Bid for Vote by District Is Shelved : Santa Monica: A group aiming to increase minority representation on the City Council by shifting from at-large elections suffers a setback.

The Santa Monica City Council has rebuffed a citizens group that was seeking to place on the November ballot a measure that would replace the at-large system of council representation with a district system and limit council members to two consecutive terms in office.

Instead, the council voted Tuesday to refer the issue to a Charter commission, as yet unnamed, that would be charged with studying a number of issues, including council pay raises. The unanimous vote followed a lengthy public hearing during which impassioned speakers said it was imperative to elect council members by district to give minorities a voice in City Hall.

“Since I’ve been in Santa Monica, the City Council has been as white as any council in darkest Orange County,” said Henry McGee, a UCLA law professor.

Only two blacks have ever served on the council, and there has never been a Latino member.

City officials estimate that about 20,000 Latinos live in the city of 97,000, many of them in the Pico neighborhood, which was repeatedly mentioned Tuesday night as lacking a voice at City Hall. “Latinos continue to be the invisible and silent minority,” said Blanca Malpartida-Girard. “Their lack of representation is directly attributable to at-large elections.”

Recent court rulings, such as one pertaining to the city of Watsonville, have concluded that at-large elections in some California cities have prevented minorities from winning office. But Santa Monica City Atty. Robert Myers said in a telephone interview that the city is not legally required to shift to districts.

Many at the public hearing also complained that rent control has been the driving force behind Santa Monica elections for years, leading to a system where only those candidates allied with politically potent and well-financed special interest groups stand a chance of being elected.

“We haven’t had a true election in Santa Monica,” said Joel Goldfarb. “It’s one power situation against another. . . . Money and class is driving the electoral process.”

A limit of two consecutive terms is needed to dilute the power of incumbents, speakers said.

The few who spoke in opposition to the idea said they preferred having all seven council members accountable to the entire populace, as it is now. “I come from the other side,” said Russell Shaver. “I would lose the right to hold each and every one of you responsible for your actions.”

The proposal for the elections by district and two-term limit is the work of a group called Citizens United to Reform Elections, whose members said they have been trying to advance the idea for two years. They did not collect signatures on petitions to qualify the measure for the ballot, saying they lack the financial resources to do so. Instead, they asked the City Council to put the issue to the voters as a “good government” measure.

CURE includes representatives of local Democratic clubs, local chapters of the Mexican American Political Assn. and a minority not typically included in under-represented groups in other less liberal municipalities: Republicans.

Before voting with their colleagues to refer CURE’s proposal to the Charter commission, council members David Finkel and Ken Genser said they strongly supported elections by district even though the two were themselves elected on a Santa Monica for Renters Rights slate.

Finkel said that though some might argue civil rights is already a prime value in Santa Monica, “whenever there’s an opportunity to advance it, you should.”

District elections will not harm rent control, Genser said, but will broaden the number of issues addressed and provide a council that reflects the ethnic diversity of the community. “Perhaps the reason we don’t want to face district elections is we don’t want to talk about issues,” he said.

In 1975, a ballot measure to create district elections failed. In 1988, Proposition J, which would have created numbered citywide council districts, was also defeated. The CURE group opposed the proposition on the grounds that it would protect incumbents and hinder minorities.