Council Sticks with 5-District, Rotating Mayor Decision

By Christian Kallen

The city’s second of five public hearings on the transition to district elections was held, like the first, in a City Council meeting this Monday. Unlike the first, virtually nothing else was on the agenda. Nearly everyone in the room showed up to learn more about the inevitable move toward a new model of elections in town—not at-large voting, in which all candidates are voted in (or denied) by a city-wide vote, but in which specific geographic districts will elect their own local choice for the council.

But first, the public comment period heard Tyra Benoit deliver something missing from the night’s agenda: A proclamation of gratitude to Andrew Sturmfels, who is stepping down from the assistant city manager job to take a new position with the County of Sonoma as an assistant county administrator.

“Whereas …” read Benoit, again and again in the manner of official proclamations, while Sturmfels squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. “WHEREAS, Andrew Sturmfels has done an exemplary job of leading city staff and coordinating with the residents of Healdsburg to develop and implement a Climate Mobilization Strategy …

“And WHEREAS, Andrew Sturmfels always kept channels of communication open, even when the conversations were difficult …

 “And WHEREAS, Andrew Sturmfels has demonstrated the ability to evaluate the need to redo an exercise that didn’t quite work the first time around,” among others.

District Discussion

That last Whereas, however, was the oft-spoken message of the Jan. 6 meeting, a follow-up to the first public hearing three weeks ago when the council decided to stick as close to the “status quo” as possible and retain five council seats and a rotating mayor. That decision, and the machinations that led up to it, prompted Jon Eisenberg’s lawyer to file a “cure and correct” letter to vacate that decision, and was one among many factors that caused Eisenberg to send a 17-page letter to the city alleging multiple Brown Act violations, violations of state law requiring transparency in government.

Following a brief public comment period, Evelyn Mitchell, installed in the mayor’s seat for her second term (the first was in 2020, a year of Covid drama), opened the meeting by reading a mea culpa of sorts from the council, which had just held a 90-minute closed session on Eisenberg’s complaints. Her statement was precipitated by wide-spread discontent with the council’s direction at the Dec. 16 meeting that favored five council seats and a rotating mayor, appointed by the council.

In fact the council’s choice to focus on five seats caused that discontent, with several people calling foul over what they saw as the council’s premature, unnecessary decision at that time.

Mitchell pushed back. “I want to be very clear: There was no formal vote on Dec. 16th, and that was intentional,” she said. “We were asked for direction and not a final action. We simply provided guidance as requested.”

While technically true, her statement did little to quell public dissatisfaction with that “guidance.” During Monday night’s hearing, 10 people rose to speak in public comment, the majority of whom asked the council to rescind their recommendation and ask the contract demographer, Redistricting Partners, to amend their mechanism that allows public input in drawing up the council district to allow for more than five.

Drawing the Lines

Liz Stitt, who represented Redistricting Partners at the meeting, unveiled an online tool that allows members of the public to draw their own districts to meet the terms of the California Voting Rights Act. Stitt—whose job title is “Chief Administrative Officer and Senior Line Drawer”—introduced “DistrictR,” a free online tool that allows users to create or evaluate election districts.

But the version Stitt presented was based on drawing only five districts, as the council had recommended, and there seemed to be no easy way for a user to create six, seven or any other number of districts, which many in the community have called for.

When asked directly how difficult it would be, in time or expense, for the contractor to reprogram DistrictR, Stitt was unable to say. Since the expectation for this meeting was a final direction on the number of districts, the council eventually recommitted to five districts and the rotating mayor, their original recommendation.

Councilmember Arielle Kelly outlined the scenario where the rotating mayor position could become occupied by a candidate with fewer than 10% of the city’s votes. In a close election, the winning candidate in a district would likely receive less than half the total votes. An at-large mayor’s office, elected by a vote of the entire city, would receive a far greater public mandate.

Windsor’s Example

But the case of Dominic Foppoli, elected by the town of Windsor in its first redistricted election in 2020, loomed over the discussion of an at-large elected mayor. Almost at once upon assuming the at-large office, Foppoli was charged with multiple sexual misconduct allegations, yet no mechanism existed to remove him from the mayor’s seat short of a time-consuming and expensive recall. (He eventually resigned, and currently lives in Italy with his new wife.)

A mayor appointed by the council could more easily be removed by a simple majority vote, and a replacement selected at once. That seemed an unspoken factor in the Healdsburg City Council standing firm with its five-district, rotating mayor preference, and Redistricting Partners was directed to continue with its current method of enlisting public input on the districts’ borders.

The major opportunity for that public input is next Thursday, Jan. 16, in a public workshop at the Healdsburg Community Center, though any submitted district map will be considered, Stitt said. A second workshop will be held at the Senior Center on Jan. 24 in a “brunch” to instruct the more technically challenged seniors in how to use the redistricting tool.

Follow the city’s process and meetings schedule at healdsburg.gov/1152/Transition-to-District-Elections.