Carson City Council Fail to Fill Vacant Seat, Proceeds to Special Election

At a March 11 meeting, Carson’s city council voted to hold a special election to fill the council seat vacated by recently elected mayor, Lula Davis-Holmes. A special election is now necessary after the council failed to appoint someone at the meeting as nominations repeatedly ended with a 2-2 split. Mayor Holmes and Councilman Cedrick Hicks were on one side and Council persons Jim Dear and Juwane Hilton were on the other.

Mayor Davis-Holmes has said she favored a candidate that would allow the city council to be reflective of Carson’s ethnic diversity  The main splitting point arose under the perception that the council needed a more diverse representation. The council is currently made up of three African-Americans and one white person. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 23.8% of Carson’s residents were African-American and 27% were white in 2019. The Hispanic percentage of the population exceeded both at 37% while the Asian population made up 26.7% of Carson’s population.

In a March 2 council meeting, Davis-Holmes expressed this as being one of her biggest concerns moving forward. She said that Carson had always been a leader in diversifying its council to adequately represent its population but feels the city has been losing this identity over the years. 

“We don’t have a Filipino on our council. We don’t have a Latino on our council,” Holmes said. “I’m just concerned that if we’re forced to go to an election, we may still not have that.”

But she also said that if the residents of the city choose someone who she doesn’t feel would bring about the diversity she’s mentioning, she’d be content with the peoples’ choice. Hilton on the other hand, didn’t agree with the notion of not wanting to appoint another African-American to the council because it would decrease diverse representation and felt that diversity in this context meant something other than race.

Councilman Hilton argued for a broader notion of diversity — one that considers qualifications.

“When we talk about diversity, I want to quickly point out that diversity isn’t only about color,” Hilton said. “We could appoint a woman tonight and the council will be diverse. It’s not just about color. It’s based on qualification. So many people are looked over based on color, not their qualifications.”

The council considered 46 applicants but none were able to get three of four available votes needed to get the interim seat that would last until the election in November.

One of Jim Dear’s nominations was reserved for former council member Elito Santarina who served Carson from 2003 to 2017 in different fashions as a mayor pro tem and a council member. Former city manager and California State University Public Administrator Jerry Groomes was one of Hilton’s nominations. 

The next course of action, which was the only thing the council was able to agree on will be to hand the decision over to the city’s residents for the Nov. 2 election.

“I think it’s best that we allow the residents of Carson to determine who’s going to be the person to represent district four,” Hicks said. “All of us have been elected to sit at this desk and I hope that we will put this back on the residents so that they can make the determination.”