Probe Finds Bias Against Latino Voters : Elections: In a letter to Santa Paula officials, a federal investigator threatens to sue unless practices are changed.

Federal investigators have found “racially polarized voting patterns” here that favor white candidates and promised to sue the city if it does not switch from at-large elections to a district system that could improve Latino representation.

Although Latinos make up a majority of the citizens in this agricultural city of 27,000, they “continue to suffer the effects of a history of official discrimination in voting and other areas,” according to a top lawyer for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The department found Latinos consistently voted for Latino candidates, but whites generally voted as a bloc to defeat those candidates. The current City Council is made up of four white members and one Latino representative.

Meanwhile, Justice Department officials contend that a massive annexation plan adopted by the City Council could further dilute Latino power under the current elections system if implemented.

These assertions were laid out in a July 20 letter to city officials by acting Assistant Atty. Gen. Bill Lann Lee. The letter, which city officials have kept secret, was made public Tuesday by the Justice Department. It makes clear that federal authorities believe they have a much stronger discrimination case against the city than officials have admitted.

“We have determined that the current at-large system of electing the City Council denies Hispanic voters an equal opportunity to elect representatives of their choice,” Lee’s letter reads.

He stated that he has authorized the filing of a lawsuit against the city, but will delay doing so in the hopes that city officials will voluntarily make a change that satisfies the Justice Department.

But Ramon Rodriguez, a Latino civil rights activist who supports the Justice Department’s yearlong probe, said he doubts an amicable resolution will be reached.

He pointed out that the city recently spent $10,000 to hire a Los Angeles civil rights expert to advise them on how to proceed.

“They’re just making this pretense of saying to the public all they’re doing is exploring their options,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t think that’s what they’re doing, knowing the city and the leaders. I think they’re preparing for litigation.

“And if that’s what they’re doing, they should be prepared to face litigation, not only from the Justice Department, but other organizations, such as mine [the local North American Civil Rights Organization] and maybe the ACLU.”

Last month, the 4-1 majority on the City Council denied that their vote to hire lawyer John E. McDermott of Los Angeles signaled they would take the case to court. He was simply an advisor, they said.

McDermott said Tuesday he would not comment on the Justice Department letter until his own analysis of the city’s voting patterns is complete in about a week.

McDermott took issue with the Justice Department’s discussion of the city’s annexation plans. “You can’t build a case on what you think might happen five years into the future,” he said.

Although Latinos made up 59% of the population, according to the 1990 U.S. census, the Justice Department found they were only 40% of the voting-age population citywide and could not exert a majority will.

Because Latinos in Santa Paula have always been poorer than whites, they have less of a role in the political process, Lee argued in his letter.

There is enough of a Latino concentration in some areas of the city that switching to five single-member districts would give Latino’s the majority vote in two of five districts, his analysis found.

He noted that currently only one member of the City Council, Laura Flores Espinosa, is Latino.

He did not, however, acknowledge that the council has previously included two Latinos at once. Nor did he address the fact that essentially the same voting pool has elected two majority Latino school boards.

Lee declined to be interviewed Tuesday, because the case is ongoing.

Espinosa, the only council member to support the shift to a single-member district system, said her council colleagues can no longer dismiss the Justice Department’s allegations as too vague to address now that the department’s letter is public. “Clearly, the initial remarks by the majority of the council were inconsistent with the contents of the letter,” she said.

Other council members could not be reached for comment Tuesday.