Mr. Larsen seems to miss the goal by a wide margin with regards to his rhetorical penalty kick about the city’s action with regards to the city system for elections. The Charter Review Committee approved a return to the old system of top vote getters being elected at large with the commitment to develop a proportional representation system of elections once the technology becomes available from the County. To proceed hastily would require the city to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars, thus requiring money for soccer parks to be cut. The fact that three women were elected this fall is due to the desire of the voters nationwide to see women take a greater share of responsibility, and our direct election system allowed for this, as through this current method, voters can make direct choices between the candidates city wide. District elections would actually lend themselves to incumbent-oriented races as is done in San Jose, where incumbents use the district system to their advantage. As far as goal setting being the graveyard is also a point from a kick far out of bounds as the majority of the innovations and city sponsored housing projects were due to goal setting. A disgruntled rant about our city’s system of election is quite offside, as our community elected an Hispanic to the City Council and has a diverse group of people in city management reflective of our diverse community.
