Following is the map of the newest CUSD proposal for the Mission Viejo Trustee District No. 6. Last year voters approved separate voting districts, so Mission Viejo voters will no longer vote on all seven trustees. It will instead elect one Trustee beginning on Nov 6, 2012. Currently two of the seven trustees are residents of Mission Viejo, the largest city in the District. When their current terms expire MV will have a maximum of one resident trustee.
Under the separate voting districts it will be possible for families to have children attending designated CUSD schools outside the districts where the parents live and vote.
Mission Viejo is shown in light green. The black boundary shows the MV Trustee District, which comprises about one-half of the City, because the other half of town is situated in the Saddleback Unified School District, where at-large voting still exists. CUSD District 6 also includes a small portion of Laguna Niguel (brown) to achieve approximately equal populations in each of the seven districts. Each district has a population between 48,743 and 49,193.
New maps are required each decade following the federal census. The latest maps are known as Plan G and will be discussed at the Jan 9 meeting of the CUSD trustees. A final vote is expected on January 25 or February 13. Feedback from the public will be accepted at the meetings or via e-mail at redistricting@capousd.org.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Dispatch. It’s good for our local voters to see the downstream consequences of an ill-informed or largely apathetic electorate.
The Capo Employee Union deserves to be congratulated. They successfully engineered a district takeover and consolidation of power that will now be practically impossible to reverse. On the upside, you won’t need to worry about strikes anymore, because the Trustees are now safe and securely in the pocket of the Union.
Every parent who pays enough attention to vote in the district has successfully been disenfranchised as a result of losing the ability to have a direct vote on the Trustees at Capo district in the voting regions where their kids go to school. Yet another fine example of Gerrymandering lead by Unions in order to attain and retain political power. One has to wonder if anyone is paying attention in California, or if the general consensus is “why bother.”
Lets break this down a little. For example – based on the current proposed voting region I would be able to vote on a Trustee that covers Bathgate and Barcelona, but not Capo Valley HS. So because those two schools feed CVHS my kids will go to that voting region, but I’ll only be able to vote on school Trustees outside that region. So we’ll have Trustees in School voting zones where my kids go to school that I as a voter will never be able to exercise my right to vote for or against.
Then you have Liberal Trustees like Gary Pritchard who ask voters not to worry about that? They know what’s best for our kids, and just in case you disagree with a policy of theirs, so what. You can’t vote them out, so pound sand.
It’s laughable, and more proof that Capo needs to be broken into two districts, it’s too large as is and as long as we play along with the Districts attempts to make it work, when clearly it won’t, are kids will continue to be played like pawns to a bloated district and its employees.
I’m sure it’ll all work out though. I mean, it’s not like we live in a state that requires students to learn the sexual preference of historical contributors to society… er oh wait. Well at least Gary Pritchard will make sure our elementary school students won’t have to hear about sexual preferences.
Vouchers Anyone?
I recognized the down-side consequences and risk of this change, and and spoke at multiple Mission Viejo City council and CUSD meetings against Measure H (that effected this change). Having this seemingly get more attention now and have these obvious concerns and problems raised after the fact, is a little late. We’ll certainly see how this experiment works out.
Personally, I was disappointed that so many voters bought into the concept that it would be better to only have a vote for a single Trustee, instead of all 7. That single trustee can be out-voted every single time on issues that impact you and your children, so I believe there’s no real representation in that at this local level.
Best of luck getting the ear of trustees (the other 6 of 7) that you don’t vote for, and since you don’t vote for them they really won’t be too committed to hear and represent you (as opposed to the direct interests of constituents that do vote for them).
Decreasing our voting power from all 7 trustees to only 1 was not too swift in my opinion. However, the majority spoke, so now we’ll see if it works better or worse for our large school district in dire financial straits.
I hope all the fools who voted for Measure H will see how moronic their choice was when the next election occurs. Why, why would anyone want to DECREASE their voting power? I was stunned when Measure H passed! I thought it was a no-brainer to vote NO!