I have been advocating for Ward-Specific City Council elections, here in Santa Ana, for many years.  Our current system, which features six Wards, forces candidates to campaign in the entire city.  That is a very expensive proposition.  It leads to corruption as the candidates inevitably have to sell out to Special Interests in order to raise the humongous amounts of money needed to run for our City Council.

Just how corrupt our system is came to light today in a Voice of OC article that fingered three of our Council Members for allegedly accepting money under less than legal circumstances, from an apartment developer of course.

Hope is not lost however as I have discovered that there is in fact an effort underway to place a measure on the ballot to allow the voters of this city to opt for a Ward-Specific Council election system.  In that scenario the Council candidates would only have to campaign in one Ward.  They could conceivably walk that ward all on their own.  They could meet all the voters and garner their support.  The Special Interests? They would be out of luck. Read more…