Meredith, Alyssa
From:
Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2023 10:03 AM
To: Schultz, Nick
Subject: Change to District Elections
CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Hey Nick, Jamal here. I saw last week council meeting on Youtube. I have some concerns about switching Burbank to district voting.
What immediately comes to mind is gerrymandering, where politicians become entrenched and are able to cherry pick their voters, instead of being accountable to all of Burbank voters.
Anyway, love to chop it up with you and hear your thoughts on the topic. Let's grab that coffee soon.
All the best,
Jamal
Jamal
Meredith, Alyssa
From: David A. Holtzman
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2023 1:28 PM
To: City Council DL
Subject: The Rush to Carve Burbank into Districts
Attachments: 2023-02-28-iM-DHoltzmanCommentsOnDistricting.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Please see the attached letter, dated today, February 28, 2023, the text of which may be found below.
Thank You,
- David Holtzman, Burbank Resident
Dear Honorable Members of the City Council:
RE: The Rush To Carve Burbank Into City Council Election Districts, Apparent From the Council Meetings on January 24 and February 14, 2023
It must feel awful to learn that you have agreed to spend taxpayer money because you got bad legal advice. I feel for you here! Watching you do it pained me, and it's not easy for me to have to tell you about it.
I found it especially painful to rewatch the January 24, 2023, City Council meeting. For instance, I saw that when Mayor Anthony asked the city-hired lawyer, who he later noted the city was paying by the minute, if the Council could pass an ordinance increasing the size of the Council, the lawyer said no. But the California law she had put on the screen minutes before, which purports to allow you (and she said does allow you) to institute district elections by ordinance, plainly points to other pieces of law to give a menu of council size ("five, seven, or nine") and mayor-council ("four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor") options.
I am a taxpayer living in Burbank. You should seriously consider recovering the taxpayer money, not just the money spent on her, but everything you have committed to spend on districting so far, from the attorney or her firm.
And to protect the city's civil society from harm, you should issue stop work orders to the contractors you agreed to pay, and should cancel the planned outreach, workshops, and hearings on the subject, all of which would likely prove to be divisive.
I am a redistricting commissioner. I have seen how people and firms get work related to drawing election district lines. They get paid a lot of money. Ordinarily, the work only comes available every 10 years, with each decade's census. Now it seems a districting / redistricting racket has emerged, and is coaxing or extorting work from municipal governments all decade long. Community organizations and other interest groups must also love the activity, because it lets them engage in an orgy of organizing. And fundraising.
No one, including myself, who was involved in any of Burbank's previous Charter review efforts should go along with the city's capitulation here, which almost seems to involve collusion with the redistricting racket. When Christopher Carson and Raphe Sonenshein were involved and I was arguing for instant runoff elections, I heard over and over that the only way to change the City Council's election method was to amend the city's charter. No one said we could get the state to enact a bill allowing the City Council to change its own election method.
Everyone understood that that would be unconstitutional.
A city charter is like a declaration of independence from general state law, accepted as inviolable by the state as provided by the state constitution, which gives city charters particular and unassailable authority when it comes to election methods approved by the voters and written in the charter. On that subject, see the February 8 letter I hand-delivered copies of, for each of you, to your office in City Hall.
Since the organizing and outreach and public meetings associated with drawing district lines all tend to focus on areas of division (after all, the function of the lines is to divide), the process tends to heighten social tensions. So it would be unfortunate to engage in district drawing when it's unnecessary.
And, as I mentioned in my letter, it *is* unnecessary. The City of Albany, California, settled a lawsuit by instituting an election method that organically provides voters with proportional representation of their interests - whatever those interests may be - without the need to draw districts. Albany's voters have enthusiastically embraced that method, Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (PRCV), and have enshrined it in their city charter.
