by Shawn Gordon, ProgRockRec.medium.com; reprinted with permission.
Introduction
The California Voting Rights Act was passed in 2001 and has led to most cities switching from “at large” to “by district” voting. What that means is instead of voting for the entire city council, you live in a district, much like your voting districts for state and federal representation, and you vote for a single person from your district. The entire city council still represents you, but you vote for just one. Some have a modified version of this where the mayor is “at large,” and everyone in the city votes for them.
The way a city typically ends up going to by-district voting is kicking and screaming from a demand by a lawyer representing some aggrieved person or group. Most cities in California are by-districts now. The handful in South Orange County that were still at-large all received notices at the start of Summer 2023 to switch to by-district, and all but one of them are doing it; one is foolishly fighting it, Laguna Hills, which will cost their city millions and they will lose. This story, however, is about the sleepy hamlet of Rancho Santa Margarita (RSM), population 48,000.
RSM City Council: a brief history
Incorporated on January 1, 2000, the RSM City Council has five members, and between themselves, they choose who gets to be mayor for the year. Over the years, as the same people have stayed in office or gotten hand-picked successors, they arrange it so that the most at-risk council person in the current election, who is part of the RSM Cabal, gets to be mayor to boost their cred for the election. In office, we currently have:
- Jerry Holloway — Mayor
- Carol A. Gamble — Mayor Pro Tempore
- L. Anthony (Tony) Beall — Council Member
- Bradley J. McGirr — Council Member
- Anne D. Figueroa — Council Member
For this article, Jerry is not an issue; he has always been outside the RSM Cabal. As we get to the district Election map that the city council favors, this will all matter, so stick with me. Let’s give a little history on each.
Carol Gamble
Elected to the inaugural city council in 2000 and served till 2004. There was a lot of hard-to-explain weirdness in that first term of hers, including “relationships” with first the city attorney, and then the Mayor who then FIRED that city attorney. Carol resigned from Council, then the Mayor resigned, and none of these actions were explained to the public. Seven years later, in 2011, Carol was appointed back to council with no vote from the residents. Incumbents always have the edge, so she’s still there, for a total of 17 years on council so far. Carol has also been found guilty of violating campaign finance laws.
Tony Beall
Tony was the Planning Commissioner for Carol from 2000 to 2004, and when Carol left in 2004 for “personal reasons,” Tony was appointed to the city council with no election. Tony has been on the council for 20 years and at city hall since it was founded in 2000.
Tony’s wife, Jennifer, is the office manager for state assemblywoman Kate Sanchez, the two of them are deeply involved behind the scenes for a lot of things in South Orange County, and not in a good way. Both Tony and Jennifer have been found guilty of violating campaign finance laws.
Brad McGirr
Brad was the Planning Commissioner for Tony (notice a pattern yet?) from 2009 to 2012. He was appointed to the city council in 2012 after a vacancy. Records are a little unclear; it might have been that the election was so close to someone else leaving that he was elected, but he stood again for re-election just two years later. Brad has apparently stayed clean, but he pretty much does whatever Tony tells him to. He has now been on the council for 11 years and has three more before he’s up for re-election.
Anne Figueroa
Anne was the Planning Commissioner for Tony (see the pattern again?) from 2015 to 2018, when she went on to have the distinction of spending the most to get a local city council seat in our city history. The job pays about $250 a month, and she spent about $25,000 to get the job. Her day job is working in the office for Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez with Tony Beall’s wife, Jennifer. She also lives about ten doors from Tony. (Um, again, can you ignore the pattern?)
Voting District Maps
To the city’s credit, they rapidly moved to make it easy for city residents to submit district maps. Almost all the submissions were similar to this map, which was called 112. This map makes a lot of sense; it follows the roads and neighborhoods logically and has an excellent population balance.
In our city history, districts 2 and 4 have never had representation, and district 3 would be represented by Jerry Holloway, who is NOT part of the RSM Cabal.
The problem for the entrenched power group is that Tony, Anne, and Brad would all be in the same district. All four maps that the city council prefers have been gerrymandered to make it possible for all 5 of the same council members to stay on the council, and they do this by only having four districts, with an at-large Mayor, who would be Tony. I’ve posted their preferred map here, with the approximate location of each of their houses:
Tony claims that random residents sent in this map variation because he thinks you are stupid and can’t see what’s happening. City residents spoke up at multiple public hearings, and the overwhelming support is for Map 112, but the council doesn’t care; they only pretend to care, so they will almost certainly push through Map 113. Sadly, that will almost certainly violate the Fair Maps Act, and Tony’s and Carol’s desire to bitterly cling to power will cost the city even more money. I recently made a video on Facebook on this topic, which leads to the crazy part…
Beall Attack at the Family Fest!
Our city has a two-day “Family Fest” once a year in early October. I volunteered for years but didn’t do it this time; I was just enjoying the show. While there on Sunday, October 8, at about 2:00 P.M., I was in an out-of-the-way corner talking to a rep from our state senator Catherine Blakespear, which Tony stumbles up, and starts saying to the rep: “Don’t listen to a word this man says, he is a liar, he is a cancer in our city” and some other incomprehensible things. I laughed and told him he needed to look in a mirror.
