On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Office of Education Committee on School District Organization will be holding a public hearing on the Malibu Campus of Santa Monica College, beginning at 6 p.m. in Multipurpose Room 103. The purpose of the hearing is to receive public input on the legality of the voting map submitted as part of the Trustee Area Voting Petition, which aims to establish district based voting in SMMUSD. No decisions will be made at the meeting regarding the petition, with the hearing focusing solely on the legality of the proposed electoral map.
The petition was initially submitted in 2022 by Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman on behalf of two residents, stating that SMMUSD’s current at-large system is unfair to minority voters. The at-large system, designated by the Santa Monica City Charter, means that all registered voters in Santa Monica and Malibu are able to vote for all seven SMMUSD Board of Education members in alternating election cycles. A change to district based voting, per the petition, would divide SMMUSD into seven geographic “trustee areas” where candidates would be selected once every four years within that area.
The district is opposed to the idea saying the proposed maps are illegal and that at-large voting is a fair system.
Maps attached to the petition would make certain mergers, such as part of Malibu combining with Santa Monica’s Sunset Park neighborhood and the other half of Malibu combining with Santa Monica’s NOMA and Wilmont neighborhoods.
“The map submitted as part of the petition not only targets sitting incumbents, including a long-serving Latina, but in two areas, it combines parts of Malibu and Santa Monica that are very different from one another and don’t logically match,” said SMMUSD Board of Education member Alicia Mignano. “They are not even adjacent to each other.”
Former boardmember and current State Senator Ben Allen implored the community to “make their voices heard” at upcoming meetings, those being the one on Wednesday and one at SMMUSD district offices on February 10. Allen is opposed to districts.
Wednesday’s hearing will focus on the impact Assembly Bill 764 has on the proposal, with the new law putting restrictions on redistricting and the creation of district maps. The County Committee notified parties on Jan. 3 that the hearings will “focus only on whether the map provided … conforms to statutory requirements given the recent passage of Assembly Bill 764” and will not focus on “matters outside that scope” such as concerns of racially polarized voting and vote dilution.
The petition is separate from a petition to split SMMUSD and form a Malibu Unified School District, however, county officials and proponents of splitting the district said that any effort to establish district-based voting would be moot if Malibu were to separate.
For those who cannot attend Wednesday’s hearing, the County Committee released a Zoom meeting link on its website.
thomas@smdp.com