Burbank should follow Albany's lead. The amount of money Burbank would have to spend to end or defeat the lawsuit threat here and implement Proportional Ranked Choice Voting would be tiny compared to the amount the city would end up paying the redistricting racket and spending on defending lawsuits if it fails to change course here and get out of the districting game. Please note, one lawsuit could come from Burbank voters aiming to block city officials from disrespecting or disregarding the at-large elections mandate in our City Charter.
Failure to take Burbank out of the districting game would end up being divisive as well as costly, as it would look like we're playing raceball here, or having the player selection draft for a five-team raceball league.
The County of Los Angeles Citizens Redistricting Commission I am on had a thorough analysis performed and found no evidence of racially polarized voting in county supervisor elections. I doubt there is any evidence of racially polarized voting in city council elections in Burbank. There is no need to play raceball here.
Burbank voters are interested in a variety of issues, not just identity politics, and in the whole city, not just part of it. And if they are at all like me, they appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on visions for our city by voting in city council elections every two years. Needing to wait four years between council elections would seem ridiculous and unfair.
Still, if you are looking to change Burbank's city council election method to one that more readily provides representation of non-majority voting blocs, on whatever basis they form, please investigate Proportional Ranked Choice Voting, which fits that bill. If you like what it can do, which I believe you will, you should ask Burbank's voters to amend the city charter so the city will use PRCV for city elections.
DAVID A. HOLTZMAN, M.P.H., J.D.
BURBANK, CA 91502
February 28, 2023
City Council
City of Burbank, Califormia
via [email protected]
Dear Honorable Members of the City Council:
RE: The Rush To Carve Burbank Into City Council Election Districts, Apparent From the Council Meetings on January 24 and February 14, 2023
It must feel awful to learn that you have agreed to spend taxpayer money because you got bad legal advice. I feel for you here! Watching you do it pained me, and it's not easy for me to have to tell you about it.
I found it especially painful to rewatch the January 24, 2023, City Council meeting. For instance, I saw that when Mayor Anthony asked the city-hired lawyer, who he later noted the city was paying by the minute, if the Council could pass an ordinance increasing the size of the Council, the lawyer said no. But the California law she had put on the screen minutes before, which purports to allow you (and she said does allow you) to institute district elections by ordinance, plainly points to other pieces of law to give a menu of council size ("five, seven, or nine") and mayor- council ("four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor") options.
I am a taxpayer living in Burbank. You should seriously consider recovering the taxpayer money, not just the money spent on her, but everything you have committed to spend on districting so far, from the attorney or her firm.
And to protect the city's civil society from harm, you should issue stop work orders to the contractors you agreed to pay, and
should cancel the planned outreach, workshops, and hearings on the subject, all of which would likely prove to be divisive.
I am a redistricting commissioner. I have seen how people and firms get work related to drawing election district lines. They get paid a lot of money. Ordinarily, the work only comes available every 10 years, with each decade's census. Now it seems a districting / redistricting racket has emerged, and is coaxing or extorting work from municipal governments all decade long. Community
organizations and other interest groups must also love the activity, because it lets them engage in an orgy of organizing. And fundraising.
No one, including myself, who was involved in any of
Burbank's previous Charter review efforts should go along with the city's capitulation here, which almost seems to involve collusion with the redistricting racket. When Christopher Carson and Raphe Sonenshein were involved and I was arguing for instant runoff elections, I heard over and over that the only way to change the City Council's election method was to amend the city's charter. No one said we could get the state to enact a bill allowing the City Council to change its own election method. Everyone understood that that would be unconstitutional.
A city charter is like a declaration of independence from general state law, accepted as inviolable by the state as provided by the state constitution, which gives city charters particular and unassailable authority when it comes to election methods approved by the voters and written in the charter. On that subject, see the February 8 letter I hand-delivered copies of, for each of you, to your office in City Hall.
Since the organizing and outreach and public meetings
associated with drawing district lines all tend to focus on areas of division (after all, the function of the lines is to divide), the process tends to heighten social tensions. So it would be unfortunate to engage in district drawing when it's unnecessary.
