SOUZA’S SURPRISE VOTE REVERSAL COULD COST CITY BIG BUCKS

By STEVEN TAVARES
The Citizen

SAN LEANDROCouncilwoman Diana Souza’s vote against the implementation of Ranked Choiuce Voting could cost San Leandro hundreds of thousands of dollars in election costs, according to city officials.

The surprising turn of events Monday night threw a monkey wrench into the city’s plan to institute Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for this November’s election. The council approved the voting system last January by a vote of 5-2, but Souza, who has been apprehensive of RCV in the past, switched her vote to no. Councilman Michael Gregory was on vacation in Japan and did not vote. The resulting deadlocked vote puts RCV’s in doubt even though the city has already entered an agreement with the city’s of Oakland and Berkeley to split the  system’s startup costs.

“The deal is signed, sealed and delivered,” said San Leandro Mayor Tony Santos, who along with Councilman Jim Prola have led the push to use RCV as a way of increasing voter participation, lower election costs and encourage others to enter the political arena.

Santos says staging a traditional plurality election in November and a possible runoff as early as February 2011 could cost the city $300,000. “It’s just common sense that you would not do this with the city’s finances like they are,” Santos said. City Clerk Marian Handa said a stand-alone runoff could be costly at under $200,000.

In January, it was reported the one-time costs of RCV in the first year is $180,000, and reduced to $92,000 in subsequent years. At the time, Handa said the city would recoup its investment by 2014.

According to a report in the Daily Review, Souza said she decided to vote against the RCV ordinance after speaking with consituents who believed the voting system is confusing, while she doubted its cost savings. Souza, who is up for re-election this year, said she swayed by the audience the night of the January vote, which she said was stacked with “special interests” in favor of RCV. During the Jan. 19 discussion, a vast majority of the speakers were from the League of Women Voters, the liberal-leaning New America Foundation and mayoral candidate Stephen Cassidy and his supporters.

Santos disputed Souza’s claim of an upswelling of doubt in the community saying, “I’m the mayor. I get more contacts than anyone on the council and since our decision, I have not had one contact tell me we took the wrong action.”

Despite RCV’s setback, the ordinance is still likely to pass when it is reconsidered at a council meeting April 19. Santos used authority located in a little-used sections of the city’s charter to suspend the council’s action setting up a revisting of the discussion that has raged since last year.

Section 305(h) of the city charter says, “the mayor shall: possess the authority to suspend implementation of any action taken by the Council by filing with the City Clerk, within three days after such Council action, a notice of suspension thereof. Such suspension shall constitute a motion for reconsideration of the action taken, to be voted upon by the Council at its next regular meeting.”

In many ways, the internecine feud over RCV has been an early mayoral proxy battle between Santos and Vice Mayor Joyce Starosciak, who has long opposed changing the manner San Leandrans elected their leading based on the one-time increased costs of implementation during a time of budget uncertainty. Souza, who typically votes with Starosciak on most matters, has in the past been critical of the mechanical aspects of RCV, often wondering whether some voters will be disenfranchised once their choice is eliminated and absorbed to other candidates.

In December, Souza had concerns over the city taking on higher expenditures at the expense of other services. “Facing the kind of budget situation we have today, if we pass IRV, we are going to have to cut something else,” Souza said in December. Santos declined to say whether Souza’s vote was political only saying, “This is between her and Joyce.”
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The CiTiZEN FILE on…Ranked Choice Voting.

>>>Voting System has All Sides Torn, Dec. 5, 2009.
>>>Council Votes to Push RCV Decision to January, Dec. 8, 2009.
>>>See You at the Polls…in November, Jan. 20, 2010.

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