Riverbank wrestles with balancing poor neighborhoods’ needs with self-representation

Consultants will take another run at suggesting how the city might be split into voting districts, and voters throughout Riverbank might wait until November 2016 to have their say.

Responding to warnings from Latino advocates, the five-member City Council has embraced the idea of moving from at-large elections to four districts of a few neighborhoods each. The mayor would continue to be elected by voters across the entire city.

The effort came to head when consultant Douglas Johnson presented maps with four options, each splitting Riverbank into four districts of roughly equal population size and some dominated by Latino neighborhoods. Giving minorities a better chance at being elected, by running more targeted campaigns as opposed to appealing to everyone, is the idea behind the California Voting Rights Act.

Mayor Richard O’Brien, however, doesn’t like the idea of one or two privileged districts plus one or two others saddled with disadvantages. For example, the city’s state streets area – predominantly Latino – and other low-income neighborhoods near Riverbank High School don’t enjoy public landscaping and street lighting services.

“I don’t like segregating a poor section of town by itself,” resulting in a perception of “haves and have-nots,” O’Brien said.

The four options developed by Johnson’s National Demographic Corp. were designed to comply with the Voting Rights Act, and three would keep the state streets – Iowa, Kansas, Texas, California, Arizona, Nevada, Dakota, Kentucky, Virginia, Hawaii and Tennessee avenues – together. O’Brien likes the fourth option, which would divide portions of the state streets into two districts, one combined with a southern section of the more affluent Crossroads area.

The mayor would like to see the state streets split even further, forcing more council members to take an interest in helping disadvantaged areas.

“I’d like to even things out,” O’Brien said. “We (council members) work well together now because we all embrace the whole city. I would rather that all districts have the same problems.”

Latinos make up 52 percent of the city’s population but about 42 percent of its registered voters. No current council member is Latino, although Leanne Jones Cruz, Cal Campbell and Darlene Barber-Martinez all are married to Latinos. The city’s immediate past mayor, Virginia Madueño, is Latina.

Johnson’s firm previously abandoned the mayor’s direction because the state streets comprise a single census block, and state law frowns on splitting census blocks at all, much less three or four ways, a report says. But O’Brien insisted on another try before the city takes the issue to town hall meetings, to capture feedback from residents. Ultimately, a citywide vote would create the districts.

O’Brien said the process might be too rushed to meet summer deadlines for a citywide vote in the fall. Also, that would require City Hall to spend about $20,000 on special-election costs. Waiting until November 2016 would allow a districts measure to piggyback on elections already scheduled that year.

Any of the four options already pitched would result in at least some current council members living in the same district, meaning they would oppose each other if they continue to seek office. One option would pit two council members against each other in one district and the other two vying in a second district, with the two remaining districts wide open.

The current delay has nothing to do with council members hoping to protect their seats, O’Brien said.

City Manager Jill Anderson said the issue is expected to resurface next month.

This story was originally published January 16, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Riverbank wrestles with balancing poor neighborhoods’ needs with self-representation."