And, as I mentioned in my letter, it *is* unnecessary. The City of Albany, California, settled a lawsuit by instituting an election method that organically provides voters with
proportional representation of their interests - whatever those interests may be - without the need to draw districts. Albany's voters have enthusiastically embraced that method, Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (PRCV), and have enshrined it in their city charter.
Burbank should follow Albany's lead. The amount of money Burbank would have to spend to end or defeat the lawsuit threat here and implement Proportional Ranked Choice Voting would be tiny compared to the amount the city would end up paying the redistricting racket and spending on defending lawsuits if it fails to change course here and get out of the districting game. Please note, one lawsuit could come from Burbank voters aiming to block city officials from disrespecting or disregarding the at-large elections mandate in our City Charter.
Failure to take Burbank out of the districting game would end up being divisive as well as costly, as it would look like we're playing raceball here, or having the player selection draft for a five- team raceball league.
The County of Los Angeles Citizens Redistricting Commission I am on had a thorough analysis performed and found no evidence of racially polarized voting in county supervisor elections. I doubt there is any evidence of racially polarized voting in city council elections in Burbank. There is no need to play raceball here.
Burbank voters are interested in a variety of issues, not just identity politics, and in the whole city, not just part of it. And if they are at all like me, they appreciate the opportunity to weigh in on visions for our city by voting in city council elections every two years. Needing to wait four years between council elections would seem ridiculous and unfair.
Still, if you are looking to change Burbank's city council election method to one that more readily provides representation of non-majority voting blocs, on whatever basis they form, please investigate Proportional Ranked Choice Voting, which fits that bill.
If you like what it can do, which I believe you will, you should ask Burbank's voters to amend the city charter so the city will use PRCV for city elections.
Sincerely,
David Holtzman
Meredith, Alyssa
From:
Sent: Monday, March 13, 2023 11:36 AM
To: City Council DL
Subject: Comments about Agenda Item K.1 for March 14, 2023 meeting CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Dear Mayor Anthony, Vice-Mayor Schultz and council members, I'm writing in regard to agenda item K.1 regarding the election redistricting to be implemented for the 2024 elections.
We understand that Burbank has no choice but to comply with CA laws once the lawsuit was filed.
Few ideas have been floated about the number of future council members and the creation of a weak mayor's position in Burbank.
First, the creation of a weak Mayor's position makes no sense since the mayor will have no authority and will not be involved in the vital decision making that impact the city, but at the same time will cost the city a lot of money to maintain the position and staff to handle the daily activities/scheduling of the mayor and the city cannot afford such additional burden for a non essential position. The title of Mayor should be reserved for council members who dedicate their time and effort everyday and actually make the vital and binding decisions that impact the city and those members deserve the recognition and title of mayor which is done in a rotation to recognize all council members and their service.
Second, there were talks about increasing the number of council members from 5 to maybe 7. This approach also makes no sense for a small city like Burbank since that will divide the city into 7 districts with approximately 15,300 residents each and will divide the city instead of bringing them together since each district will push for their needs only without regards to the welfare of the city as a whole. And if you consider that there are only 70K registered voters in Burbank, that means each district will have only 10K registered voters, out of which only 53% actually vote as we have seen in 2022 and that means small fraction of residents will have an outsized influence on the city as a whole and at the same time force council members to seek only the advice of those voters since their election depend on them.
We recommend that the council keep the number of district to only 5 and not consider the position of a weak mayor.
Thank you for your service and everything you do for the city, Sincerely yours
ANCA Burbank
2 Meredith, Alyssa
From:
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2023 2:59 PM
To: City Council DL; Perez, Nikki; Mullins, Zizette; Takahashi, Tamala; Anthony, Konstantine; Schultz, Nick
Subject: District Elections - Agenda Item K-1 - Oppose to District Change CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Members of Council,
Tonight you are tasked with a hearing and discussion about complying with a new form of government. I hope you will speak up for democracy and actual voting rights, rather than the euphemistically misnamed law you are being threatened to comply with. The irony of changing how the most directly elected officials are voted into office without a direct vote of the people who elect them should not be overlooked.
