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REPORT <br />To the Honorable Mayor and City Council <br />From the City Manager <br />September 24, 2018 <br />SUBJECT <br />Resolution Expressing the City Council's Intention to Initiate Procedures for Establishing <br />and Implementing By -District Elections for City Council Members Pursuant to Elections <br />Code §10010 <br />RECOMMENDATION <br />By motion, adopt a resolution expressing the City Council's intention to initiate <br />procedures for establishing and implementing by -district elections for City Council <br />Members pursuant to Elections Code § 10010. <br />BACKGROUND <br />The City received a certified letter on August 8, 2018 from Kevin Shenkman of the law <br />firm of Shenkman & Hughes asserting that the City's at -large council member electoral <br />system violates the California Voting Rights Act (the "CVRA") (Elections Code <br />§§ 14025-14032) and threatening litigation if the City declines to voluntarily change to a <br />district -based election system for electing City Council Members (Attachment A). <br />Under its charter, Redwood City utilizes an at -large elections system, which means <br />voters of the entire City elect the seven City Council Members. A district -based election <br />is one in which the City is divided into separate districts, each with one City Council <br />Member who resides in the district and is chosen by the voters in that particular district. <br />The CVRA only applies to jurisdictions that utilize an "at -large" election method. <br />Numerous cities and other public agencies in California have been sued under the <br />CVRA. The threshold to establish liability under the CVRA is extremely low, and <br />prevailing CVRA plaintiffs are guaranteed to recover their attorneys' fees and costs. As <br />a result, every governmental defendant that has challenged the conversion to by -district <br />elections under the CVRA has either lost in court or settled/agreed to change its <br />election system and been forced to pay at least some portion of the plaintiff's attorneys' <br />fees and costs. A few cities that have extensively litigated CVRA cases have been <br />eventually forced to pay multi -million -dollar fee awards and transition to by -district <br />