Petition Drive Calls for City Council Districts

The Coalition for Election Reform has filed a notice of intent with the Glendale city clerk’s office to start an initiative petition drive asking voters to establish City Council districts.

The group’s president, Robin Westmiller, asked the council at its Tuesday meeting to consider putting on the ballot a referendum for the November, 1990, general election to allow Glendale voters to consider electing council members by district.

Westmiller and Richard Seeley, both of whom are unsuccessful City Council candidates, organized the coalition, and had requested the council Nov. 21 to consider placing the referendum on the ballot. Such a measure, they said, would prevent the city from being sued by Latinos claiming they are being denied representation under Glendale’s present at-large system of electing council members.

Last year, a federal court forced the central California city of Watsonville to switch to district elections to increase its minority representation. Elections by district are more likely to produce minority council members because minority groups tend to live in the same areas, Westmiller said.

Westmiller said at Tuesday’s meeting that she had filed the notice of intent to begin an initiative drive because her group did not get a response from the council.

Mayor Jerold Milner said at the meeting that council members did not act on the group’s suggestion because City Atty. Frank Manzano told the council he did not believe Glendale could be sued for violating the federal Voting Rights Act because, in his opinion, the current system is not hindering minority candidates.

The clerk’s office will send the notice of intent to start the signature-gathering drive to the city attorney, who, according to the state election code, must review it within 15 days and prepare a ballot title and summary.

The city clerk will advise the coalition to post and advertise the petition for 10 days, after which time the group can start gathering signatures.

Westmiller said that the coalition, which has about 50 members, wants to start circulating the petition by Jan. 2. They will have about 5 1/2 months to collect an estimated 10,427 signatures, representing 15% of the city’s 69,511 registered voters, the percentage required to place the initiative on the ballot.

If the drive is successful, the City Council will have to call a special municipal election in November of next year. Under the city charter, if the coalition had wanted to wait until the next scheduled municipal election in 1991, its members would have needed only 10% of the registered voters’ signatures.

Westmiller said the coalition will shoot for 20,000 signatures.

If voters opt for the district system, the City Council would have to change Glendale’s charter to create five councilmanic districts of near-equal population.

Then, starting with the April, 1991, election, council candidates would have to live in the districts they represent and could only be elected with at least a 50% majority vote, rather than the simple plurality the present system calls for. There would be a run-off election between the two top vote-getters if no candidate received a majority of the votes.

Milner said at Tuesday’s meeting that changing the method of electing council members to a district system would encourage divisiveness rather than unity on the City Council. He said that council members elected by districts would have to trade favors in order to get things done and that this would lead to pork-barrel politics.

“The Glendale population is too small to be served by districts,” he said.

Westmiller said later that pork-barrel politics also is possible with the at-large system.

“They don’t want to break up the family,” she said.

Westmiller said that a similar ballot initiative in 1975 was unsuccessful because it was poorly written and the opposing campaign was “incredibly heavy.”

She said she expected the present council members to use their money and power to discredit the petition drive. “They don’t want to give up the power,” she added.

Since 1939, the Glendale City Council has had one Latino member and two women members. Zelma Bogue served as mayor from 1957 to 1959, Richard A. Garcia was named to the post for one year in 1975 and Ginger Bremberg was mayor in 1983 and again in 1987. Bremberg still serves on the council.

Glendale is not the only Southern California city to face the possibility of establishing councilmanic districts. A group in Santa Monica also hopes to get a measure on the city ballot in November, 1990, and the Pomona City Council voted last month to put the issue on the next municipal election ballot. The Pomona action came after that city had spent more than $1 million to successfully defend its at-large system.