Council Considers Options to Challenge County Redistricting Plan

The controversial decision by the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors to split Scotts Valley into two supervisorial districts took the Scotts Valley City Council into a closed session at its Wednesday night meeting to come up with a plan to fight back.

The new redistricting plan, which was passed unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, divides the city of Scotts Valley along Highway 17, moving the Granite Creek and Green Hills neighborhoods into District One and leaving the rest of Scotts Valley in District Five.

Before heading into closed session, Scotts Valley City Attorney Kirsten Powell laid out the options available for challenging the decision. The city has two courses of action—a voter referendum or a writ of mandate.

A referendum would mean that new boundaries would could established by a voter ordinance. To begin this process would require a petition to be circulated for 30 days, and it would need roughly 8,000 signatures for the board to reconsider its decision. If the board does not then repeal its decision, it will be put to voters at either a regular or special election.

The second option for the city is a writ of mandate, or a civil lawsuit, which would have the state Supreme Court look into the county’s decision to see if it abused its discretion when making the decision.

Prior to the board voting to split the city, it held a few public meetings to gauge the community’s thoughts on the issue. At each meeting, dozens of Scotts Valley residents showed up and asked the board to keep the city in one district. Many said they believed it was in the community’s best interest and that having two supervisors would weaken their voice.

The Scotts Valley City Council also submitted two new plans to the board for consideration, each one keeping the city intact.

At Wednesday night’s meeting, Sharolynn Ullestad, Scotts Valley Chamber's executive director, said she has received numerous calls from residents who wondered what went wrong.

“It makes no sense," she said to the council. "No one understands it. No one in our city can believe that it has been voted this way. There is no logic. Our own representative, Mark Stone, never said one thing about all the info he had been given by his own constituents. It is like he didn’t hear us.”

Though the supervisors' decision was not what many Scotts Valley residents wanted, Mayor Dene Bustichi said it was refreshing to see all of the community support on the issue.

“If there is something good that came out of this entire exercise," he said, "it is that I don’t know if I’ve ever been prouder of our community.”