City of Albany, CA
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CHARTER REVIEW COMMITTEE REGULAR MEETING City Hall Conference Room, 1000 San Pablo Avenue Thursday, May 15, 2014 – 7:30-9:00 p.m. *NOTE DATE CHANGE FROM REGULAR MEETING SCHEDULE DUE TO HOLIDAY 1. CALL TO ORDER 2. ROLL CALL 3. APPROVAL OF MINUTES 3-1. March 24, 2014 4. PUBLIC COMMENT 5. ANNOUNCEMENTS/COMMUNICATIONS 6. DISCUSSIONS AND POSSIBLE ACTIONS ON MATTERS RELATED TO THE FOLLOWING ITEMS: 6-1. Finalize review of election methods report and associated documents to forward to the City Council: a. Receive information from staff inquiry to Registrar of Voters regarding Ranked Choice Voting and At Large Ranked Choice Voting capabilities b. Review final draft report appendix regarding review of election methods (Jordan) c. Review consolidated responses to questions raised by City Council Member Thomsen 6-2. Resolution recommending development of a Draft Charter Amendment regarding a Transition to Use of Ranked Choice Voting at Large a. Discuss procedures for submitting items to the City Council 6-3. Albany Unified School District Board of Education request to eliminate Term Limits a. Review request from the AUSD BOE as received by the City Council and referred to the Committee b. Begin identifying process for developing pro/con analysis of potential impacts on the City Charter and possible language for Charter Amendment to present to the City Council 7. FUTURE AGENDA ITEMS 8. ADJOURNMENT Attachments: 1. Report regarding review of election methods – revised appendices final draft (Jordan) 2. Consolidated responses to questions raised by Council Member Thomsen final draft 3. Resolution Recommending Development Of A Draft Charter Amendment Regarding A Transition To Use Of Ranked Choice Voting At Large 4. Email from City Council regarding Advisory Body Procedures 5. Excerpt from Advisory Body Manual 6. AUSD BOE Resolution 2013-14-09 Board of Education Term Limits CRC 05/15/14 Attachment 1 Appendix: Albany Potential Election Methods Review Research The Albany Charter Review Committee (“CRC”) selected the following four potential at large methods of electing Albany’s City Council and Board of Education. The Committee ruled out district-based methods owing to Albany’s small size. 1. Plurality at large (Albany’s current election method) 2. Cumulative at large 3. Limited at large 4. Ranked choice at large The CRC selected the following criteria as most relevant to Albany for judging these methods. • Low cost • High voter turnout • Diversity of viewpoints • More candidates/competitive elections • Simplicity/ease of use • Stable/effective government These criteria were selected after gathering input from the City Council, the School Board, and the City Manager. The School Board suggested the “more candidates/competitive elections” criterion. This was motivated by the low number of candidates running for School Board seats typically. Former City Manager Beth Pollard suggested the “stable/effective government” criterion out of interest in maintaining consistent policy direction. The research below regards how well each election method satisfies each criterion. There is a section for each criteria in the order listed above. Within each section the methods are presented from the most to least in accord with each criterion. Albany Charter Review Committee-DRAFT 1 15 May 2014 Low Cost Different costs may be associated with conducting elections by each method. One-time costs may also be incurred to switch to a new method. The cost of running an election using an alternate to the current method could be borne exclusively by either the City, the Albany Unified School District (“AUSD”) or split between them depending upon which adopts the alternative and if they adopt the same alternative. Table 1 contains cost estimates for a first election and subsequent elections using each method. These are explained further below. Table 1. Higher end cost estimates using the four methods under consideration. Implementation of ranked choice voting is dependent either on the Registrar acquiring a new system or the Secretary of State approving vote tallying by an outside vendor. First Later Sources of cost Sources of cost increase Voting method election election increase compared to compared to plurality cost cost plurality plurality $ 35,000 $ 35,000 limited $ 45,000 voter education $ 35,000 cumulative $ 45,000 voter education $ 40,000 ongoing education ranked choice – $ 75,000 one-time equipment charge, $ 55,000 ongoing charge by Registrar with voter education, additional Registrar, ongoing tally by vendor work by Registrar, tally by education, tally by vendor vendor ranked choice – $ 65,000 one-time equipment charge, $ 45,000 ongoing charge by Registrar only voter education, additional Registrar, ongoing work by Registrar, tally by education vendor ($10,000 less if the count can be done by the Registrar) Plurality