Last Monday night marked the conclusion of what City Manager Jeff Kay called “a long and really involved journey” in Healdsburg’s civic history, as the City Council voted to approve a new map for selecting council members by district voting, beginning in 2026.
The meeting was an extra “public hearing” on the transition to district elections, which was supposed to have been decided on April 7 but took a detour when Mayor Evelyn Mitchell pushed for an alternative Map D to simplify the geometry of the city’s five districts.
Two weeks later, the April 21 meeting saw Councilmember Ariel Kelley return to arguments for the more inclusive Map A, which would have created a strongly Spanish-speaking district, avoided a single council member representing the downtown area and created a unified district to give voice to overlooked south-end residents.
She was outvoted, however, as the rest of the council—absent Mayor Evelyn Mitchell, who was reported out sick by Vice Mayor Chris Herrod—opted to stick with the Map D plan promoted by Mitchell in the April 7 council meeting.
Time Running Out
The ticking clock surely influenced the city’s vote. As City Manager Jeff Kay mentioned in introducing the topic, the prompt for the conversion to district elects came when the city received a letter from Shenkman & Hughes threatening legal action if Healdsburg did not create a district that was not subject to “vote dilution,” defined as “the impairment of minority groups’ ability to elect their preferred candidates or influence the outcome of elections.”
On Dec. 16, 2024, the city began to create voting districts with consultant Redistricting Partners guiding the process. A pair of extensions to move the deadline for compliance advanced that deadline to April 17, and had the council decided on a map on April 7 it would have been well within that deadline.
However, Mayor Mitchell’s displeasure with the proposed Map A moved the council to adopt her favored Map D, as reported in the April 10 issue of The Healdsburg Tribune. Somewhat reluctantly, the council agreed with Mitchell, necessitating another appeal to Kevin Shenkman on April 8 for a third extension of the deadline, to May 17.
So a decision on Monday night seemed imperative; another delay might test the patience of the Malibu lawyer behind the threatened lawsuit. Although Kelley had agreed with Mitchell and the rest of the council on the Map D option at the previous meeting, in the interest of “harmony” as she said at the time, she expressed second thoughts this week.
Second Thoughts
Motivated in part by articles in The Tribune and the Press Democrat that analyzed the demographics of the competing maps, Kelley reopened the topic in her remarks preceding public comment on the districting issue. Her concerns addressed three factors that the council had previously determined to be priorities: a strong Latino district, sharing the downtown area between several districts and creating a cohesive southern district, since that part of the city is likely to see significant changes in the coming years with the potential sale of the Syar property and the arrival of SMART.
Map A accomplished all of those priorities, Map D none of them. Map D did however place incumbent councilmembers Chris Herrod and Ron Edwards in separate districts, rather than in the same one where they might conceivably run against each other in time. It would also be the same district that Evelyn Mitchell lives in.
The question of whether the influence of a Latino population would be diluted by the downtown business interests, should both “influences” occur in the same district, was addressed by consultant Paul Mitchell when he said, “I don’t believe we’ve had any specific testimony that has said, we as the Latino community, or me as a representative of this district on the west side, feel as though the interests of a downtown community would override [or compete] against the Latino community in terms of candidates of choice …”
Ironically, during public comment on this issue a few minutes after Mitchell’s statement, Marcy Flores, the executive director of Corazón Healdsburg, rose to make exactly that sort of statement. “As we transition to district-based elections, we have a unique opportunity to ensure that the voices of our Latino community are not just heard, but empowered at the decision-making table,” she said.
“I do also believe that March Avenue should be with Grove Street to maximize Latino percentage representation, and to not get diluted by heavy-handed downtown interest,” Flores added. “It’s about access and having a voice.”
Momentum
Her comment however was quickly forgotten by the council, which continued to back Map D over Map A despite Kelley’s objections. Because of Councilmember David Hagele’s own mushy preference for Map A over Map D, which he could barely articulate during a straw poll, the council clearly lacked the motivation to keep the conversation going.
With Mayor Mitchell absent, a 2-2 split only promised to delay a decision further, so that ticking clock of legal jeopardy moved the council to adopt Map D by a 3-1 vote.
“Last night’s vote was a disappointing outcome for those of us who believe in fair and equitable representation,” said Corazón’s Flores the next day. “In my view, the adopted map fails to reflect true equity and continues to leave our most marginalized communities feeling overlooked from the decisions that shape their lives and their neighborhoods.”
The final element of the transition to district elections was to assign a number to the districts and schedule district elections based on even or odd numbers. The western, eastern and northern areas became Districts 1, 3 and 5, and the two central districts became Districts 2 and 4.
The even-numbered districts, 2 and 4, will see district-wide elections in 2026 and 2030, while the odd-numbered districts will elect their council members in 2028.
The district boundaries are likely to be changed in a redistricting process to take place following results of the 2030 national census, when some of these arguments and concerns will probably reappear.
The City’s website on this process can be found at healdsburg.gov/districtelections.
It has to be noted that in Map A, Evelyn Mitchell and Chris Herrod shared a district with Ron Edwards. Ron’s term runs through 2028, while Chris and Evelyn’s terms end next year. Under Map A Chris and Evelyn would have had to wait till 2028 if they chose to run again. Under Map D, they both can run in 2026. Funny how Map D was originally introduced as an alternative to Map A by Chris Herrod and then brought up again by Evelyn Mitchell at the April 7 council meeting. This whole process reeked of collusion to keep these council members in power. Shame on them.
Waah, I didn’t get my way! Everybody is corrupt! The vote was rigged!
Maybe you could follow the lead of Marci Flores and act as a leader and not a whiner.