King City converts from at-large to district elections.

King City continues on its path to slowly rebuild credibility in the wake of the February 2014 arrests of a third of its police department. 

There's still no permanent police chief, but there is a new city manager, there's a settlement agreement in a class-action lawsuit, and going forward, there will be district elections, rather than at-large seats for City Council. 

City Council voted 4-0 Feb. 23 to make the switch to district elections, becoming the second-smallest city in California to do so.

The guiding idea behind the switch is to get leadership that better represents neighborhoods, and specifically that gives minority candidates better odds at getting elected. (Nearly 90 percent of King City's 13,000-person population is Latino, and currently, just one council member is Latino.)

Latino elected officials and King City activists called for a change to the electoral system last year with a letter to city officials decrying the at-large method as "nothing short of an incumbent protection-voting scheme." 

If the city didn't voluntarily make the switch, they said they'd take the issue to court, where they solidly expected a victory under the Voting Rights Act. 

Similar redistricting efforts have led to changes in how representatives are elected to Salinas City Council, and more recently to the Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System board.

THe California State League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Tri-County Association of Latino Elected Officials (TCALEO) and Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Salinas, issued statements praising the decision. 

"We commend the King City City Council for finally answering the community’s call for fairness in their local electoral process so they can hold their city officials accountable," LULAC Deputy Director Carlos Ramos said in a statement.

"I believe it will encourage more residents to run for office and will bring the King City community closer together,” Alejo said in a statement.

The next step in the process will be to create a map that slices up the city into five districts, and a council member will then be elected to represent each one. That mapping process can take awhile, so district elections are likely to take effect in 2018.