Reasons to Support a return to At-Large Voting

Why Ojai needs to restore at large voting

Any serious discussion of Ojai's elections has to hold two legitimate objectives at once: protecting minority voters from vote dilution, and preserving competitive elections in which voters have meaningful choices among qualified candidates. These goals are not always in tension — but for Ojai, under SB 1164, 2026 amendments to the CA VOTING RIGHTS ACT (CVRA) --- they are. Reseach and experience show districts narrow the pool of candidates and the field of competition for any single seat, producing the uncontested races and low-turnout wins. In a small city like Ojai, with just 19 percent minority population, (and 11 % voting age) evenly distributed thoroughout the city, districting has further diluted their influence, CVRA has not benefited the minority voters districting was meant to help.

Ojai's History and Community

●      Ojai is a small, unified city of approximately 4.36 square miles, with ~7,600 residents, averaging 3,900 voters in the citywide mayor's races in 2022 and 2024.

●      Historically, Ojai elected its City Council members at large. Candidates sought support throughout the city and built broad community interest to serve greater good on citywide issues, not special interests.

●      Council elected citywide worked well with Ojai's small staff, which serves the whole city rather than separate district constituencies.

●      Latino candidate Severo Lara was elected to the Ojai City Council at-large in 2012 and served through 2016, including a term as the council-selected mayor. He later ran for Ojai's newly created directly-elected mayor seat in 2016 (lost to Johnny Johnston) and again in 2018 (finished second with 47.39% of the vote).

●      Four former council members have actively supported a return to at-large voting: Smith, Francina, Haney, and Weirick.

●      In 2024, Mayor Gilman was elected at-large with 2,702 (64%) of 4,216 total votes; in 2022, Mayor Stix was elected with 1,823 (50.1%) of 3,604 total votes.

●      During the 2024 campaign, Mayor Andy Gilman said many residents favored returning all four council seats to at-large elections, and it became a campaign promise.

How District Elections Began

●      CA VOTING RIGHTS ACT required minority reperesentation in local election (not dilution of their vote). Ojai's City Council adopted district elections in 2018, under legal pressure from attorney Kevin Shenkman's threatened lawsuit alleging inadequate minority representation, with the new system taking effect in 2020. A demographic study done at the time found a low minority population distributed evenly throughout the city. City adopted districts by ordinance, not a vote of the people.

●      The switch was made to reduce litigation risk — not because Ojai voters requested district representation or because the city had a large, underserved minority population.

●      In 2022, voters approved Measure M, (56% yes, 44% no) authorizing the Council to implement citywide elections as part of a ranked-choice voting initiative.

●      Unless a small-city carve-out is added to SB 1164, as written, Council action alone may no longer be enough to bring Ojai back to at-large elections without significant legal exposure — which is exactly why the safe harbor option must be amended into the bill.

Problems With the District System

●      in 2026, four of five Council seats are up for election, with six candidates running, yet each district voter may vote for only one Council candidate plus the Mayor---two votes.

●      Two of the six candidates are running unopposed as incumbants— Mayor Gilman running citywide and District 3 council member Whitman — limiting competition, voter choice, and public discussion on citywide issues of concern, with no chance to vote them out.

●      This isn't unique to Ojai. A December 2024 study by Preston Jordan (Voter Choice Albany) examined California cities with small electorates and found the share of uncontested council seats rose from about 8% (12 of 143 seats) under at-large elections to about 38% (31 of 82 seats) after those same cities switched to single-member districts — a statistically significant increase (p < 0.0001) found in every city studied.

●      Animosity has risen as neighbors within small districts compete for representation rather than addressing shared citywide interests.

●      District boundaries can cost Ojai experienced representatives and shrink the pool of qualified candidates willing to serve. Example: Suza Francina — a five-time council candidate, re-elected in 2020 — lost her rental of eight years about a year into that term when the property was sold. Because her district was limited to the south side of Ojai Avenue, she couldn't find another home there; rather than overstay her 30-day notice, she lived in a shower-less cabin on the north side (outside her district) while keeping a storage unit on the south side (inside it), was accused of lying about being homeless, and was reported to the Grand Jury and the FPPC over the residency question. She ultimately rented a room in District 4 to finish her term. (Ojai Valley News, “Why we need to return to city-wide elections,” 5/8/2026)

●      District races can be decided by very small numbers of voters even though council members make decisions affecting the entire city. In 2024, Kim Mang ran unopposed for the District 4 seat with no prior government experience and was elected with 724 votes.

●      District elections encourage narrow district or special-interest concerns over decisions serving Ojai as a whole, making it harder to hold the Council accountable on citywide issues.

●      It's much easier to finance a campaign and “flood the zone” with literature in a small district than to build the broad, issue-focused appeal a citywide race requires.