Please speak up for the continued erosion of voting rights here at home. It's easy to cast aspersions on other states governed by other parties. We should not cast stones when California enacts its own laws without a direct vote of the people. Changing a form of government without consent is about as basic as it gets when it comes to representation.
Call out the undemocratic lawmakers, by name, who took our rights. Please join any effort to find a legal way to avoid this undemocratic take-over.
All of your constituent,
Simon Hammel.
Meredith, Alyssa
From:
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2023 2:18 PM
To: City Council DL
Cc: Clark, Kimberley
Subject: First Public Hearing: City's Transition to District-Based City Council Elections CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Esteemed Mayor, Vice Mayor
and Council Members,
I read with great interest the beginning of the transition to five Council Districts in the City. It looks like a thorough and useful process. It will require a Charter Amendment. That affords the City an opportunity to extend the future campaign seasons into a primary and a run-off.
As part of your discussion tonight, please also consider giving direction to the Charter Review Ad Hoc Committee to include a full discussion of restoring the Primary (in March or June, as necessary). Let's not miss the opportunity for winning candidates and registered voters alike to be assured of majority vote in each of our new districts.
Thank you for your consideration,
Emily
Emily Gabel-Luddy
Meredith, Alyssa
From: David Holtzman
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2023 3:57 PM
To: City Council DL
Subject: Perspective of a redistricting commissioner about the proposal to approve an amended districting process timeline tonight. (Agenda Item K.)
Attachments: 2023-03-14-iK-DHoltzmanCommentsOpposingConflictGaslightingEtc.pdf CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe.
Please see the attached letter, dated today, the text of which may be found below.
Thank You,
- David Holtzman, Burbank Resident
City Council
City of Burbank, Califormia
via [email protected]
Dear Honorable Members of the City Council:
RE: Perspective of a redistricting commissioner about the proposal to approve an amended districting process timeline tonight. (Agenda Item K.)
Please see my remarks below. I was thinking of using them as the script for my public comments at tonight's City Council meeting, but do not think I could read them all in three minutes.
Remarks:
I am a redistricting commissioner. Yes, a member of a commission whose job it is to draw election district lines. My commission is called the County of Los Angeles Citizens Redistricting Commission, and it's designed to be independent. Independent, especially, of the incumbents in the elected offices we were drawing the districts for! So what are you doing here? Voting for a timeline that doesn't involve your delegating the authority to establish your council's districts to anybody other than yourselves? Letting your demographer tell the world that it's traditional to "avoid unnecessary pairing of incumbents" to smooth the path to biasing the district map in your favor? My commission wasn't allowed to consider where incumbents live at all! C'mon, if you're going to have a timeline for districting, having one that doesn't include you giving final line-drawing authority to an independent commission just won't do. I think of all of you as fair minded; drawing your own districts doesn't suit you.
I'm not speaking for my commission here, but let me tell you that districting or redistricting is a pain in the ass. It literally divides society and promotes stereotypes. You should not do it if you do not have to, and you don't.
In fact, if you do do it, if you come up with districts and dividing lines on a map, you won't be able to use those lines for a city council election unless the voters you have just put through an offensive process for some reason amend the city charter first. So what are you doing here? Voting for a timeline to come up with election districts that can't be used in an election? Why?
The law does not require the City of Burbank City Council to carve up the city into city council election districts. The law prohibits that. That's right, the California Constitution and the Burbank City Charter prohibit Burbank from having city council elections by district. So why are you even thinking about continuing to do what you're doing here, carving Burbank into pieces? Stop it. Stop it now!
Whenever I think of districts, I think of how the brutal games in "The Hunger Games" were based on districts, or of the racism and corruption among city council members in the City of Los Angeles that came from having districts. What are you doing here in Burbank? Stop it now.
