Activists Turn Attention to 1985 Fillmore Ordinance

Latino activists who have been waging a high-profile battle to change voting practices in Santa Paula are now setting their sights on neighboring Fillmore, which 14 years ago became the first city in America to declare English its official language.

Ramon Rodriguez of the North American Civil Rights Organization says the city needs to change the way it views its majority Latino population.

Some City Council members say they agree it’s time to dump the divisive ordinance.

The civil rights group also says it wants to challenge Fillmore’s at-large system of city elections. That is the same issue that spurred a yearlong federal investigation in Santa Paula over whether at-large voting has prevented minority candidates from winning election to the City Council.

Rodriguez, head of the civil rights group and a Democratic activist who lives in Fillmore, sent a letter this week to Mayor Evaristo Barajas and the rest of the five-member council asking the city to voluntarily repeal the 1985 ordinance and switch to a five-district election system in order to bolster Latino voting power.

The moves would “bring closure to this sorry chapter in our history . . . and let a new era of unity and reconciliation begin,” Rodriguez wrote on behalf of the organization, which he founded in 1996.

Rodriguez said Thursday he forwarded a copy of the letter to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Besides getting involved in Fillmore’s politics, Rodriguez has been a strong critic of Santa Paula’s voting history. Only one of the five council members is Latino.

The same is true in Fillmore, where the council has never had more than one Latino member at a time, said Barajas, who is Latino. But, as in Santa Paula, Fillmore city officials were not immediately inclined to change the elections system.

Three of the five Fillmore council members, including Barajas, said the current system does not inhibit Latino political power. A fourth council member declined to be interviewed. The fifth could not be reached for comment.

“The fact that we currently only have one Hispanic on the council is that people are really reluctant to run,” Barajas said. “I’ve seen our council work. I can see they work for the whole town. I have never felt I was ignored.

“Anyone who has been to the meetings in Santa Paula and Fillmore can see the difference,” he said. “Rarely is there a 4-1 vote here in Fillmore.” In Santa Paula, the council’s sole Latino member is often on the losing end of 4-1 votes.

Fillmore is an old railroad town that became a center of agribusiness, attracting a large Latino population. In recent years it has increasingly become a bedroom community for people who work in Ventura and even Los Angeles.

Rodriguez and other advocates of the district system say if drawn fairly, single-member districts give ethnic minorities a stronger voice than at-large districts. Single-member districts traditionally have helped ethnic and racial groups that live in concentrated pockets inside cities.

As in Santa Paula, Fillmore’s Latino population is not a numeric minority. Latinos make up about two-thirds of the population in both cities. But many Latino residents in the area are field and factory laborers who cannot vote because they lack U.S. citizenship. Also, Latino voter turnout historically has been lower than white turnout.

While Fillmore city officials are not receptive to changing the elections system, there is some council interest in repealing the 14-year-old “official language” resolution.

In April 1985, with a wave of animosity toward bilingual government and education programs sweeping the country, a divided council (3-1-1) passed a one-sentence resolution declaring English as the official language in Fillmore. Part of the intent behind passage of the measure was to appease parents of English-speaking children, who were being placed in bilingual classes.

But the law had no legal or practical effect. Barajas and Councilman Scott Lee both said they would like to see the ordinance taken off the books.

But Councilman Roger Campbell, who voted for the ordinance in 1985, said unless there is tremendous public outcry he doesn’t want to repeal the ordinance because the topic is so divisive. “I don’t think anyone cares about it except maybe this one Latino activist and his small group of friends,” Campbell said.