The City of Cypress voted to approve a map on Monday that formally divides the geographic area within the city into five separate districts that will be the platform from which all future leaders will be elected.
The Council allowed citizens to have their input but then, at the absolute last moment, created a districting map of their own making that citizens had no chance to review.
The resulting split vote to approve the new by-district elections map moves the city closer to settling the plaintiff’s complaint that the city violates the California Voting Rights Act by staging at-large elections.
Numerous citizens participated in the process, an intricate map-drawing exercise, which had to be squeezed into a few weeks, according to the settlement agreement to which the city agreed.
The city demographer consultant, Dr. Justin Levitt from NDC, eventually took all the data and created several maps that met state and federal voting rights criteria. Dozens of citizens proposed their own maps.
According to Levitt, the map that is finally approved by Cypress will remain in place until 2031, after the next census. “In 2031, the city will have to revisit this issue, to see what changes the next census (in 2030) indicates that the city has to make,” said Levitt.
Citizens who participated in the public hearing this past Monday expressed their thoughts about the process and remarked about which of the series of maps they favored.
Although more than one map was suggested by residents, there seemed to be consensus by most citizens around Map 132, which used major roads throughout the city to create five districts, one of which contains a majority Asian vote required by the settlement.
Resident Marilyn Reames said, “I want to throw my hat in for Map 132, I really like that one.”
“Hopefully I’m not making a mistake, but it (map 132) looks so well put together,” she said.
“I agree completely,” said resident Glenn Button. “Looking at map 132 and the criteria that
it has been so well laid out,” said Glenn Button.
However, after the public had its extended say during the meeting, the Mayor had a last-minute surprise that again, left some crying foul.
Without reopening the public hearing, Minikus proposed a change that, without saying as much, split a district between Mayor Pro-Tem Bonnie Peat and Council member Anne Hertz-Mallari, who live a short drive from one another and without which they would have been in the same district.
“With regards to draft map 135, I was wondering if we can take Districts 1 and 2 from map 135 and place them over districts one and two from map 133,” the mayor proposed.
Minikus’ proposal to create a new district using parts of existing districts gave residents no opportunity to view the new configuration nor comment on it.
Ostensibly, Minikus said the move would bring more “balance” to the districts, and perhaps include communities of interest of Latino voters.
As proposed, the new district configuration placed Hertz-Mallari in a district shared with Council member Burke and left Peat as a lone representative in the proposed change.
Without hesitating, Levitt responded the change would be fine.
“So that would be something that is feasible,” said Levitt, “and we know that because we already have both maps and we’re simply taking elements from both,” a move he said was completely acceptable.
Fred Galante, the city’s legal advisor followed.
“Just hearing what Dr. Levitt mentioned, I can confirm, because we’ve looked at these maps, we know that combination would meet the legal requirements,” said Galante.
City manager Peter Grant said after speaking to others who have gone through the process, Minikus was on the right track.
“In general, Mr. Mayor, in talking to other cities that have been through this process and Mr. Levitt of NDC, which has done it nearly 500 times, their advice is to work with the maps you like rather than go through the process of rejecting maps.”
Council member David Burke, like many others in the room, didn’t see the Minikus move coming and expressed concern about the mayor’s last-minute proposal.
“I don’t support using the top half of 135 instead of the prior maps for a few reasons,” sai Burke. Burke said he thinks it to be unwise to not utilize major roads as boundaries for the districts, noting that every district map proposed except Map 135 uses major streets as boundaries.
“Map 135 uses Sumner Avenue as a border between Districts one and two,” he said, “right next to Forest Lawn. I drive down Sumner Avenue right multiple times per day and, on one side of the street are residences, and on the other side of the street is trash,” he said.
“To bisect a residential street and tell the people on one side of the street, you’re in District Two. And on the other side of the street, where there’s a pile of trash and junk that affects your kids, that it’s a different district… that just doesn’t sit right with me,” he said.
“I really do not want some of our residential streets being used as a border with a trash pile across from residents,” said Burke.
