Trustee Area Elections
What are we doing?
The California Voting Right Act (CVRA) was enacted to implement the California constitutional guarantees of equal protection and the right to vote, ensuring that a influence of a protected class (class of voters who are members of a race, color, or language minority group) is not diluted. Any school district using at-large elections is vulnerable to challenge under the CVRA.
This process will transition the districts from the current at-large elections system to a by-trustee area elections system:
Current System (at-large hybrid) –
- Board members must reside within their trustee area
- Registered voters within the District may vote for all seats on the Board
This process will transition to by-trustee area voting system:
- Trustees must reside within specific trustee areas
- Only voters residing within the specified trustee area may vote for that particular trustee
Criteria
The CVRA provides criteria for drawing trustee areas. The criteria are divided into required criteria (the MUSTs) and optional criteria (the SHOULDs):
- Required items: balanced populations; no gerrymandering of boundaries; boundaries shall not result in a denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen to vote on account of race or color.
- Optional items: Compactness; contiguity; observe communities of interest such as high school attendance areas, rural or urban populations, municipalities, social interests and more; visible features such as topography and geography, and major highways, waterways, etc.
- Community input and participation is key at all stages
The FRC, PUSD, and PCOE have developed a more specific set of criteria to guide in drawing trustee areas. Specifically:
- Population deviation from the ideal population must be under 5%
- Effort is made to keep smaller census designated places intact (not split between trustee areas)
- No islands in larger communities such as Portola, East Quincy, and Quincy
- When possible, consider Plumas County’s Board of Supervisors boundaries
- When possible, utilize roads as dividing lines
- Effort is made to keep the FRC, PUSD, and PCOE trustee areas the same
- Effort made to avoid splitting larger communities more than they are under current boundaries (e.g., East Quincy is split between two trustee areas currently, so an effort will be made to avoid splitting that community into three trustee areas)
Population deviation is defined as the trustee area with the highest population deviation from the ideal population (total population of the district divided by the number of trustee areas) plus the lowest population deviation. Keep in mind that the current population deviation (measure of population balance) is currently at 93.8%.
Timeline
The process requires the following meetings:
- “Pre-Map” Hearings: 2 public hearings prior to preparing proposed by-trustee area maps
- “Map Consideration” Hearings: 2 public hearings to consider proposed by-trustee area maps
- Map Adoption Hearing: Public hearing before adopting final by-trustee area map
Meeting times and links:
- January 5th 2022 Pre-map hearing
- January 11th: Public forum from 6pm – 6:30pm via Zoom my Zoom link
- January 13th: Public forum from 6pm – 6:30pm via Zoom my Zoom link
- January 18th: Public forum from 6pm – 6:30pm via Zoom my Zoom link
- January 20th: Special Meeting 3pm via Zoom Board PMR Zoom link
- January 25th: Public forum from 6pm – 6:30pm via Zoom my Zoom link
- February 17th: Regular Meeting 3pm via Zoom Board PMR Zoom link
- March 10th: Regular Meeting 3pm via Zoom Board PMR Zoom link
Trustee Area Maps and Statistics
January 5, 2022
PCOE-PUSD-FRC Joint Regular Meeting via Zoom: Public Hearing Springboard #2
January 20, 2022 Special Meeting 3pm Board PMR via Zoom: Public Hearing: Map Discussion #1
February 17, 2022
Regular Meeting 3pm Board PMR via Zoom: Public Hearing: Map Discussion #2
March 10, 2022
Regular Meeting 3pm Board PMR via Zoom: Public Hearing: By Trustee Area Map Adoption and Final Map Adoption