Editorial:

City of Chula Vista, Proposition B: City Council Vacancies

Shall the City Charter be amended so that, if a City Council seat becomes vacant with more than 12 months and less than 25 months remaining in the term, the Council may fill the vacancy by appointment or call a special election; and so that in any special election to fill a vacancy, a candidate receiving over 50% of votes cast is deemed the winner with no run-off required?

Prop B is one of those propositions that started out as a good idea and instead of stopping there, with the good idea, the politicians had to go and ruin the whole thing by adding on more than what was needed.

The good idea part of this proposition was that when filling a vacant city council seat by special election, the ruling of a manditory runoff is scrapped if a candidate receives 50% of the votes cast. What this would do is eliminate the need for a runoff between the two top vote getters. This part would save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

If the city council had stopped at this point, Prop B would have been a good proposition. But no they had to go and add more changes to the city charter.

At present a vacant city council seat can be filled by appoint if there is less than 12 months left in the term. If there is more than 12 months left in a term, then the seat must be filled by the voters via a special election. The added change would be to extend the number of months from 12 to 25 months where the city council will have the option to appoint a board member.

The option for the council to appoint a Councilmember with more than half a term left circumvents Democracy and allows for the possibility of three council members manipulating the city council by appointment. We have seen this process of electoral manipulation at the school board level in Chula Vista where at one time most of those board members had gained their seats via the appointment process. Once appointed, and with the incumbent tag, those “insiders” are practically guaranteed re-election to the seat.

Men and women live and die to ensure our form of government and protect our rights as a Democracy. As citizens we have the right to elect our representatives. This expanded appointment process eliminates our right to elect that representation!

The main argument in favor of this proposition is that it saves the city money. Our argument against Prop B is that our forefathers and our military men and women have paid a much higher price to ensure our right to elected representation. Let’s not cheapen that right just to save a few dollars on those rare occasions when a special election is called for.

Vote NO on Prop. B