Peat asked for a clarification about Burke’s contention of using Sumner and being split down the middle of the street.
“Yes,” said Levitt, saying new map 135 was an off-shoot of earlier map 121 in which that particular area of the city (north) was oddly broken up to where “you kind of end up along residential streets.”
Hertz-Mallari said she had been speaking with a couple of residents in that neighborhood who “are concerned about trash” and said the city’s public works department has responded to the trash problem and “definitely made some improvements.”
“I am confident that as we move forward as a Council, now and in the future, that if there’s an issue on the border between two districts that ultimately we govern for the entire city,” she said.
“I can’t see in that particular incidence of conflict between the need to provide a clean and sanitary neighborhood. I’m glad you raised the question because I think it’s important that we’re looking at all of that,” said Hertz-Mallari.
“But in that instance, there are no residents, and we would be absolutely continuing the efforts to clean up that neighborhood, regardless of the districting right,” she said.
In the configuration posed by Minikus, Hertz-Mallari said homes facing west on Sumner would be in District Two, and across the street is the wall for Forest Lawn, which contains no voters because it’s a cemetery.
Peat acknowledged it may be hard to visualize but some communities of interest might be better served with the new configuration.
“As I try to visualize this, I’m doing exactly what I think some of the guys have tried to do and kind of visualize exactly where that is. I have to agree there are some communities of interest that probably do get better served that way,” she said.
Hertz-Mallari seconded Minikus’ motion and the council voted 3-2 to accept the last-minute change to the districting map that gave both Hertz-Mallari and Peat separate districts.
Minikus, Hertz-Mallari and Peat voted for the new map while Burke and Marquez voted against. There was no public input on the last-minute motion, and it left some residents, and Council members scratching their heads.
As it stands now, however, the final map has Burke and Mallari in District 1, Peat in District 2, no incumbents in Districts 3 and 4 with Minikus and Marquez in District 5.
Marquez is a candidate for Orange County Supervisor and practically, Hertz-Mallari’s term runs out in December. Unless she moves into District 3 or 4, where there is no incumbent, and wins election there, she will be out.
Therefore, Cypress voters could see many new faces on the Council soon as a result of the new map.
Nevertheless Marquez, who has been ostracized because she has consistently criticized an earlier Council’s gift of a no-bid contract worth an estimated $100 million to trash hauler Valley Vista, was livid.
“I’ve run twice I ran in a what the city won’t say as a you know, an at large system. It hurts minority candidates. And I’ve ran twice. I was never appointed. I knocked on doors. I earned my spot,” she began.
“I am the one person that told my colleagues, shortly after we received the demand letter on that day to go to district elections, that it was not worth the fight. My colleagues chose to waste between $700,000 to $1 million taxpayer dollars to protect their seats,” she claimed, “because they all live near each other.”
“You’re not going with the will of the taxpayers of this city who I’ve worked to protect the whole time,” she added.
Burke said he was “disappointed” that the Council would vote on a map loosely drawn and which the public had no chance to comment but stopped short of outright criticism of the move.
The Council then approved by a 4-1 vote the sequencing of the elections, voting to make Districts 3 and 4, the only new districts without incumbents up for a vote this coming November of 2024 and the remainder will be implemented in 2026.
Marquez was the lone vote against the sequencing.
In a letter to the Council after the meeting, resident Bob Youngsma suggested the last-minute move may have violated the Brown Act. He said after the meeting that it seemed like the Council had predetermined the change. “They all knew what to say,” said Youngsma.
The plaintiffs in the case, the Southwest Voter Registration Project, Katie Shapiro and Dr. Malini Nagpal, must still approve the district map before a final settlement can be reached.
Kevin Shenkman, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said Tuesday that the plaintiffs have already accepted District Map 146, saying the combination of two approved maps was completely acceptable and created what he termed a “solid district.”
“The next stop for the citizens of Cypress,” he said, “is to prepare for the next elections and find newcomers (for Districts 3 and 4), to bring much needed stability and common sense to the Council.”
