On Tuesday the Chula Vista City Council will discuss a proposal by outgoing Mayor Cheryl Cox to put an end to a voter approved measure that hasn’t had much time to take root.
Two years ago, in addition to approving voting districts, Chula Vista voters also chose to have the top two vote-getters in a political race run against each other in a runoff election, regardless of what their vote tally was in a general or special election.
Confused? Wait a sec. I’ll confuse you just a little bit more with some pertinent background.
While it seems the rest of the world calls the elections in June a primary, Chula Vista calls them general elections. And those elections in November everyone else refers to as a general, in Chula Vista they are called special elections. The elections to replace a vacated council seat are also called special elections but don’t necessarily take place in November. So not only is a special election not special because it isn’t one of a kind, it also isn’t confined to one particular month. So really you have two kinds of special elections in Chula Vista. One in November and one to fill a void that can take place any time of year provided it meets certain parameters. For clarity’s sake I’ll refer to the void-filling special election as the Really Special special election.
Prior to 2012 it used to be that anyone who won 50 percent plus one vote in June won their race and didn’t have to face a second election in November. But some people wanted a larger segment of the population to decide who their leaders would be and since November elections typically attract more voters, an ordinance was passed requiring the top two vote-winners to compete in a November runoff election—regardless of the number of votes they won in June. The same rules apply in a Really Special special election and go into affect this year.
So, imagine if Councilwoman Mary Salas wins her bid for mayor in the special election this year. In 2015 a Really Special special election election will be held to find someone to take over Salas’s seat on the council. If that Really Special special election were held in March, for example, a runoff Really Special special election (we can call that a Really Special runoff) would be held months later to determine the winner even if someone won the first Really Special special election with 95 percent of the vote.
Cox says the City Clerk tells her the potential cost of a Really Special special election and a Really Special runoff could be at least $1 million. By eliminating the need for a runoff in either a general or Really Special one, the cost associated with representative elections is roughly halved.
The mayor wants Chula Vistans to decide in the upcoming special election if they want to potentially save money by eliminating the runoff requirement. Maybe the real question that needs to be asked is: Does this issue — whatever we end up calling it — merit rushing through or can it be examined a while longer?
