Carson City Council’s vote allows members to hold two offices at once
By Lyn Jensen, Carson Reporter
Carson Mayor Albert Robles is due in Los Angeles Superior Court Jan. 25 for a case rooted in two issues — his refusal to resign from the other elected office he occupies with the Water Replenishment District of Southern California and questions about where he lives.
California law prohibits elected officials from holding two offices simultaneously, with one exception; the state approves of local government bodies crafting ordinances to work around that law.
So with Robles’ court date looming, the Carson City Council used its Dec. 19 meeting to provide Robles with a legal loophole. It passed an ordinance — and an urgency ordinance containing identical language — that allows council members to simultaneously as “elected or appointed officers” on sergeral other specific governing bodies, including the Water Replenishment District.
At the meeting, City Attorney Bill Wynder said the action would “create a mechanism which will avoid the appearance of incompatibility of holding multiple offices in a manner recognized by law.”
Court documents declared the Los Angeles County District Attorney wants to remove Robles from his water board seat arguing the “opportunity for conflict between the offices is formal and constitutional, as the jurisdictions overlap.”
“The district attorney wants to pursue this complaint against me because she happens to favor the oil industry,” said Robles during the meeting.
The district attorney’s complaint argues that precedent for removal is established.
“There are at least nine separate attorney general opinions, which have concluded that holding the offices of city councilman and water district simultaneously presents substantial questions of law,” the complaint stated.
Since his reelection to the mayorship of Carson and to the Water Replenishment board in 2016, Robles has only dug deeper into his stance that the offices do not conflict and his intention to fight the district attorney’s lawsuit.
The district attorney’s case singles out the board’s decision to increase pump taxes on three groundwater monitoring wells in Carson as an area of potential conflict, along with Tesoro’s attempt to merge its Carson refinery with one in Wilmington. The water district could also develop capital improvement projects that need the council’s approval.
Before the council members voted, Wynder instructed them to draw slips of paper from a bowl to determine which member would abstain. He told them this was to avoid a conflict of interest by even the simple act of voting on the resolution.
Wynder’s concern stemmed from the fact that Robles draws two salaries from serving in two elected offices. He and his fellow council members were voting on the possibility that they all might be allowed to earn two or more salaries by serving in two or more elected offices.
For the vote on the urgency ordinance, Cedric Hicks abstained. For the second ordinance, Wynder advised the council to draw again, this time to determine which two council members would abstain.
Hicks and Jawane Hilton abstained from the second vote.
“The good news for Hicks is that his fingerprints aren’t anywhere on this,” Wynder quipped.
Several residents appeared at the meeting and spoke against the council’s action.
“This is tantamount to an admission of guilt,” commented Jan Schafer, a resident.
The next day Carson Connected, an online blog maintained by Carson resident Lori Noflin, asked, “Did Carson officials conspire to obstruct justice?”
The city’s new ordinances allow members of the city council to hold “elected or appointed” offices with the Water Replenishment District, the West Basin Municipal Water District, The Metropolitan Water District, the Compton and Los Angeles school boards, the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District, the county sanitation district, the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Southern California Association of Governments.
Both ordinances required a second reading at the council’s Jan. 9 meeting.
Sergio Calderon, Robles’ colleague in the Water Replenishment District, has twice brushed with the district attorney for a similar issue. In 2008 and again in 2016, the district attorney sued Calderon for serving simultaneously on the water board and the Maywood City Council. Both times Calderon resigned from the council rather than give up his seat on the water board.