Demographic Evidence and Research

●      Ojai's minority voters are spread throughout the city rather than concentrated in one district.

●      Recent demographic analysis found district elections have not improved Latino voters' ability to elect their preferred candidates, where white voters outnumber minority voters roughly five to one.

●      Dividing these voters among four districts fragments rather than strengthens their collective influence.

●      Citywide elections could let Latino and Asian American voters build broader coalitions behind their preferred candidates.

●      California Law Review research found inconsistent results from district elections, including little or negative change in minority representation in smaller communities.

●      The research supports letting communities choose election systems suited to their size, geography, and demographics — not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Benefits of Citywide Elections

●      Every voter could vote for — and hold accountable — every City Council member.

●      Candidates would need to earn support throughout Ojai and address citywide concerns like affordability, the housing shortage, emergency preparedness, and economic diversity — building more unity around shared priorities.

●      A broader electorate would encourage stronger candidates to run, wider coalition-building, and more issue-focused campaigns.

●      Council members would be accountable to the entire community and encouraged to pursue Ojai's common good.

●      Restoring citywide elections would strengthen voter choice, accountability, civic unity, and representative democracy.

References

2022 voters passed Measure M (56% yes, 44% no) Ballot question: "Shall the voters authorize, at the discretion of the City Council, the use of ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting and allowing voters to rank candidates for elected office in order of preference, to elect City offices at-large, thereby amending the Ojai Municipal Code to no longer elect City Council members by district, if the City Council implements it starting with the November 2024 general election?" ___________________________________________________________________________________________ Ventura County Star Editorial, “Ojai too small for district elections,” Oct. 27, 2018;

Editorial: Ojai is too small for district elections

Oct. 27, 2018, 6:00 a.m. PT

The “election by district” train continues to roll through Ventura County, this time threatening Ojai with an expensive lawsuit if it doesn’t change its at-large, citywide method of electing city council members.

We endorsed district elections for council members in Oxnard, the largest city in the county, but hedged in two of our other relatively large cities, Ventura and Simi Valley. Not wanting to fight costly and likely unsuccessful legal battles, all three cities opted to switch to district elections.

Ojai is a different story. With a population of only 7,600, the county’s smallest city and its minority residents would likely see more harm than good from district elections.

The remedy is district elections, where a city is divided into geographical areas that elect their own representatives, like Ventura County has long done with its Board of Supervisors and the Ventura and Oxnard city councils are doing beginning Nov. 6. The Simi Valley council will switch starting in 2020.

Only a few lawsuits were filed against cities in the first decade after the state law was passed, but there’s been a flurry since. Some detractors say a small group of attorneys discovered they could make a big profit off the act, which requires losing cities to pay all legal fees. So far, every city that has gone to court has lost, and the legal bills have not been cheap — $4.7 million in Modesto and $4.5 million in Palmdale, for example.

The attorneys have also been targeting school districts. Ventura Unified will hold its first district elections next month, and the Moorpark and Simi Valley school boards have decided — under threat of litigation — to make the move, too. Conejo Valley Unified is still mulling what to do.

The lawsuit threat against Ojai comes from attorney Kevin Shenkman and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Latino voter participation organization. While we agree with their general aim to increase Latino representation in local government, we dislike their methods and believe they are misguided in Ojai’s case.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Ojai’s population is 16.4 percent Latino. Its city council currently lacks a Latino member, although Severo Lara served from 2012-16 and is now running for mayor. Ojai had only 4,871 registered voters as of Sept. 12, so splitting it into four or five districts would leave each with only 1,000 or so voters. The smallest Ventura council district has more than six times that amount.

“Where minority-race voters are spread relatively evenly throughout a city, as with Latino voters in Ojai, a district-based electoral system ... is equally likely to dilute the vote of a minority race unable to account for the majority of voters within any district boundaries,” a city staff report points out.

The Ojai council Tuesday held the first of four public hearings on how to transition to a district system but has not made a final decision yet. At this point, its fate is probably sealed, but we urge it to support the argument some Santa Monica leaders are making as they wage an expensive court battle:

The Legislature should either make district elections mandatory for all, or change the California Voting Rights Act to allow them only when they are truly needed and would work.

Suza Francina, “Why we need to return to city-wide elections,” Ojai Valley News, May 8, 2026. May 8, 2026 Ojai Valley News

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Why we need to return to city-wide elections

Re  Editorial: Improve Ojai democracy with at-large voting (OVN 5/1). 

I've thrown my hat in the ring for a seat on the Ojai city council five times. Based on my experience, dividing our small 4.4 mile city into 4 districts reduces the number of candidates and discriminates against renters, especially modest income renters with children and pets.

