Unfortunately it is not possible for me to attend this evening's Council Meeting but I need to express my strong disappointment
with the actions of the Council, which once again has caved into pressure.
Instead of accepting the alternative (and yes, I realise it takes more time and effort to become a Charter city but does one
automatically take the easy route?), a system that clearly wasn't broken now will be.
How do I feel about the change in the voting process? Disenfranchised! When there were multiple candidates for whom I could vote,
I stood a chance of finding one or more that had values, ideas, principles and attitudes with which I could agree. That is now
denied me as I will only have the option of voting for one person from what will now be "my" district. This is "progress"?
Though I'm a mixed race immigrant and unused to US voting practices and procedures, I looked at the definition of "Gerrymandering"
and it seems to be where voting districts are deliberately changed to favour a specific political party, cultural group, religion,
ethnicity, etc. Isn't this exactly what you are doing? It makes me wonder how I find a candidate (or candidates) that meet my own
personal social demographic and I suspect that I'll be one of many who doesn't get this privilege, while others now apparently
will.
The only way out of this dilemma that made any sense was to go for the Charter and you, the representatives of "we the people",
chose to ignore that. I should be disappointed but I guess it was only to be expected, so add this to the list of failures of the
City Council.
John Duhig.Allied Arts.Menlo Park.
