Report to Mayor and City Council
Tuesday, May 04, 2021
Discussion
SUBJECT:
Title
CONSIDER DEMOGRAPHER PROPOSALS FOR THE REVIEW OF CITY COUNCIL DISTRICTS RESULTING FROM THE 2020 DECENNIAL CENSUS; AND, CONSIDER THE APPOINTMENT OF AN AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEE TO REVIEW CITY COUNCIL REDISTRICTING ISSUES (CITY COUNCIL)
Body
I. SUMMARY
On August 4, 2020, the City Council adopted Ordinance 20-008, establishing by-district voting for City Council seats in the City of Carson, at a noticed public hearing.
The 2020 City Council elections were held by district, with District 1 (Council Member Hilton) and District 3 (Council Member Hicks) up for reelection. Council Districts 2 (Mayor Pro Tem Dear) and 4 (now-Mayor Davis-Holmes) were designed to remain at-large districts until the current terms for those districts expire in 2022. However, with the election of Mayor Davis-Holmes to the Mayor's seat, the District 4 seat is now open, and the Council has approved placing that seat on a November, 2021 special election ballot.
Under the terms of the lawsuit and Settlement Agreement with the Southwest Voters Registration Education Project ("SVREP"), which was the impetus for the City to consider district elections, any election conducted after 2020 must be a District election and not at-large in order to conform to the California Voting Rights Act of 2001 (CVRA). Therefore, the election will be held as a district-only election for District 4.
Concurrently, cities and other local governments that are divided into districts or divisions are required to review their current district boundaries and redistrict based on the new population figures from the U.S. Census. The City now must review the adequacy of the adopted districts in light of demographic and population changes in Carson shown in the 2020 United States Census. In March, 2021, the City issued an RFP for a demographer to conduct the update and four proposals were received by the April 22, 2021 deadline.
The process for re...
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