Del Mar City Attorney Memo Evaluates Weighted Vote at SANDAG

According to a memo presented at the February 21 City Council meeting, the Del Mar City Attorney confirmed that the San Diego Association of Governments is implementing a weighted voting structure.

A 2017 law passed by then Assembly Member Lorena González Fletcher, AB 805, allows weighted voting to replace a simple majority among the 21 members of the SANDAG Board of Directors (one board member from each of the 18 cities plus an additional representative from the city of San Diego and two district representatives ). Votes are weighted based on the size of each board member’s constituency, allowing just four board members to override the rest of the board members.

Representatives from smaller cities like Del Mar complained that the new structure has isolated their voices on contentious issues such as housing and transportation.

Prior to AB 805, the SANDAG board required a successful count and weighted vote to approve items. Since the bill has been passed, the points can only be passed by a weighted vote, even if the final vote is not enough.

Supporters of AB 805 say the new voting system more accurately reflects the majority of San Diego residents, while the previous system gave more leverage to board members in smaller towns whose congressional districts make up a small portion of the county’s population.

The latest controversy surrounding weighted voting at SANDAG came during the January meeting, when the board elected its chair and vice chair. Del Mar City Councilman Terry Gaasterland joined a group of smaller city councilors who left the meeting to protest the weighted vote.

During a meeting later in January, Gaasterland asked the city attorney to evaluate questions she had on AB 805, including whether weighted voting should override simple majority voting and whether there were any implications of the Brown Act. The Brown Law is a California state law that sets out the transparency requirements that government agencies must follow. One of its provisions prohibits most members of a public body, such as a city council, from meeting and discussing public affairs without proper notice to the public.

But in a memo from Del Mar City Attorney Leslie Devaney, “the weighted voting structure has no restrictions on whether an action subject to a count of votes has been taken or not taken.” The memo also rejects the notion that a small group of SANDAG board members violate the Brown Act if their weighted total votes are over 50%. The law is “based on individual members, not on weight of votes,” the city attorney wrote.

Del Mar was also part of a letter from 10 cities asking the rest of the board members to end the weighted voting structure. Del Mar council member Dwight Worden said at the January council meeting that he supports the pre-AB 805 voting structure but sees no real way to change the current protocol.

“There is no desire among the controlling majority of SANDAG to change that,” he said. “If we ask them, all we will do is collect the scab.”

Content Source

California Press News – Latest News:
Los Angeles Local News || Bay Area Local News || California News || Lifestyle News || National news || Travel News || Health News

Related Articles

Back to top button