City to Hire Lawyer in Civil Rights Investigation

After a brief closed-door meeting, the City Council voted 4 to 1 Monday to hire a civil rights legal expert to advise them on a potential federal lawsuit accusing the city of denying equal voting opportunities to its majority Latino population.

Council members decided to set aside $10,000 initially to retain lawyer John E. McDermott of Howrey & Simon in Washington, D.C.

The firm has represented other California cities, including Stockton and Pomona, in civil rights cases, according to Santa Paula City Atty. Phillip H. Romney.

Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa, the lone Latino on the council, cast the dissenting vote. She suggested the city instead begin negotiations immediately with the U.S. Department of Justice, which since early 1998 has been investigating the city’s voting patterns. But her colleagues did not agree.

Mayor Jim Garfield said Monday’s vote does not mean the council intends to fight the justice department. “We want an expert to study the issues, and this includes the demographics of voting patterns,” he said.

Espinosa contends that the council has “a history of litigation,” and she believes her colleagues “want to fight any connotation of wrongdoing.”

City and federal officials last week acknowledged the justice department investigation into whether Santa Paula’s method of electing its council members violates the rights of Latinos under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The federal law is designed to give ethnic minorities equal access to the elections process.

Espinosa said she believes the historical data will prove that changes are needed to give Latinos more say in city government.

Santa Paula, where Latinos make up 68% of the residents, has only one minority on its City Council.

After the meeting, bookkeeper Cyndy Zakrajshek-Smith--one of about 25 residents who attended--said the federal investigation has been “a long time coming.” Many Latinos, she said, are apathetic and distrust city government; changing the way elections are held could secure more Latino representation and end the apathy.

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Ben Saiz, a parole officer who attended, said he thought council members should be discussing details of the investigation with the public.

“When there is the allegation of people not having the right to representation, it should be a [public] concern,” he said.

Bill Mensing, who owns an aircraft sheet metal company in Santa Paula and knows several of the council members, said, “The allegations are stupid,” and he doesn’t believe Latinos are shut out of the process.

Mensing said he is convinced Espinosa is behind the investigation and that she is using the probe to get back at her colleagues, theorizing that she believes they have often ostracized her.

Espinosa denied calling for the investigation.

Residents Joanne and Peter Wright said they moved to Santa Paula two years ago from Studio City because of its ethnic diversity.

“I don’t want to rush to judgment,” Joanne Wright said. But she added, “It’s strange that with such a great Latino population there isn’t another [Latino council member].”

City leaders said the investigation began in early 1998 and could develop into a lawsuit.

To avoid a federal suit, the city could consider changing from at-large voting for council races to a five-district system.

Historically, the district form of council member selection--in which residents elect different representatives for different geographic areas of the city--has helped empower ethnic minorities who are often concentrated in certain parts of a city.

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But in Santa Paula, it is unclear whether such a shift would make a marked difference. While some areas of the city are almost entirely Latino, the Latino population is also significant throughout almost all of the 4.5-square-mile agricultural city of 27,000.

Former councilman Al Escoto, a local Ford salesman, said an aura of secrecy and perceived conflicts of interests in city government are what made many residents feel disenfranchised in the first place.

Although the council is allowed to discuss potential lawsuits in private, they should at least share the content of those discussions with the public, Escoto said before the meeting. “There’s no reason why people shouldn’t know what’s going on,” he said.