The list of lies from Tony Beall is long and documented. He can’t point to any lie from me because there hasn’t been one. I’m the only person who has constantly held his feet to the fire for so long over his corruption, which makes him big mad. This isn’t the first time Tony has libeled or slandered me from his official position as a city council member and even as mayor. The poor kid working the booth, who also knows Tony, was stunned, said he’d never seen that side of him and was shocked. Just think about how inappropriate it is for an Official of the city to go out of their way to loudly slander a private citizen to their state representative.
Summary
It’s weird how all these small cities with their part-time city councils seem so corrupt and power-mad. District voting is going to happen; the city council will try and gerrymander it so they all stay in power; they will get sued over the Fair Maps Act and lose. Recently, in Mission Viejo, a court had to force out some city council members after they refused to leave when they went to district voting. Why? Why do these people crave power in these small ponds so much? There is something deeply wrong with people who do that. Getting an earful from residents the other day about how reviled most of them are must have been eye-opening to this Council!
Good article; very good map! Glad to have you here!
I’m interested in how Map 113 violates the Fair Maps Act. Can you explain more?
I may not remember all of this when endorsement time arrives next year, so please keep an eye out for that and offer your own suggestions.
It is gerrymandered to keep all the same people in office and avoid the representation the CVRA is meant to provide. Districts 2 and 4 in map 112 would have fresh people and perspectives; otherwise, it is still the same people. Yes, elections can see new people, the incumbents aren’t guaranteed to win, but they have the advantage of name recognition and fundraising machines. When you are spending $25,000 on a local election, there is a problem. No one should be spending more than a grand on these seats.
jaja… I know RSM is a lot smaller that Anaheim, but $25k seems quaint as fuck. We were outraged that Disney used to spend 200k in 2012 to get folks like Jordan Brandman elected… now it’s getting closer and closer to a million.
Course also, these are mostly I.E.’s… from Disney, the Chamber, the hotels, the developers, the fire and police unions, the landlords. Always lockstep for the same lucky candidate. $25k. That’s cute.
C’mon, you’re supposed to denominate it in Anaheim firefighters!
Hi, Shawn, and welcome to the measure of fame we can give you!
Before I was a lawyer, I believed that lots of things should be illegal because common sense would dictate that violating the spirit of a law would render them illegal. Sadly, that doesn’t turn out to be true much of the time.
Since becoming a lawyer, I’ve learned not only that it’s important for me to read the statute, and any underpinning regulations, myself, but also that much of the giving meaning to a law will be found in case law, initially at the trial court level but more importantly at the appellate level.
Here’s a CA of State summary of the Fair Maps Act. https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/helpful-resources/redistricting. If there’s not more to it than this, then it is mostly requiring procedural transparency — which RSM’s junta may well have violated — and less about the substantive fairness of results. But I’ll have to research this beyond the SoS summary, and I invite others interested, attorneys or not, to join me in that. I’ll also be looking at what remedies are available for violations of the act and who can take advantage of them.
I would also suggest that you get in touch with Lee Fink, who is with a law firm large and intrepid enough to bring a case against RSM. Lee and two colleagues — one of them our old friend Brett Murdock! — just won a pretty whopping case against Mission Viejo for their Counsel’s illegal de facto coup and were awarded over $715,000 in attorney fees, so he’s probably in a pretty good mood right now!
Hey Shawn,
Check out this email I wrote Tony Beal
Dear Tony:
Recently, Shawn Gordon wrote a terrible misleading article about district voting.
But more than that, he personally attacked you and your colleagues.
He did it once before, and I called him out for it. Shawn lied then and he’s definitely lying now.
If this article has reached you and caused you any concern, I would be more than delighted to assist.
And let’s face it. You said it exactly as he wrote it:
“You can not believe a word that comes from Shawn Gordon’s mouth”.
Shawn Gordon’s assertion about Campaign Finance.
Flash Gordon fails to mention that he – and he alone- pursued dirt on you no one else would have kicked. I believe you payed a fine less than $200?
Mr Mayor, Tony, if you’re going to be bad and form a “cabal”, you gotta try harder than that!
I feel the real tragedy of redistricting, and it is a tragedy, it slices and dices Rancho Santa Margarita into pieces. It’s one more diversion from the master plan and how much longer can we do that?
The idea of redistricting itself says that the people within the city are different from one another. It really does.
Rancho Santa Margarita herself is one district that we happen to call Urban Village (and yes, a city).
How can I planned community stand (if) divided?
Won’t she truly fall? At least what Richard Reece planned?
We as a City will now be divided because of a lie: UNDER REPRESENTATION
Just as other words have slipped OUT of our lexicon and taken on new meaning, under representation is certainly some of them.
It implies that there’s somebody or some people within our community that are ignored and not listened to; even treated unfairly.
The only under represented people that our city has ever known are the radical economy busting bureaucrats that come into our city to change it.
These people heard from the mouth of hope and change that America needs to be Transformed. Now these under-representatives are here in Rancho Santa Margarita to do just that (with south Orange County their biggest target).
Please let me know if there’s anything that I can do, or need me to do and I’d be more than happy.
It’s time to make Sean Gordon go away again. His lies certainly don’t help.
They mislead, and if people took a chance to just look at his social media stupid little bios, that he’s always changing – then they would understand they’re not reading words from a sincere or smart person.
Sincerely,
Bobby Cox
Thanks Greg. I’m assuming whoever brought the districting demand is going to follow through.
As to the $25,000, consider that’s a good ten to twenty times what would normally be spent and is still 2.5x more than the previous obscene amount. The job only pays about $250 a month.