Forum… Or Against ’em

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
The big story in the Sentinel this week is the pressure several of the county’s cities are being put under to transition to ward systems in their elective politics. This is come about as a consequence of low voter turnout among some ethnic groups in these cities, despite the consideration that those particular ethnic groups represent a sizeable percentage of the populations of the cities in question. In some cases the allegedly underrepresented or outright unrepresented ethnicities in these cities may even represent a plurality among all of the different ethnicities in those places. What is happening is that legal representatives of, or some lawyers claiming to be legal representatives of, those ethnicities as a whole are threatening lawsuits under the auspices of the California Voting Rights Act and the various tools it embodies to force the cities to switch from the current systems whereby city council members are elected at large from around their respective cities by all of the city’s voters to a political arrangement by which the instant city is divided into wards and each ward is represented by a resident of that ward, such that residents of each ward are permitted to vote only for their representative and not the representative of wards located elsewhere in the city. This will create, theoretically, wards where the underrepresented or unrepresented ethnicities will embody such a majority that the election of individuals from that ethnicity will be far more likely if not absolutely guaranteed…
I am not sure I am totally against the idea. Anything that will electrify the voters in our democracy and drive them to the polls is most likely a good thing. And there are advantages to such ward systems beyond the consideration that they will enable unrepresented and underrepresented ethnicities politically, which I will discuss momentarily. But there are disadvantages to this approach, as well, and before we embrace ward or districts as a panacea, we should consider exactly what it is we are doing and what we are creating…
First, let’s look at the advantages. Indeed, setting up wards or internal city districts may assist in getting members of unrepresented and underrepresented ethnicities into office. That outcome is not a certainty, but it is likely, at least in some cases. Another healthy outcome is that this will ensure that cities will have equal, balanced and something approaching uniform geographic representation. In some of San Bernardino’s cities and incorporated towns, three, four and even five members of five-member city councils live in the same neighborhood or within what seems to be a stone’s throw from one another, leaving whole areas of those cities unrepresented and in some cases neglected. Making it so that the council is not dominated by individuals from one specific area but rather reflects the interests of all areas of a city will help prevent the unfair and lopsided distribution of public amenities and improvements as well as keep one section of town or one neighborhood from being neglected or saddled with undesirable land uses, projects or burdens because none of the decision-makers, i.e., the council members, live there and will not be subject to the consequences of their collective decision. And the ward system presents the further advantage, I believe, in that it makes removing a poorly performing elected official – a councilman or councilwoman – much easie if that council member is not yet entrenched. In cities where the city council members are elected at large, recalling a local politician is a daunting task because of the sheer numbers of valid signatures that must be gathered to qualify a recall question for the ballot against that office holder. In such a circumstance, those seeking to remove an office holder must get a percentage – generally ten percent, fifteen percent or even twenty percent, depending on the population of the city – of the municipality’s registered voters to call for the recall vote to take place. In cities the size of 204,000 population Fontana or 163,924 population Ontario or 115,903 population Victorville, this is almost impossible. Even in Upland, where a signature gathering effort to recall three of that city’s council members is ongoing, the prospect that the advocates will be able to gather the signatures of 15 percent of the 73,732 population city’s voters is exceedingly dim. A ward system that divides a city’s population into quarters makes the assignment of garnering the necessary support to undertake the grave and serious goal of removing an unwanted politician from office, assuming of course such action is justifiable, more achievable…
But there are disadvantages to ward systems. One disadvantage is the way in which they might provoke factionalism, encouraging conflict between council members and creating gridlock with regard to action needed for the city as a whole when this conflict devolves into political enmity. It can also result in pork barrel politics where projects or improvements of dubious value that would not otherwise be approved find acceptance because the council member in the district where that improvement is going to take place insists upon it as a price for his or her vote to approve like projects in other wards…
The most serious drawback of the ward system is the fashion in which it lends itself to corruption of the public interest. Perhaps the best example of this is what has existed for a century or more and continues to exist in the City of Chicago. The problem is that the ward system installs if not absolute, near absolute, power in a single individual within a jurisdiction and within that jurisdiction that individual has no equals. The ward becomes a fiefdom and the office holder becomes a political boss. The office holder has the power to dole out perks and favors at will; a cavalcade of liegemen, who are fiercely loyal to the office holder and willing to do anything to sustain him or her in office, attend him or her. And from the office holder those minions have the power that enable them to act with efficiency and ruthlessness. As this machine grows around the office holder, he or she becomes virtually unassailable…
One entrenched and corrupt politician is bad enough. Now, imagine two such political entities acting in league together. Go further, dear reader, and consider the depredations that could be wrought if you had three such personages on a five-member council acting in concert, scratching each other’s back, covering for one another, a situation where three people, looking to enrich themselves and their allies at the public trough are in a virtual undeclared and stealthy war against all of the citizens of a city, with the exception of each of their separate retinues of political henchmen, in control of the city manager, the police chief and his department, the planning and building officials, the plan checkers, the code enforcement officers, the city’s public relations staff, the finance director, the investment officer and the city attorney…

Leave a Reply