Look, I am offering to use my legal skills to help the City Attorney beat back the unconstitutional lawsuit threat here in an inexpensive, efficient manner. I would volunteer my time.
But if you go through with districting, somebody's gonna sue to stop whatever districts you come up with from being used in even one city council election. Who will sue? Maybe two candidates who live near each other, who would work well together, and don't think they should be forced to run against each other. Maybe a taxpayer who dislikes the stupid spending here, and the specter of more every ten years in the future. Maybe a Burbank voter who does not like the prospect of having to wait four years instead of two between voting in city council elections and of no longer being able to weigh in on the election of all council members. Maybe voters or taxpayers who are members of OneBurbank.org, which I have just founded to prevent the division of Burbank.
2 So please consider letting me help the city rather than sue the city. Please ask the City Attorney to contact me (I've already given him my card) so I can help him help you efficiently stop the unconstitutional lawsuit threat here. The city should not have to pay the threat- maker a dime.
One more thing: Please have someone fix the website reached via http://www.burbankcouncildistricting.com/ so it is no longer gaslighting Burbank residents with lies. The lies include:
• "The City of Burbank... is changing how voters elect City Council representatives" • "Burbank residents will vote for one City Council member who lives within their district."
• "the final map that will define how residents elect their councilmembers" • "What will change in Burbank?", and
• Under a new, by-district system, voters will elect a single councilmember who also lives in the same voting district as them.
Those words depict a false reality. In truth, all that can only happen if Burbank voters approve.
The website is making it seem like a done deal in the name of the City of Burbank. And to those who know the facts, that looks like an attempt to disenfranchise Burbank voters by gaslighting the public.
Telling the truth would require saying things like:
• "The City of Burbank ... is considering changing how voters elect City Council representatives"
• "If Burbank's voters change the city's election method by approving a charter amendment, Burbank residents would vote for one City Council member who lives within their district."
• "a map that might define how residents elect their councilmembers, and would need to be revised every 10 years after U.S. Census"
• "What might change in Burbank?", and
• If Burbank's voters enact a by-district system by approving a charter amendment, each voter would be limited to voting in an every-four-year election of a single councilmember, with every candidate required to be a resident of the same voting district as the voter.
3 NOTE: The "helpline" operated by Arellano Associates is promulgating similar lies.
The bottom line here is, you should not district Burbank if you do not have to do it, and you don't.
Sincerely,
/sl
David Holtzman
**No Council Districts**
DAVID A. HOLTZMAN, M.P.H., J.D.
BURBANK, CA 91502
March 14, 2023
City Council
City of Burbank, Califormia
via [email protected]
Dear Honorable Members of the City Council:
RE: Perspective of a redistricting commissioner about the proposal to approve an amended districting process timeline tonight. (Agenda Item K.)
Please see my remarks below. I was thinking of using them as the script for my public comments at tonight's City Council meeting, but do not think I could read them all in three minutes.
Remarks:
I am a redistricting commissioner. Yes, a member of a
commission whose job it is to draw election district lines. My commission is called the County of Los Angeles Citizens Redistricting Commission, and it's designed to be independent.
Independent, especially, of the incumbents in the elected offices we were drawing the districts for!
So what are you doing here? Voting for a timeline that doesn't involve your delegating the authority to establish your council's districts to anybody other than yourselves? Letting your demographer tell the world that it's traditional to "avoid unnecessary pairing of incumbents" to smooth the path to biasing the district map in your favor?
My commission wasn't allowed to consider where incumbents live at all!
C'mon, if you're going to have a timeline for districting, having one that doesn't include you giving final line-drawing authority to an
independent commission just won't do. I think of all of you as fair minded; drawing your own districts doesn't suit you.
I'm not speaking for my commission here, but let me tell you that districting or redistricting is a pain in the ass. It literally divides society and promotes stereotypes. You should not do it if you do not have to, and you don't.
