Rohnert Park begins transition to district-based elections for City Council

Rohnert Park took its first formal step Tuesday toward district-based elections for City Council, deciding to move away from at-large contests starting in November 2020 under threat of a lawsuit over claims the city’s current system deprives proportionate representation to Latino residents.

The five-member City Council accepted a staff recommendation that it transition to district-based elections rather than fight a Southern California attorney who last month confronted the city with allegations of disenfranchisement of minority voters.

In consecutive unanimous votes, council members approved the city’s intent to switch to district elections as well as maintain its format of an annually rotating mayor.

Some members of the council did so only grudgingly, while voicing their frustration.

More than 120 California cities and 200 school districts have had similar accusations thrust upon them - many by the same Malibu attorney, Kevin ?Shenkman - according to city consultant National Demographics Corp. Of the handful that fought the change in court, several have spent millions of dollars in legal fees, and none have prevailed.

“Personally, I think it’s ridiculous. But I don’t think we have a choice,” said Vice Mayor Joe Callinan, who has served on the council since 2008 and is next up for the mayor role. “It wouldn’t be a wise decision as a council member to cost our city millions of dollars over something that we know we can’t win.”

The council met behind closed doors last month to review a letter from Shenkman that accused the city of using at-large elections that he claimed violated the state’s voting rights law, citing underrepresentation of Rohnert Park’s Latino population on the City Council. About a quarter of city residents are Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and none of the present council members identify as Latino. The city is home to about 43,000, according to the Census Bureau, but city consultants will go off a lower number, about 41,000, from the most recent census in 2010.

After the closed-door meeting Oct. 22, Mayor Gina Belforte announced that the council would begin its transition process, including five sessions to take public input - the first of which was Tuesday.

Three people spoke during public comment, two of whom advocated for the district-based voting model. Of them, longtime Rohnert Park resident Jim Duffy, 55, favored a format similar to Windsor’s, which would elect a mayor to four-year terms separate from four new districts.

“I think it’s a healthier model overall,” he told the council. “It’ll provide some real discussion on the direction we want the city to go in.”

Instead, council members voted 5-0 to maintain five equal seats with a rotating mayoral position for the city. The first draft maps of proposed districts are set to be unveiled in December.

The challenge for the city’s consultant is to draw districts that are roughly equal in population and do not divide neighborhoods or so-called communities of interest.

Both the city of Santa Rosa and Santa Rosa City Schools swapped to ?district-based elections in 2018 under similar legal pressure from Shenkman. Windsor, which also was targeted by Shenkman, made the change earlier this year. In each case, Shenkman was entitled to legal fees up to $30,000 under a provision of the state’s voting rights law meant to compensate plaintiffs who force an election-system overhaul.

Terms for three Rohnert Park incumbents expire next year - Belforte, Callinan and Councilman Jake Mackenzie, who has served on the council since 1996. Before the 2022 election, when the other two seats - held by Susan Hollingsworth Adams and Pam Stafford - are up, the city will need to redraw the voting boundaries again to reflect the 2020 census and any population changes.

Stafford, now in her fourth term and a three-time mayor, said while she saw the switch to districts as “inevitable,” sticking to an alternating mayoral post still made the most sense for Rohnert Park going forward in the revised election system.

“If you live in Los Angeles, yes, you have to have a mayor. San Francisco, you need an elected mayor who has that timeframe to do what they need to do,” Stafford said. “In a city this size, it’s much better to have the five and the rotation and have a broad representation.”

Hollingsworth Adams, a first-term councilwoman, agreed that the city should only take on so much change at one time. Her father, Art Hollingsworth, served three times as mayor after the family moved to the city the year before Rohnert Park incorporated in 1962.

“I’ve had an opportunity to watch a five-member council with a mayor that rotates out for many, many years,” she said. “We’re already being asked to tear apart something that’s working, and I don’t think we want to take that apart as well at this point in time.”

Under state law, to stave off a lawsuit, the city must finalize its new election system within 90 days of signaling its intent to transition from at-large voting. Rohnert Park expects to settle its new voting districts in January and adopt an ordinance later that month. The next City Council meeting scheduled to feature discussion of the issue is Nov. 26.

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