threatening to sue over at-large elections

Windsor has become the latest local government in Sonoma County to be targeted by a Southern California law group using the threat of legal action to push municipalities to transition to district-based elections.

The Malibu-based law office of Shenkman and Hughes has accused the town of disenfranchising Windsor’s growing Latino population through at-large council elections that have historically favored non-Latino candidates.

An Oct. 22 letter sent to Windsor’s town attorney said the election system resulted in voting trends that could amount to violations under California’s Voting Rights Act of 2001.

The law group is urging Windsor to voluntarily change their at-large system for electing council members to district-based elections, or face a lawsuit.

Last year, under a similar threat from the same law office, the city of Santa Rosa and its school district made the change to district-based elections, the first of which were held earlier this month.

Windsor council members are holding a special study session tonight to determine the town’s response. Community members were encouraged to attend and voice their concerns.

“It is puzzling why they would choose to target Windsor,” said John Jansons, the town manager. “Windsor is a very diverse town in regards to ethnicity, income and household, and we don’t have a good or bad side of town.”

Almost ?100 cities across the state have received similar letters. The majority have voluntarily changed to a district voting system rather than face a court challenge, according to Kevin Shenkman, who represents the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a San Antonio-based nonprofit that seeks to increase voter participation by Latinos.

The 15 cities that tried to fight the lawsuit lost, he said.

“We are very selective about the cities we choose to send letters to, which is why we have a ?100 percent success rate,” Shenkman said.

“Right before Santa Monica lost to us on Nov. 8, one city attorney did an interview and said ‘If Santa Monica can’t beat this then nobody can,’ and guess what - Santa Monica didn’t beat us.”

Windsor resident and council candidate Rosa Reynoza was surprised to learn that she was the lead example used in the letter by Shenkman to support allegations of Latino disenfranchisement. Reynoza ran for a council seat in 2016 and again this year, coming up short both times.

The main reason, Shenkman claims, was because of the bloc voting of the non-Latino majority in Windsor.

But Reynoza disagrees with that take. The electorate just settled on a different candidate, she said.

Also, the top vote-getter in this year’s council election, Esther Lemus, is a Latina who has served on the Windsor school board since 2015.

“Until this letter I never really thought much about these issues,” Reynoza said, noting that the at-large election system used to fill Windsor’s five council seats has been in place since the town incorporated in 1992.

“Growing up in Windsor to me the Latino community is spread out in all corners of the town and like others I have family all over. It seems like they (Shenkman and Hughes) didn’t do their research.”

In a crowded field of ?10 candidates vying for three seats, Reynoza placed fifth, earning ?13.1 percent of the vote based on preliminary results that haven’t been updated since election night.

More than 4,000 ballots remain untallied in the race, according to a Press Democrat analysis.

The second- and third-place finishers poised for re-election are incumbents Sam Salmon and Dominic Foppoli.

Councilman Mark Millan, who trails in fourth place, with 13.6 percent of the vote, submitted a formal letter ahead of the special meeting rejecting the allegations of voter disenfranchisement.

Millan noted that he is of Latino descent.

“I thought it was important to clarify because the allegation by the plaintiff made it seem like there was zero representation and that isn’t true,” Millan said.

“Everything we do is for everyone in Windsor, including the 30 percent of Latinos in our town.”

But taking on Shenkman, he said, could be an expensive endeavor, costing potentially millions of dollars - an expense that may not be worth it, he said.

“This situation is odd because we are a small town of roughly 27,000 people, so it is hard to imagine districting in such a small city,” Millan said. “But we will have to see how the community and council feels, and then we will figure out what to do.”

The council has until Dec. 5 to submit a formal decision to Shenkman and Hughes. The special session meeting begins at ?6 p.m.