In fact, if you do do it, if you come up with districts and dividing lines on a map, you won't be able to use those lines for a city council election unless the voters you have just put through an offensive process for some reason amend the city charter first. So what are you doing here? Voting for a timeline to come up with election districts that can't be used in an election? Why? The law does not require the City of Burbank City Council to carve up the city into city council election districts. The law prohibits that. That's right, the California Constitution and the Burbank City Charter prohibit Burbank from having city council elections by district. So why are you even thinking about continuing to do what you're doing here, carving Burbank into pieces? Stop it. Stop it now!
Whenever I think of districts, I think of how the brutal games in "The Hunger Games" were based on districts, or of the racism and corruption among city council members in the City of Los Angeles that came from having districts. What are you doing here in Burbank? Stop it now.
Look, I am offering to use my legal skills to help the City Attorney beat back the unconstitutional lawsuit threat here in an inexpensive, efficient manner. I would volunteer my time.
But if you go through with districting, somebody's gonna sue to stop whatever districts you come up with from being used in even one city council election. Who will sue? Maybe two candidates who live near each other, who would work well together, and don't think they should be forced to run against each other. Maybe a taxpayer who dislikes the stupid spending here, and the specter of more
every ten years in the future. Maybe a Burbank voter who does not like the prospect of having to wait four years instead of two between voting in city council elections and of no longer being able to weigh in on the election of all council members. Maybe voters or taxpayers who are members of OneBurbank.org, which I have just founded to prevent the division of Burbank.
So please consider letting me help the city rather than sue the city.
Please ask the City Attorney to contact me (I've already given him my card) so I can help him help you efficiently stop the unconstitutional lawsuit threat here. The city should not have to pay the threat-maker a dime.
One more thing: Please have someone fix the website reached via http://www.burbankcouncildistricting.com/ so it is no longer gaslighting Burbank residents with lies. The lies include:
• "The City of Burbank ... is changing how voters elect City Council representatives"
• "Burbank residents will vote for one City Council member who lives within their district."
• "the final map that will define how residents elect their councilmembers"
• "What will change in Burbank?" , and
• Under a new, by-district system, voters will elect a single councilmember who also lives in the same voting district as them.
Those words depict a false reality. In truth, all that can only happen if Burbank voters approve. The website is making it seem like a done deal in the name of the City of Burbank. And to those who know the facts, that looks like an attempt to disenfranchise Burbank voters by gaslighting the public.
Telling the truth would require saying things like:
• "The City of Burbank ... is considering changing how voters elect City Council representatives"
• "If Burbank's voters change the city's election method by approving a charter amendment, Burbank residents would
vote for one City Council member who lives within their district."
• "a map that might define how residents elect their
councilmembers, and would need to be revised every 10
years after U.S. Census"
• "What might change in Burbank?" , and
• If Burbank's voters enact a by-district system by
approving a charter amendment, each voter would be
limited to voting in an every-four-year election of a single councilmember, with every candidate required to be a
resident of the same voting district as the voter.
NOTE: The "helpline" operated by Arellano
Associates is promulgating similar lies.
The bottom line here is, you should not district Burbank if you do not have to do it, and you don't.
Sincerely,
David Holtzman
[email protected]
Agenda Item: eComments for 1. First Public Hearing Regarding the Composition of Districts for the City's Transition to District- Based City Council Elections - City Attorney's Office
Overall Sentiment
Support 3%
Oppase: 100%1
Neutral
No RespanscioN)
David Holtzman
Location: 91502, Burbank
Submitted At: 11:43am 03-14-23
In Jan, on bad advice, you declared your intention to have the city do something that is illegal under current law (the city charter and state constitution). Approving the amended schedule would indicate that you would still like to see that happen. It would not show respect for current law.
If you think your job entails protecting Burbank taxpayers from unnecessary expenses, you have failed here. But you can do better in the future if you stop the city from spending on districting as soon as you can. There is no lawsuit here, and if one arrives, a cheap simple demurrer would make it go away.