Merced City Council to decide on committee for new election districts

Two lists of candidates are being recommended for the committee charged with carving the city into districts for local elections, and the Merced City Council will decide whether to approve the nominees during the regular meeting Monday.

After the city received 39 applications to be on the committee, the Merced County League of Women Voters made the recommendations. The council meeting is set to begin at 7 p.m. Monday at City Hall, 678 W. 18th St.

The league recommended two lists of seven people. The council will have to decide whether to approve the first list in its entirety. If it doesn’t, the council could then pick alternates from the second list, according to city records.

The council could also request more recommendations from the league if not satisfied with the nominees.

Under the new district voting system, the mayoral seat will continue to be elected by voters citywide, but the six council seats would be picked by voters in their respective districts.

Advocates for district elections have argued the change should give better representation to south Merced, an area of town some consider neglected. All six sitting councilmen in Merced live north of Bear Creek.

The league has said the best-suited committee would be made up of a diverse group of people from all parts of the city. According to the applications from the first list, the committee would be made up entirely of registered voters who have lived in the city for as little as 21/2 years and as long as 52 years.

The applications did not ask for each person’s gender, but did ask about ethnicity. Of the nominees, one each marked the categories of black; Asian or Pacific Islander; white; and other. Two marked the Hispanic category, and one nominee marked both the white and Hispanic boxes.

On the second list, three nominees identified as Asian or Pacific Islander, one marked Hispanic and two did not mark any box, according to city records. On that list, all seven have lived in Merced eight years or longer. Six are registered voters and one left the box blank.

In the last election, voters narrowly passed a measure to eliminate the city’s at-large voting system in an effort to comply with demands from the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The civil rights group threatened to sue the city about a year ago for not having district elections.

Several other cities in the Valley are also making the change rather than face litigation over what some see as a violation of the California Voting Rights Act.

The city agreed to a settlement with the civil rights group that the districts would use the Santa Fe railroad tracks as a boundary that would split the city in half. The tracks also split the nominees from both lists, with seven living on each side.

According to city employees, the plan is to have the commission set this month and come up with the design for districts by November.

This story was originally published March 1, 2015 at 5:28 PM with the headline "Merced City Council to decide on committee for new election districts."