Three months after receiving a legal threat over representation, Rancho Cordova City Council has chosen a map to begin district elections in November 2024.
The council on Monday unanimously voted for the map creating five districts and is scheduled to officially adopt its new election system on Oct. 2.
Under the new system, Council members Donald Terry, Garrett Gatewood and Siri Pulipati will all live in the same district in the southernmost part of the city. They all reside in the Anatolia neighborhood, a more affluent and newly developed area. If they decide to run for the new District 4 seat next fall, only one of them could win and stay on the council.
“I don’t know if anybody made a decision about doing that, but I think we should all have that option,” Terry said, speaking in support of District 4 being up for election in 2024 instead of 2026.
The city’s new by-district election system will require council candidates to live in the area they seek to represent, while the previous at-large election system allowed candidates to live anywhere in Rancho Cordova to represent the entire city. In June, attorney Scott Rafferty and his clients petitioned the city to transition to by-district elections, alleging its current system violates the California Voting Rights Act and causes areas of Rancho Cordova to be underrepresented on the council.
Rafferty on Monday praised the council for focusing on options that would encompass all of Anatolia in one district and maintain its practice of appointing a member as mayor each year. Earlier in the districting process, the council considered splitting Anatolia into two districts — which could have given another member an opportunity to stay in office — and creating a mayoral position directly elected by voters.
“You’ve listened to the public on the issue of mayor, which I know had some potential benefits to the incumbents, and you paired three council members,” Raffety said during the meeting. “And that was a very difficult decision and I think that deserves some respect.”
The council chose Map 516c, which uses Folsom Boulevard as a boundary for four of the five districts. The map also designates Douglas Road as part of the border for District 4. Council member David Sander said it was important to select a district map with obvious boundaries.
Courtesy City of Rancho Cordova
“We want districts that are really clear and really identifiable, like understandable to a kid, understandable to somebody who just glances at a map,” Sander said.
In addition to the District 4 seat, the seats for Districts 1 and 3 will also be up for election in November 2024. Sander lives in District 1, the northwestern corner of the city bounded by Coloma Road and Folsom Boulevard. No current council members live in District 3, which lies south of Folsom Boulevard and mostly west of South White Rock Road.
Rancho Cordova plans to finish the transition to by-district representation in 2026 with elections for Districts 2 and 5. Mayor Linda Budge lives in District 5, but both Budge and Sanders said voters have never elected a council representative from District 2 since the city was incorporated in 2003. Both Budge and Sander have continuously served on the council from its inception.
District 2 lies in northwestern Rancho Cordova and includes the neighborhoods of Glenfaire, Cordova Highlands and Walnut Woods. Of all the new districts, it will have the highest concentration of Latinos with 27% of the population identifying as such in the 2020 Census.
The council is scheduled to pass a second reading of the ordinance adopting the district map on Oct. 2. Rancho Cordova would become the third Sacramento County city in the past four years to end at-large elections because of legal threats.
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