I am the lady who was thrown out of the Santa Maria City Council meeting a couple of weeks ago (Feb. 21). I don’t usually attend the council meetings, but I wanted to be there to support the resolution, which would begin the process to transition to district-based city elections.
The city attorney and city manager reported that seven cities in California were challenged in lawsuits over their refusal to move from citywide elections to district-based ones. All the cities were ruled against by the judges, which resulted in city expenditures ranging from $300,000 to $4.5 million (Palmdale) for the attorney costs of the plaintiffs.
During the public comment period, 15 people from various neighborhoods expressed their support for district-based city elections.
Each speaker was limited to three minutes for comments. Only Andy Caldwell spoke against the resolution. (Mayor Patino allowed him to speak for 10 minutes—no bias there). He spoke down to the many supporters, making many demeaning comments about them. He basically opined that the speakers in favor of district-based elections, were (a) too stupid to understand what the resolution meant, (b) that only the politicians should choose the things to do, (c) that Santa Maria politics would never change, and (d) let the smart people make the decisions for their city.
I was asked to leave the meeting by the mayor, after loudly shouting “boo” during Caldwell’s demeaning and disparaging remarks. The resolution was ultimately approved by a 3-to-2 vote by councilmen Boysen, Cordero, and Moats in favor.
Needless to say, I will be attending many more City Council meetings and speaking against the political machine that is currently running Santa Maria.
This article appears in Mar 2-9, 2017.