After running in four at-large elections (1994, 1996, 2012, 2016), in 2000 I was the first candidate to run in a district only election. For the first time in the history of Ojai elections, 3/4 of the voters did not find a city council candidate on their ballot. (The whole city could vote for the mayor but only 1/4 of Ojai residents could vote for a city council member elected to serve a four-year term.)

 I explained to voters living in my District 4 that they are not only voting for someone to represent their district. They are voting for someone who in reality still represents all the voters in the City.

 District voting also means that if the candidate who lost wanted to run again, they would either have to wait four years or move to a different district. With at-large elections, candidates can run again in two years. Which is what I did when I first lost in 1994. I ran again in 1996 and was the top vote-getter out of five candidates running for two empty seats.

 The issues on the city council agenda are rarely relevant only to a particular district. In reality, the votes of all council members impact the entire city, no matter what district the council member was elected in.

 At the last council meeting someone in favor of districts explained why they prefer discussing issues with their district representative. But the fact is that if that same candidate was elected at-large, neighbors could still bring their concerns to that council member.

 My experience having lived in Ojai for 70 years is that residents tend to contact the council member they know best, the one they feel understands their concerns, or the one they happen to see at Farmer’s Market, or the one they play tennis or pickleball with---not necessarily the one who lives in their district.

 If you watch council meetings you quickly see that at the end of all the discussion and debate, when it’s time to call the vote, each council member's vote has equal value. The vote from Mayor Andy Gilman who ran city-wide counts the same as the vote of a council member elected by district. The vote of a council member who ran unopposed and never had to campaign, counts the same as any other council member.

A year after I was re-elected in 2020, the house I had leased for 8 years was sold. The new owner claimed she needed the house for her parents which gave her justification not to renew my yearly lease.  I initially felt confident that I could easily find another rental in my district which was limited to the streets on the south side of Ojai Avenue.

Rather than stay past the 30-day notice, I rented a storage unit (located in my district on Bryant Street), and lived with my two dogs in a cabin the size of a closet located on the north side of Ojai Avenue. This small cabin had a toilet and sink but no shower.

This cabin living arrangement on the wrong side of Ojai Avenue resulted in a few people accusing me of lying about being homeless and being ungrateful that I had a roof over my head.  I tried to explain that I could only establish residency in my district, on the south side of Ojai Avenue.  Consequently I was reported to the Grand Jury and Fair Political Practice Commission --all of which took up enormous chunks of time and energy on top of my city council responsibilities.

Finally, out of desperation, I rented a room in District 4 in order to serve the last year of my four-year term in peace.

I hope our city council and the voters see the absurdity and injustice in all this.

I hope we keep in mind that district elections were not adopted by a vote of the people. They were adopted by Council action in 2018 under legal pressure and concern over possible litigation. Costly demographic studies were done before Ojai moved into districts. Those studies should be reviewed, and used to determine whether Ojai’s actual housing patterns, voting history, and diverse neighborhoods support returning to citywide elections. If the City could move into districts by Council action, then the City should be willing to reconsider moving back by Council action if the facts, the law, and the public interest support it.

Returning to at-large elections would restore citywide accountability, invite a stronger pool of candidates, and remind every Councilmember that they serve all of Ojai — not just one district, one faction, or one campaign base.

Housing for seniors and those who work here, fire readiness, infrastructure, restoring natural water cycles, strengthening our tree ordinance, traffic calming, and long-term livability are urgent citywide issues. They do not stop at district lines, and they should not be governed through district politics.

Suza Francina  

SB 1164 (Cervantes), California Voting Rights Act of 2026, 2025–2026 Reg. Sess. (Cal.).

Preston Jordan, “Cities With Small Electorates: Single Member Districts Have More Uncontested Seats Than At Large,” Voter Choice Albany, December 2024.

Garrett Glasgow, “The California Voting Rights Act and Uncontested City Council Seats,” Urban Affairs Review (2025), https://doi.org/10.1177/10780874251409321.

Finding: Separate peer-reviewed research by Garrett Glasgow, published in Urban Affairs Review, found that switching from at-large to district elections increased the expected number of uncontested seats in a typical California council election by roughly half a seat — a “sizeable effect” given that most council elections involve only two or three seats. David M. Greenwald, Davis Vanguard, Sept. 6, 2026 (article on SB 1164 and Davis's return to district elections). Finding: Davis, California, which moved to single-member districts in 2020 after facing the same kind of CVRA demand letter Ojai did, district elections saw a comparable decline in competitive races, going from nine candidates competing for two at-large seats in 2018 to multiple single-candidate district races since. (David M. Greenwald, Davis Vanguard, 9/6/2026)

Zachary Griggy & Jonah P. Smith, “Beyond District Lines: Rethinking the California Voting Rights Act’s Promise of Fair Representation,” California Law Review, Vol. 114 (2026).

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