The City of Albany (“City”) contracts with the Registrar of Voters of Alameda County (“Registrar”) to conduct its elections. The Registrar currently charges $3-5 per registered voter to provide election services without regard to the number of local offices or measures appearing on the ballot1. Albany had 10,212 registered voters at the time of the fall 2010 election2, implying a $31,000 to $51,000 charge from the Registrar to conduct Albany’s elections. Albany’s budget allocated $35,000 for the 2012 election, which is the amount shown on Table 1. In considering Table 1 and the discussion below, note that the expenses discussed are only incurred during the biannual election years. Consequently the annually amortized cost is half of the amounts presented. 1 http://www.acgov.org/rov/est_election_cost.htm 2 http://www.acgov.org/rov/documents/sovc2010-11-02.pdf Albany Charter Review Committee - DRAFT 2 15 May 2014 Limited The cost to switch to limited voting, or any other method, accrues from two potential sources: legal and election costs. The cost to prepare any needed legal instrument is unknown. It depends primarily upon who prepares the instrument and the nature of the instrument. To the first, if the City Attorney (“Attorney”) can prepare the instrument, the cost to the City would be negligible presuming the Attorney had sufficient time available for the work. However if outside counsel is required, then there would be a direct cost to the City. Regarding the nature of the instrument, three approaches were considered by the Committee – a request to the Registrar, an ordinance and a Charter amendment, as explained. In response to a Charter Review Committee inquiry, the City Attorney has offered the opinion a change of election method could only be accomplished by amending the Charter. For the Board of Education (“Board”) election method, Charter Section 6.01a specifies election of the Board members “at large” and “in the same manner and time as for the members of the Council,” but does not further specify the method. Under this circumstance State Elections Code Section 10600 specifies use of plurality at large. It is unclear if there is latitude to select another at large election method for the Board. If there is this would appear to require a Charter amendment. A cost would be incurred to put an amendment on the ballot and conduct the election. However this cost is characterized by the City as “very minor1” if the amendment is on the ballot during a regularly scheduled election. So this cost will not be further considered. The Registrar currently conducts elections in Albany where voters may cast one vote each for one, two or three candidates depending on how many seats are to be filled. Consequently the County equipment can readily conduct an election in which voters have fewer votes than there are seats available. It is doubtful implementation of this method would incur any increase in the Registrar’s charge to the City. It would be advisable to conduct voter education and outreach as part of the transition to limited voting. The minimum goal of this effort would be to reduce spoiled ballots due to the likely tendency to over vote based on the tendency of some voters to assume they still have the same number of votes. The effort could also set a goal of providing voters information to assist them in deciding how to cast their vote. City and/or Registrar staff time would be required to conduct voter education. Costs for education are likely to be less than for education efforts associated with a switch to ranked choice as limited is less of a change from the current plurality method. Based on the costs regarding ranked choice below, an education and outreach campaign costing substantially less than $10,000 would likely be sufficient. So the first time election cost shown in Table 1 is the $35,000 for the current plurality method plus $10,000 for education. Because limited is so similar to the single seat methods used elsewhere, education of new Albany residents on an ongoing basis is not needed, so Table 1 does not show any continuing cost increase. 1 http://www.albanyca.org/index.aspx?page=1008#326 Albany Charter Review Committee - DRAFT 3 15 May 2014 Cumulative Legally, changing to cumulative voting seems similar to limited voting and so the costs would be similar. Changing to this method for electing the Board would require an amendment if allowable at all. The County’s current election equipment can likely conduct cumulative voting. This is achieved by listing each candidate’s name as many times as each voter has votes, which in turn is the number of seats to be filled. For instance in a three seat election, each candidate’s name would be listed three times. This allows a voter to mark all three instances of the name, thus casting three votes for that candidate. The method counts the votes cast for each instance of the candidate’s name.