This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Hold District Elections Instead of Downsizing City Council

Give city voters, and candidates, a break by considering district elections instead of citywide elections.

City Council Member Ursula Reed created a buzz last week when she suggested we downsize the city council from six to four members. Some people in the city are concerned the city is running out of qualified potential candidates.

Running citywide, as council members do in San Leandro, is no picnic. Also, term limits, a conservative concept, is proving to be shortsighted in the long run. I would recommend the reform of district elections, which has several appealing advantages.

Traditionally, the people who oppose district elections argue that council members should represent the whole city, beyond their district. If you look a little closer at their campaign contributors, you see that some of the critics of district elections have very close ties with interest groups, which makes it hard for them, in practice, to put the whole city before their major contributors.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Congressman Barney Frank once quipped, "politicians are the only group of people who can take large sums of money from people and claim it has no effect on how they legislate." I have yet to see a local candidate focus on the plight of the unemployed, or on usury. Yet if they represented everyone, these issue would be a priority, especially for people who campaign as fighting for the working person and consumers.

I support district elections because progressives see district elections as a positive reform, making money less of a factor in races.

Find out what's happening in San Leandrowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When I first moved to San leandro I was working for a big political mailing company, and my job was to focus on candidates working without consultants in local races. Time and again I heard stories about the frustration of candidates running citywide without much money. Locally, you can easily spend $20,000 on campaign mailers, often out of your own pocket, at a time when voters' mailboxes are getting bombarded with them, primarily from well-heeled statewide and federal campaigns.

Your message can easily get lost in the blizzard of mailers. It's not something that entices people to run.

Running by district is not a cakewalk either, but it's easier. A candidate and friends would need to do about a 100 shifts of canvassing for a district race. Realistically that would mean maybe 60 or 70 nights of door knocking by the candidate, and 30 or more nights by friends, which is  a fairly big "ask."But at least it would be a somewhat manageable project.

Mailing would be much cheaper, and phone banking would also be very manageable.

A downsized city council would also mean more committee work for each city council member, something that would not attract many candidates, especially since the job only pays $10,000 or so a year.

The major interest groups in the city may oppose district elections but it's a reasonable fix for a system that is obviously in need of repair.

District elections are good for local democracy for both voters and candidates. Many other cities have moved to district elections including Oakland and San Francisco.

There are many factors that short circuit people's involvement in local politics, including the fact that most campaign resources go into political ads, leaving local political party organizations weak or non existent. Also, people get very little local political news from TV since stations usually cover a larger region, like the Bay Area.

District elections could be a step in the right direction, making candidate/voter contact easier and making running for office more appealing for potential candidates. 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?