The end of "at large" voting in Vista Unified School District

The VUSD board has voted to end 'at large' voting for school board members starting with the 2012 school board election. This means our school district will be divided into five small voting districts and each of the five board members will be elected from the one smaller voting district that they live in.

School boards and city councils throughout California are being forced to get rid of 'at large' voting for school board and city council candidates as a result of a couple of court decisions which determine that district wide 'at large' voting tends to discriminate against Latino candidates. The court rulings are based on the state of California's Voting Rights Act.

In dozens and dozens of districts across California with a majority of Hispanics in the population, but whose school board or city council members, there has been a threat by a national group with a California office in San Francisco called the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of expensive lawsuits if the 'at large' system is not dumped.

Madera Unified School District and the City of Modesto chose to fight the lawsuits and both lost. It cost Madera Unified 1.2 million dollars to lose and the City of Modesto three million dollars to lose.

The Los Angeles Times has a wonderful article about this issue of "at large' voting being discriminatory. It is very informative and thorough. Read it here.

Our local VUSD has repeatedly been threatened by Roxy, an infamous North County Times blogger, with similar legal problems like Madera had. In addition our local District English Learner's Advisory Committee (DELAC) has a new president Eduardo Preciado who along with members Alejandro Sanchez and Tina Jillings have also brought up the Madera lawsuit at DELAC meetings and at the school board meetings. The issue is very alive in our district.

Tina Jillings is an out spoken advocate for Hispanic rights. She ran for a City Council seat here in Vista a couple of years ago. The San Diego Minuteman hate her. On that basis alone I like her. She has spark and gumption and I believe if she did get a California Voters Rights lawsuit filed against VUSD, she would win.

Our school board cannot afford to ignore this clear and present danger to our already severely cut back school funds. They have prudently voted to divide our school districts into smaller 'sub' districts as quickly as possible which in our case is the 2012 election cycle. Likely the City of Vista will be doing the same thing soon along with many other school board and cities throughout San Diego County and California.

So who is against the idea? Jim Gibson and his buddy, North County Times editor, Kent Davy.

Gibson was the only VUSD school board member to vote and speak against the idea. Jim quote in the North County Times was something about being afraid that if the 'at large' system for electing school board members were enacted than school board members from the local 'sub' district voting area would actually serve the interest of that area rather than the grander political controversies, Jimmy, likes to advocate for. Remember his Carrie Prejean Day fiasco? In Jim's weird world it is terrible to have all five school board members (instead of only four currently) actually have the education and welfare of our VUSD students as their top priority.

Jim Gibson has taken his views to Kent Davy, the NCTimes editor, and Kent has dutifully written an editorial for Jim in today's North County Times.

Besides Jim Gibson, Kent Davy,and the San Diego Minuteman, the Pacific Legal Foundation is also against the idea of getting rid of 'at large' elections for school board and city councils. The Pacific Legal Foundation is a pro lung cancer, pro pollution group that advocates for and gets it funding from Big Tobacco (Phillip Morris). With enemies like these, I am finding I am more and more in favor of this idea of getting rid of 'at large' elections. Of course no matter how any one feels about the idea, it is going to happen. Either by expensive court action or by a reasonable process organized by our local school board and likely our Vista City Council.

NOTE: However the final plan for dividing up our school district comes out, it will not take effect until it is also approved by the San Diego County of Education and the State of California State Board of Education. I am sure the process of dividing the district will be contentious but with three levels of scrutiny, the final plan should be fair.