Citizen Complaint: Redistricting of Supervisorial Districts

This finding describes the process with time lines for enacting a redistricting ordinance and denotes the dates and events that oc- curred in Trinity County in 2001. July 3, 2001 Board of Supervisors’ Meeting. The BOS Agenda for their regular meeting of July 3, 2001 included an item for the Clerk/Recorder/Elections Officer to inform the BOS about the 2000 census, its impact on current apportionment, and to request the BOS to appoint a citizens committee to assist in a redis- tricting recommendation. The Clerk/Recorder/Elections Officer indicated he had 3 applicants for such a committee and he wanted to have 7 members if possible. All agreed to work on the matter of establishing a committee. The Clerk/Recorder/Elections Officer said he intended to put the Census Bureau information onto the County’s Geographic Infor- mation System (GIS) maps. The BOS concurred. August 7, 2001 Board of Supervisors’ Meeting. The BOS regular meeting agenda of August 7, 2001 introduced the Redistricting Plan. At this time the Clerk/Recorder/Elections Of- ficer reported that the County’s timelines were much shorter than in past years due to the Primary election month changing from June to March. A memo from the California Secretary of State said that the reapportionment had to be completed 45 days prior to the dead- line for filing candidacy for public office in the next election (which is the March 2002 primary). Therefore, the reapportionment ordi- nance would need to be in place by September 28, 2001. The Clerk/ Recorder/Elections Officer stated that the data from the Census would not be available until August 8, 2001. He further outlined that the following schedule must be adhered to: 1. The ordinance must be in effect by September 28, 2001. 2. To be in effect, 30 days must elapse from the time the ordinance is adopted, which means the ordinance must be adopted by August 28, 2001; and the law requires that of such an ordinance must be at a regular (not a special) meeting of the BOS. 3. There must be 5 days between the introduction of the ordinance and its adoption. The decision was made to continue the August 7, 2001 meeting to August 14, 2001 for introducing the ordinance. August 14, 2001 Board of Supervisors’ Meeting. When the ordinance was introduced, the Clerk/Recorder/Elections Officer provided the BOS and everyone attending the meeting, a display of the existing and proposed maps detailing the superviso- rial district boundaries, copies of the legal descriptions of those boundaries, and copies of a written summary, “Trinity County Re- districting Plan.” The written summary, “Trinity County Redistricting Plan” hand- out, and the actual text of the ordinance which consists of the legal descriptions of the boundaries, differed from each other in their description of the boundary locations in the East Weaver Creek area of Weaverville. These differences led to inaccurate reporting in the Trinity Journal and a general misrepresentation of the bound- ary location in the East Weaver Creek area. August 21, 2001, Board of Supervisors’ Meeting. The BOS Agenda for their regular meeting on August 21, 2001 listed the Redistricting Ordinance as an Action Item. The minutes of this meeting record the adoption of the ordinance as described by the legal description of boundaries. The law requires that the BOS can either publish a summary of the ordinance within 15 days of enacting or publish the ordinance in its entirety within 30 days of enactment. The ordinance was published in its entirety within 30 days in the September 5, 2001 issue of the Trinity Journal. A news article in the August 30, 2001 issue of the Trinity Journal, covering this decision, quoted the “Trinity County Redistricting Plan” rather than the legal description, which comprises the ordi- nance as adopted. Not all tapes of the July and August BOS meetings were available to the Committee for viewing. The County Clerk’s office did not know where they were.

This finding describes the process and timelines for public recourse to an enacted ordinance. Means of recourse are required to be completed within 30 days of the adoption of the ordinance or they are considered invalid. With this redistricting ordinance, the 30-day deadline was September 21, 2001, for either of the following means of recourse: l. Within 30 days of adoption, a citizen can claim that the new boundaries do not reflect real census and they can go to the Supe- rior Court for action which forces the BOS to revisit the ordinance. 2. Within 30 days of adoption, ten percent (10%) of the voters can sign a referendum to the BOS to challenge their decision. This ref- erendum is filed with the County Elections Department.