The Gavilan Joint Community College District held an informational meeting about proposed changes to its trustee election process on Aug. 1 in Hollister’s Briggs Building, where the college has a satellite campus. Though the district is seeking community input, and some plans could change representation within San Benito County by reducing the number of local representatives from three to two, public turnout was low for the Hollister meeting, the second of three community information sessions.
The net effect of the proposal locally is expected to leave San Benito County with two districts rather than the three. Many years ago when San Benito Junior College district was established, it was created as a larger district which included southern Santa Clara County. Under the current system, districts are at-large, meaning candidates campaign in both San Benito and Santa Clara counties. If the new plan is approved, trustees would represent specific geographic districts only.
“In April, the Gavilan board voted to change trustee elections from at-large to by district,” said Jeanne Gobalet of Lapkoff and Gobalet Demographic Research, Inc., about the proposed changes to trustee elections.
The purpose of the meetings is to present three possible plans, to answer community questions, and take comments back to the board for their Aug. 11 meeting. The Hollister meeting on Aug. 1 had anaattendence of only 15 people.
That was an improvement over the prior meeting, Gobalet said, “We had a public meeting last Wednesday in Morgan Hill, but no one came to it. I understand someone came late, but we had left by then, unfortunately.”
One more meeting is planned for Aug. 4, at 6 p.m. in the North Lounge of the Gilroy Campus’ student center.
Gobalet said that after she takes public input to the board, there will be a chance for revisions and iterations to the trustee area plans “until people feel they have the best possible plans among which to choose.” The board will continue to hold public hearings before it makes its final decision, she said. “Eventually the board will adopt a plan and follow the steps prescribed by law to implement.” She added the plan is “expected to go into effect in time for the November 2016 elections.”
At the meeting, Gobalet presented three different plans, which split both San Benito and Santa Clara counties into seven trustee areas, where one trustee would be elected from each area. While Gobalet said the intention was to meet legal voting requirements and use the most current census data (2010), the three plans were varied in how they split the two counties, and in particular, the cities within.
“There’s different ways of interpreting the Federal Voting Rights Act, and the courts are still working on defining how to be in compliance with the Federal Voting Rights Act,” Gobalet said. “We are doing the best job we can of doing this implementation, while there’s still many questions.” She added, “The process of redistricting is really important, and it needs to be a public process.” She noted board meetings are open to the public, and the series of community information meetings is also intended to keep the process open.
“It’s really important to the registrar of voters that we used existing precinct boundaries as much as possible,” Gobalet said.
Future population shifts, as well as school district boundaries for high schools and elementary schools, Gobalet said, could not be taken into account for trustee area boundaries. “In this case, other considerations are important,” she said. Also of note were the possible creation of trustee areas that would contain more than one incumbent trustee, the result would mean that one trustee would need to leave the board. While the third draft plan had no trustee pairings, two of the plans did have conflicted areas.
“There are lots of tradeoffs involved in trying to draw boundaries for Gavilan,” Gobalet said.
Regarding the number of Hispanic-majority trustee areas, one of the draft plans created two such areas, while the other two plans created three such areas. Also of concern was taking city limits into account. The data presented showed San Juan Bautista would only be kept intact in one plan, while Gilroy and Morgan Hill were so large, they were split between trustee areas in all three plans. One plan had little regard for city limits, splitting Hollister and San Martin, as well.
Cesar Flores, president of San Benito County District of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), was the first community speaker. He said, “We have reviewed the plans that you have submitted, and we have developed our own. We felt that because of the proximity and relationship between Hollister and San Juan Bautista, it was key to keep them together.”
He noted past elections where a trustee candidate had support from the Hollister community, but was defeated by a candidate who was more popular in a larger city, such as Morgan Hill.
The plans presented by Gobalet claimed a population equality deviation of 7 percent, 8.6 percent and 8.6 percent, while the plan presented by LULAC claimed a 7.44 percent deviation. Additionally, the LULAC plan kept Hollister and San Juan Bautista in the same trustee area.
Cal State University Monterey Bay student Elizabeth Zepeda echoed Flores’ sentiment. She said, “It is only right to continue to be inclusive of these two areas and communities as a whole, and not divide them into two counties for the sake of meeting numbers. I encourage the board to keep San Juan Bautista and Hollister together as we already have so much in common and support each other.”
Mickie Luna, past California LULAC president and a Hollister City Councilwoman, was the third community speaker. She echoed the earlier sentiment that Hollister and San Juan Bautista be kept together. She urges the board to keep the two communities intact, and especially not to split San Juan Bautista as presented in one of the draft plans.
Another speaker, Steven Ochoa, national redistricting coordinator for the Mexican American Defense and Educational Fund, spoke in support of the LULAC plan. “I believe their hard work will show you they came up with a very reasonable plan,” he said. “I encourage the board to consider it and put it up for some public input as well.”
Other speakers commented on the need to keep trustee areas balanced, or the unfairness of the current at-large system, where income and populations give an advantage to Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
Andres Rodriguez commented on a need to get the word out to voters and students. “I really think that more people should be involved,” he said to a room with less than 20 people in it. He noted a need for people to learn “how districting can affect their neighborhoods and communities.”
Gobalet said the meetings have been publicized, noting both online and newspaper media. There are also online links, including the college’s website, where a copy of Gobalet’s PowerPoint presentation is available on the trustee page.
The next community meeting in the series is Aug. 4, and the next district board meeting is planned for Aug. 11, where information from the community meetings will be presented to the board by Gobalet. She noted a public hearing is planned for September of October.
Anyone who wants to submit written comments or testimony can either email administrative assistant Nancy Bailey at nbailey@gavilan.edu or mail their comments to her at the college campus, 5055 Santa Teresa Blvd., Gilroy, 95020.