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Friday's Internet Edition, November 21, 2008.
New CSD election system to go on ballot
CSD board could be elected like local city council
By Cameron Macdonald
Staff Writer
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The directors who sit on the Cosumnes Community Services District (CSD) Board are now elected at large by voters and do not represent any particular area within the district.
That system may change if voters approve a new process this November that would match that of the Elk Grove City Council’s elections.
CSD directors would instead represent a specific area and would be elected by voters district wide. Once approved by voters, this system is planned to begin during the November 2010 election.
“Each of us represent the whole district,” CSD Director Elaine Wright said.
The CSD board unanimously approved the act of placing the governance option on the November ballot during their April 16 meeting.
The call for this electoral change came when the CSD merged with the Galt Fire Protection District in 2006, and they jointly began providing fire and emergency medical services to the Elk Grove and Galt communities.
Interest arose in having Galt-based directors on the CSD board in order to have the Galt area fairly represented.
The CSD staff presented three options to the CSD board to review.
The directors chose the “from” election system where directors would represented five, equally populated areas and would be elected “from” each district by all voters within the entire district.
Elk Grove voters currently elect their city council members this way where each member represents a district in the city.
Another option presented was the “by” election system where each of the five directors would represent an area, however, they can only be elected by voters within his or her area, not at-large.
A few CSD directors shared their concerns about possible favoritism and other conflicts of interest in the “by” system.
“(This) makes it, in my judgement, too easy to buy an election,” CSD Director Gil Albiani said.
If the majority of voters approve the “from” system this November, the Cosumnes district would be split into five divisions. The CSD staff would also hire consultants to help complete their reorganization.
Once the divisions are set, the board will assign each director to a division, no matter if he or she lives in that division until the 2010 election when the new system begins, according to a CSD staff report.
After a director’s term expires, that leader can run for reelection if a seat in his or her home division is open.
As the election system continues, the CSD staff would review each division’s populations every 10 years to see if any change in numbers would call for adjustments for the divisions’ boundaries.
CSD Management Analyst Jenny Smith said that the total costs of placing the measure on the election ballot and hiring legal counsel would be $17,000.
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