Activists call on King City officials to replace at-large elections with district elections for City Council.

Latino elected officials and King City activists are calling for a new electoral system in the South County city, decrying the current city council elections process as discriminatory. 

In a March 26 letter to City Council and City Manager Michael Powers, they call the current system "nothing short of an incumbent protection-voting scheme." 

The letter is signed by Carlos Ramos, deputy state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), King City LULAC chapter president Ana Vargas, executive director of the Tri-County Association of Latino Elected Officials (TCALEO) Tony Madrigal, former King City Councilman Carlos Victoria, and four other King City residents. 

The group calls for a transition from the current at-large elections to creating four districts, each with its own representative to City Council to represent that neighborhood. 

"It will be the most transformative thing that has happened in the city's history," Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, said Friday at a press conference announcing the group's demands.

"It is helpful to have someone on City Council who knows the needs of la gente," Lupe Rivas, a board member of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District and TCALEO member said Friday.

Rivas was the first Latina elected to the school board, and cited Watonsville as further evidence that redistricting works to get minorities elected: The city's had only two Latino mayors—Alejo and current mayor Karina Cervantez, who is Alejo's wife.

"Trust me, the candidates will rise," Rivas said. 

As of the Nov. 4 election, there were just 2,741 registered voters in King City, with a population of about 13,000. Voter turnout was about 40 percent. The city's population is about 88-percent Latino; there has never been a Latino mayor. 

Former councilman Carlos Victoria, the only incumbent seeking re-election last year, lost to Mike LeBarre and Darlene Acosta. 

After the press conference, Mayor Rob Cullen approached one speaker, King City resident Rufina Recendiz Garcia, and gave her his business card.

"Every two years I call potential candidates," he told her. "I don't care if they're white, black, brown or purple. I want someone like you to run."

Recendiz moved to Monterey County from Guanajato, Mexico, in 1987, and took a break from her job harvesting spring mix to attend the press conference. She speaks accented but easily understandable English—in her view, not well enough to run for office. 

"I love King City," she said. "The Latino community is here to have a better future. We can make a difference working together."

The activist and resident group calls for City Council to agendize redistricting within 45 days, to initiate a voluntary process.

If City Council doesn't comply with that request, they say they will pursue judicial relief, under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the California Voting Rights Act of 2001. 

Another option to pursue district elections, the group says, would be to put it on the ballot in 2016. A ballot initiative in King City would require 414 valid voter signatures. 

As to the makeup of the districts themselves, it's too soon to say what they would look like; redistricting is a technical process based on demographic data, designed to ensure an equitable shot at representation for minorities. 

It's not clear whether the existing city council members would be found to live within one district, meaning they could not all keep their seats under a newly redistricted system.