Anaheim Rejects District Voting System - Continues to Lock Out Latinos

From [HERE] The Anaheim City Council Wednesday night rejected a proposal to ask voters whether they want to create district voting for city council positions. It made me think of Riverside, where district voting has been in place for five decades. Has it made a difference here?

The vote Wednesday came after several days of protests – some of which included violence – erupted over two recent fatal police shootings of Latino men. Latino activists in Anaheim said the city government has long ignored their needs. The council’s 3-2 vote angered many in the audience, according to the Los Angeles Times, and dozens of people shouted “We’ll be back” as they left the council chambers.

The activists argue that district voting would give Latinos more of a voice in city government. A majority of Anaheim residents are Latino but few Latinos have been elected to the council in the at-large system of voting.

Riverside changed from an at-large to district system in 1962 after voters approved the change.

The next year, the city’s first Latino councilman, John Sotelo, was elected to represent Ward 2, which had – and continues to have – a large Latino and black population.

Ameal Moore, 78, an African-American who represented Ward 2 from 1994 to 2006, said it wasn’t a coincidence that Sotelo’s election came after the institution of district voting.

“I’m sure it had something to do with it,” he told me.

Moore said the black community served as his base in Ward 2, but he had to appeal to a cross-section of the district’s voters to be elected.

Moore’s predecessor, the late Jack Clarke Sr., was also African-American. The man who succeeded him, Andy Melendrez, is Latino and is the current councilman.

Melendrez is the third Latino councilman in the city. Ernest Pintor served from 1975 to 1979. He represented Ward 1, Moore said.

Moore said that if Anaheim switched to district voting, it probably would give Latinos more of an opportunity of being elected to the council.

That’s partly because there would be districts with large Latino populations. But it’s also because elections are largely about name recognition and money, he said.

“To appeal to voters citywide, it takes a lot more funding than to appeal to people in a particular district,” he said.

Moore said a diverse council is important.

“To walk into a room where you see someone who looks like you, you right away feel differently compared to walking into a room and no one looks like you,” he said. “It gives you the feeling of ‘My voice is being heard.’ It gives you a greater assurance that your interests are being looked out for.”

Mary Figueroa, 56, who was a girl on the Eastside when Sotelo was elected, said the disturbances that erupted in Anaheim likely reflected a belief that no one on the city council is addressing the concerns of Latino residents.

“If there’s not the trust that their needs are going to be met, that their concerns are heard, you’re going to get a response, and the response may be negative,” said Figueroa, a Riverside Community College District board member.

An Anaheim council member from the wealthy Anaheim Hills likely doesn’t understand what it’s like to be a Latino resident in a mostly poor and working class neighborhood, she said.

“There are people on the city council who probably don’t have clue who they are,” Figueroa said. “There’s a disconnect there. You have to ask, ‘How are those residents being served?’

Figueroa said residents need to know they have a councilmember who will listen to – and take seriously – their concerns.

“The individual doesn’t necessarily have to be of the same ethnicity as you,” she said. “It doesn’t mean Latinos can only be represented by Latinos. But the representative has to have an open access to the community. The individual has to have built trust with the community.”