2005-10-17 - Laserfiche WebLink

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443 should adopt option C because as it is written right now it is stating, as required by state law, which is dubious, that School Board members would be elected at large in city wide elections, which is simply not true. He said it may or may not be required by state law, but if it is it is most certainly a mistake and an oversight as was discussed with Counsel that was hired. He said he would like to see us use alternative C which strikes any language which may down the line may come back on us as having been confusing or, worse, misleading, because we do not know where this is going to go. He said if we do some do research on what has happened in the past he thinks we could see that it would certainly be a different path than we are proposing, but he would hate for this Council to take a position that that is what we would like to see in this community knowing the history of this community and the attempts of disenfranchisement of certain populations, the closing of schools, etc. He said that is not the direction he wants to be affiliated with. He made a substitute motion to adopt option C which strikes any language about the type of elections and says that we will just have to figure that out later. Dr. Brown said he would like to get a clarification from our lawyer because he think he and Mr. Schilling had pretty different experiences sitting in with our attorney and the hired attorney. Mr. Caravati noted there is a motion on the table, and Mr. Schilling temporarily withdrew the motion. Dr. Brown said Council had requested opinions from the State Board of Elections and from an expert on election law, and both of their opinions were that state law did not give us any choices and that state law in fact pretty clearly requires us to proceed initially with at large system. He said it was clearly also defined that we could have a discussion and seek appropriate state approval if we wanted to something different. He asked if he recalled that correctly, and asked that Mr. Brown give guidance to the law. Mr. Brown said he does not think Dr. Brown is misstating it at all. He said Mr. Schilling referenced maybe an error or oversight by the General Assembly, and said that may be the case. He said it is a very confusing statute that governs the transition from an appointed to an elected school board. He said it is somewhat one size fits all as this one statute was intended to govern all transitions to various types of school boards to elected school boards. Mr. Brown said Dr. Brown is correct that we have heard from the State Board of Elections and outside counsel that specializes in this type of issue. He said they reached the same type of conclusion in terms of whether the statute requires at large elections and whether it gives Council the authority right now to create election districts or wards for the election of some or all of the School Board members. Mr. Brown said he thinks Dr. Brown has stated it correctly. Mr. Schilling said he would like to respond to that because he asked Mr. Carter Glass directly, is this absolute or could an argument be made in the other direction. He said what Mr. Glass said was yes it could, it is unclear, and he thinks it is probably this way but an argument could be made the other way and you would be welcome to try that if you choose to. He said it was a specific question asked for a specific reason. He said he could have said it is 100%, there is no gray area, but that is not what he said in direct response to a question he asked. Mr. Brown what he and Mr. Glass were trying to give Council guidance on what is the most legally defensive position to take and that is what was conveyed by Mr. Glass and by the State Board of Elections. He said he would like to respond to one other point. He said whether at large elections will be approved or disapproved by the Department of Justice, he is not going to predict. He said it requires a very sophisticated analysis of prior voting results and prior elections results in this City, and it involves the question of whether there has been a pattern of racial block or racial polarization voting in the City. He said he thinks we should be cautious about assuming or overstating that at large elections will be naturally disapproved by the Department of Justice. He said he thinks they have routinely disapproved of at large elections where there is evidence of racial block voting. Whether that is the case here, he said he thinks we need to see what the analysis shows.