City of Monterey holds public hearing on district based election system

MONTEREY, Calif. (KION) The City of Monterey is converting its election method and held a public meeting on Tuesday night to gather feedback from residents.

The meeting is a third hearing on the matter and focused on drafted maps and election sequence/a timeline.

The city adopted a Resolution of Intention back in November of 2021 to convert from the current at-large method of electing City Councilmembers to a by-district system. The resolution does not change the structure of the City Council; instead it starts the process to implement a district based election system where the City is divided into separate geographical areas of equal population, composed of voters residing within the district which elect a representative who also resides within the district.

The City’s demographer, Redistricting Partners, used the information from the publicly-submitted Communities of Interest Forms and councilmember district maps from the public to develop four (4) draft maps.

Proposed district maps have been labeled as Abalone, Bat Ray Cuttlefish and Dolphin.

Click on here on: draft plans that include demographic information.

The City Council said they welcomed feedback. There are several mandatory criteria that the City must comply with when the districts are created:
a) Population equality across districts (districts shall be nearly as equal in population).
b) Race cannot be the “predominant” factor or criteria when drawing districts.
c) Compliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act (FVRA), which, among other things, prohibits districts that dilute minority voting rights, and encourages a majority-minority district, if the minority group is sufficiently large, and such a district can be drawn without race being the predominant factor.