Pamela Baker, San Clemente
Brad Malamud (who sued the City of San Clemente [taxpayers] for $1 million and won) is absolutely wrong in advising residents to vote for districts in his Sept. 7-13 letter in the San Clemente Times.
Currently, residents have five councilmembers including the mayor looking out for their best interests. Each member of the Council is required to be available to all residents of the city of San Clemente.
Three members of the current Council actively fulfill this obligation as evidenced by their concern and interest in listening to each resident who approaches them. They do not seek attention from or give more attention to special-interest groups.
District voting drastically reduces residents’ voices in any concern they may have. In fact, residents will be going from five representatives to one. With districting, councilmembers will selfishly be making decisions based on what is best for their districts, not what is best for San Clemente.
For example, a proposal could be made to place all VRBOs, sober living homes and homeless shelters in a certain district. The representative of the district would certainly vote against that. However, the other four councilmembers will happily vote for it, eliminating an unsavory problem for their districts and keeping their constituents happy.
This scenario could be repeated over and over, as council members vote only for what is deemed best for THEIR districts. Think about that and how divisive this could become. San Clemente will be irreparably DIVIDED. With the Toll road continuing to rear its monstrous head, this issue alone is enough for us to stay united and strong.
It is not where your council representative lives that is important, it is how he/she votes on matters that impact our entire City.
A city the size of Los Angeles (3,976,322) requires districting.
A city the size of San Clemente (about 65,000) does not.
Let’s keep San Clemente united.
Vote no on districting.
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