San Mateo approves district election map

The Nov. 1 City Council meeting served as the fifth and final public hearing before introducing an ordinance approving a transition from at-large elections to by-district elections. The 2022 election will be up for districts 1, 3 and 5, with the 2024 election for districts 2 and 4. Elections for councilmembers are staggered every two years between even and odd numbers. The next election will take place in November 2022.

The city has drawn boundaries for five districts with a rotational mayor. The districts were configured to keep neighborhoods intact and promote equitable representation by grouping together communities of interest with similar ethnicity, income, education level, housing renter or owner status and other factors to empower underrepresented groups.

The city transitioned to district elections after it received a letter from attorney Scott Rafferty alleging its current system violates the California Voting Rights Act. Rafferty requested the city move voluntarily to district-based elections. San Mateo decided to switch to avoid any potential lawsuit alleging a California Voting Rights Act violation. The current at-large system means all San Mateo residents vote for candidates. A district-based election will divide the city into separate districts, with voters in each district choosing someone from that area. Voters will now only pick one councilmember instead of the five previously allowed. The councilmember must live in the district, and the title of mayor will rotate yearly as it currently does.

The council decided to sequence district elections so current sitting councilmembers running for reelection in districts 1 and 3 would run in 2022, with a coin toss out of fairness to determine if the district representing the Shoreview area or the district representing the Beresford area would have elections in 2022.

Mayor Eric Rodriguez said both districts were under consideration for sequencing in 2022 with no strong council preferences. Arguments could be made for the Shoreview area district to have elections in 2024 to align with the presidential election to boost turnout. However, the area had only had one councilmember in the last 25 years, raising questions if it should have elections in 2022 to get representation sooner. Rodriguez was pleased with the overall districting process given the time constraints due to public engagement, council leadership and work from staff.

“I don’t think a difficult process could have gone any better,” Rodriguez said.

With no strong preferences, the council decided to flip a coin to determine which district should have elections in 2022 or 2024. City Manager Drew Corbett flipped the coin. The toss resulted in the district representing the Beresford area being chosen to be District 5 and have an election in 2022. The district representing the Shoreview area will have elections in 2024.

City Attorney Prasanna Rasiah said it was possible to have a coin flip at the Nov. 1 meeting as long as election sequencing was decided on that day to be put into an ordinance. Paul Mitchell with consulting group Redistricting Partners said his group had seen a drawing of numbers from a hat to determine which districts would have elections when.

“It is something that seems as though it would be fair. If there’s this equal balance of arguments on either side,” Mitchell said.

Rasiah said the process went smoothly given the tight timeline and circumstances, with lots of public input and education. Rafferty can also request attorney fees under the CVRA from the city, capped at about $30,000, that Rasiah expects to occur following the ordinance adoption.

“It’s definitely very challenging to undertake a significant change to the city elections in a compressed time period,” Rasiah said.

Rasiah noted elections in the next two cycles would be staggered to get five councilmembers who represent the five districts. Under the current sequencing, Councilmember Diane Papan and Councilmember Amourence Lee have terms up in 2024. To ensure there are five councilmembers in 2022 and no vacancies, Papan and Lee will keep their seats, with elections for districts 1, 3 and 5. Vice Mayor Rick Bonilla, Goethals and Rodriguez are up in 2022. Rodriguez, Bonilla and Papan all live in District 1. If they decided to run, Rodriguez and Bonilla could go up against each other in District 1 because they are up in 2022. Papan does not have to run because her term is up in 2024, and she can complete her full term. She could serve as an at-large councilmember and live in the same district as another councilmember until 2024. Goethals lives in District 3 and Lee lives in District 2. No one on the council currently lives in districts 4 or 5.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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