Democrats Back District Elections

The Democratic Committee of Ventura County on Thursday night joined the debate over the dearth of Latinos elected to Santa Paula government and voted to support the idea of district elections in the agricultural city.

Committee members also discussed a plan to launch in Santa Paula an intense Latino voter participation campaign.

“Santa Paula is notorious for racism going back to the 1920s,” Hank Lacayo, committee chairman, said before the unanimous decision. “The [Ku Klux Klan] used to hold open rallies there, I mean without masks and without hoods.”

But committee members delayed immediate action until more information was learned about the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into whether the city has denied equal voting opportunity to its Latino residents.

The department made these allegations to the city of Santa Paula in a letter, which was not released to the public because it contained threats of litigation.

Lacayo formed a subcommittee to gather information about the investigation and report back to the panel next month.

“Where there’s smoke there’s fire, but we can’t take action until we know exactly what the investigation is all about,” said member Kevin Ready, an attorney who ran against Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) in 1994.

Once details of the investigation are uncovered, Ready said, the committee will most likely begin lobbying the Santa Paula City Council to provide more polling places in pockets of the city with the greatest concentrations of Latino residents. Currently, only one polling place is located in eastern Santa Paula, where many Latinos live, officials said.

Committee members jumped into the fray at the urging of their colleagues in the Santa Clara Valley. On Wednesday, the 10 members in attendance at the local Democratic club unanimously voted to support the formation of single-member districts in Santa Paula.

The Santa Clara Valley members were responding on Wednesday night to the Santa Paula City Council’s decision earlier this week against negotiating with the U.S. Department of Justice.

The council instead decided 4 to 1, with Councilwoman Laura Flores Espinosa dissenting, to hire a civil rights legal expert to counsel them on a potential federal lawsuit. Espinosa is the only Latino on the council.

Members of the Santa Clara Valley Democratic Club voted to launch an aggressive campaign in Santa Paula that includes:

* Registering all eligible Latinos to vote.

* Getting registered Latino voters to the polls on election day.

* Encouraging Latinos who are sensitive to the issues facing their community to run for public office.

Although Latinos make up an estimated 68% of Santa Paula’s population of 27,000, only 35% to 40% of them are registered voters.

“It’s not enough just to create districts,” committee member Ramon Rodriguez said before Thursday’s meeting. “We need to get Latinos registered, get Latinos to vote and then come up with some viable candidates.”

Santa Clara Valley members also decided to study the possibility of adding Fillmore and other communities with large concentrations of Latinos to the list of cities that should change the method of governance to single-member districts.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Rodriguez, who is also president of the Santa Clara Valley Democratic Club. “We want this to be a countywide effort.”

Single-member districts, rather than the current at-large system, gives voters in separate geographic areas of the city an opportunity to elect politicians to represent each area.

Separate districts would give minority groups who are concentrated in certain geographic areas a greater chance of electing a minority into office, proponents say.

Rodriguez said he will push to get all cities in Ventura County, especially those with a heavy Latino population, to change to district elections.

At least one member of the Santa Paula City Council is backing the plan.

Espinosa hoped the local and countywide Democratic committees would persuade her colleagues to negotiate with the Justice Department, rather than spend money on attorneys and demographers to prepare for a potential lawsuit.

So far, the county has committed to spending $10,000 on the effort, but Espinosa said she believes that amount may skyrocket.

“It’s needless spending of Santa Paula taxpayers’ dollars,” Espinosa said. “We could easily spend that money on the Santa Paula Police Department, which hasn’t been able to add a position since 1970.”

Santa Paula Mayor Jim Garfield, however, does not agree with the advice of the Santa Clara Valley club, nor was he swayed by the opinions of the countywide Democratic Committee. He noted that three of the five members on each of Santa Paula’s two at-large school boards are Latino.

He also pointed out that Latinos are mostly spread out throughout the city, which would reduce the importance of district elections.

“That tells me that people are voting for who they want,” Garfield said. “They’re studying the issues and voting accordingly.”

But Rodriguez said that despite a snub by the Santa Paula City Council, members of the Santa Clara Valley club have vowed to continue with their grass-roots effort to get Latinos in Santa Paula registered to vote, and to the polls.

“Latinos are starting to flex their muscles,” Rodriguez said. “[Santa Paula City Council] members are going to start feeling the pressure, especially by the voters of Santa Paula.”