San Leandro Election News
By Margarita Lacabe
Election Days
In San Leandro City Council elections are in June and School Board elections are in November. While it is unlawful to serve both on the City Council and the School Board, it is possible for someone to run for the City Council, lose, and then run for the School Board as well.
The City Council, however, is considering moving the City Council elections to November. For this to work, the City needs to implement “instant run-off,” a system through which voters rank their candidates in order of their support, and their latter rankings are considered in case no candidate gets a 50% majority of voters’ first choice. Without instant run-off, if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote, a special election would be held later in the year. This happened in 2004 in the Joyce Starosciak/Mike Mahoney City Council race, costing the city $118,000.
Consolidating all of the elections and having instant run-off would be positive for electoral campaigns in San Leandro, as it would shorten the length of campaigns and reduce the amount of money candidates would have to spend on their campaigns. However, this is unlikely to happen next year. Electronic voting is almost essential for instant run-off, and the California Secretary of State recently decertified all of the electronic voting machines because of multiple security flaws. Without any significant new development, San Leandro’s City Council elections will likely remain in June. In any case, the City Council will have to make a decision by February 5th, the deadline for participating in the June election.
Term Limits
In other election news, the Rules and Communications Committee has considered changing the term limits of the City Council and the Mayor. Currently, both the City Council and the Mayor are limited to two consecutive terms, but they can run again after sitting out one term. The new rules—which would need to be approved by a referendum—would allow City Council members to serve a total of three terms maximum and the Mayor to serve a total of two terms maximum. This new rule would allow most of the members of the current City Council to remain in office for an additional four years, up to a total of 12 years.
Whether this is a positive step depends on your views on term limits, campaign finance (it takes considerable money to defeat an incumbent), and the current City Council members.
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