The Cypress City Council has voted unanimously on what many past and former elected Council members hoped would never happen as the settlement agreement that acknowledged Cypress was in violation of the California Voting Rights Act has been signed and the attorney was paid June 30.
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Plaintiff Malini Nagpal, who along with fellow Cypress resident joined the lawsuit filed by attorney Kevin Shenkman on behalf of the Southwest Voter Education Project, acknowledged that they have signed the settlement agreement to settle with the city.
“I’m glad it is settled,” she said this week. “I did not appreciate the city council’s process, not listening to the public.”
Nagpal said it appeared the Counci just “pushed the can down the road” until “they could get the candidates theywanted.”
She also expressed concern that Cypress citizens were left out of the discussions and the Council’s “level of agression was not needed.”
Tremendous disagreements emerged on the Council in September of 2021 when Shenkman’s demand letter arrived at city hall.
Actually, the saga began not long after the previous Council, led by Mayor Paulo Morales refused, despite the pleadings of citizens, including fellow candidates, to appoint Carrie Hayashida to a vacancy created by the resignation of Stacy Berry in June of 2021.
In late August of 2021, the Council set up a process that ultimately overlooked several Asian candidates and voted to appoint Scott Minikus, a retired Long Beach law enforcement officer.
A month later, in September of 2021, Malibu Attorney Kevin Shenkman, of Shenkman and Hughes, sent the city a certified letter asking them to voluntarily convert to at-large districts and gave them an option of simply paying a $35,000 fine.
Moreover, the previous Council could have easily approved a special election to fill the vacancy, expressing concern about the cost, which city officials said could range from $75,000 – 200,000.
Now, three years later, the city just paid to Shenkman and the plaintiff’s attorneys $835,000, and, according to warrants, more than $550,000 of taxpayer funds to other law firms involved in their defense of a case that never went to trial.
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Council member Frances Marquez, who suggested she has been bullied, and censured wrongly since this redistricting fight began, said while she was happy to see it end, she was correct in the first place.
“I’m happy to see this end tonight,” she said, suggesting it was easy to try and make her the villain and it was a pitiful waste of taxpayer money.
Marquez urged settling like La Palma, which also transitioned from at-large to single member districts but at a cost of only $35,000 to taxpayers.
“As a political science professor, when they said they were going to fight it. I was like, No, I don’t want it. We can’t waste taxpayer dollars. We need to use the funding for our community,” she said.
She has drawn fire over the entire period as she urged the city to “stop wasting taxpayer dollars.”
While the city has directly spent approximately $1.5 million in legal fees, internal staff time and subcontractors, which are not cited in the settlement could easily push the overall cost of the multi-year ordeal to taxpayers much higher.
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Marquez also drew the ire of former Mayor and Council member Jon Peat when she suggested city officials were postponing a settlement until Peat’s wife Bonnie could run for Council while the voting was still at-large.
Jon Peat blew up at Marquez in January of 2022.
As reported in on January 29, 2022, Marquez responded, “when I mentioned Mayor Peat’s wife, I was just stating a fact not an opinion. Thank you.”
“Excuse me,” said Peat, loudly, who was sitting off the dais looking directly at Marquez (so that the remaining members could be socially distanced at the dais).
“That is not a fact. You can’t make a statement about my wife and a fact about something that hasn’t happened. … You’ve never talked with her,” Peat said angrily.
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“I don’t know how you assert that she’s running for city council. How do you make a statement about my wife doing something when you’ve never spoken with her? And how dare you bring my family into this,” shouted Mr. Peat when he was serving in Jan. of 2022.
Both Morales and Peat have since termed out.
As it turns out, Peat’s wife Bonnie did run for Council in the fall of 2022 and she won a seat, taking office in 2023. Currently, she is serving as Mayor Pro-Tem.
“I think I’ve been pretty clear about this but I’ll say it again kind of like a broken record,” said Peat at the Council’s meeting two weeks ago.
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“I was willing to fight this, okay, and I wanted to fight this to protect the people s right to vote,” said Peat, “to vote for all of our candidates,” she added.
“And until it became more apparent with the Santa Monica (CVRA) case not being successful, I was willing to spend what it took to protect the right to vote,” she said.
“Sitting in this seat is not an easy job, and you really need to have good, qualified people, so that’s why I fought to make sure we had the best candidates possible.”
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Mayor Scott Minikus said “we felt that it was right to fight it to preserve everyone’s rights in this city and I’ll just leave that, at that.”
On a motion by Peat and seconded by Mallari, the Council voted to approve the CVRA final settlement.
The districts will be phased in, beginning with the fall election.