The city is beginning the process of drawing council district maps, part of implementing the City Council’s vote in June to change from a purely at-large election system to from-district system (councilmembers must reside in districts, but are elected at-large).
Staff, with the assistance of demographers and outside counsel, will draw up maps for both a four and six member council. The June 2014 ballot will feature a proposed charter amendment expanding the council to six members, and drawing maps now enables to city to more quickly implement a “yes” vote, if that is the voters’ decision.
On October 16, the city is holding the first of a series of community meetings on the subject, in order to answers questions such as how the mapping will be done and why it is being done. The meeting is at 6:oo p.m. in the Anaheim City Council chambers; here is a flyer with more info.
You can click here to read the staff report outlining the process in more detail.
SB 311 (Padilla) was signed late August by Gov. Brown. Charter elections now must go before voters at November gubernatorial or presidential elections. Not sure if this goes into effect after this cycle or not, but if it does then it looks like a charter amendment will have to wait until Nov. 2014.
The final amended version narrowed it to just charter amendments that affect pensions and compensation. That served the purposes of its union backers, who don’t want pension reform charter amendments on June ballots before lower turnout, more conservative electorates.
The the Padilla bill won’t affect the council expansion and council district amendments being on the June ballot.
Thank you for the clarification, Matt
When I heard about the Honda center and how unions strong armed business like that, I was outraged. I tuned in to what is happening in this town. Now this district stuff is going on. This is as clear as day union power grab. Pack the council with libs and then jack up taxes on everything. Isnt this supposed to be a Republican city? Hows this getting traction? Roll over here an its giving the city away