We Get Letters: Rivas, Madison Ignored The Will of The People

Letter from a concerned community member:

The Pasadena City Council voted to appoint Justin Jones as the new District 3 Councilmember, at least until December when the current term of office is completed. The vote did not come without controversy however. Councilmembers Madison and Rivas abstained and voted against the appointment, respectively, for a deeply concerning reason. In the most recent election in June of this year, Brandon Lamar, one of the two other potential nominees ran against the late John J. Kennedy and received 1,081 votes or approximately 41% of the vote. Both Mr. Madison and Ms. Rivas pointed to that as evidence that the Council was ignoring the will of the District 3 residents. I have no doubt that in the days and weeks to come, we will hear that same sentiment from many of Brandon’s supporters. But what concerned me more than that was the fact that these two Councilmembers were ready to throw away the preferences of the other 60% of the district’s voters and the 1,552 residents that cast a ballot for somebody other than Mr. Lamar. Where is the recognition that they too deserve to be heard? There is no guarantee that if it were a straight election between Brandon, Justin, and Pastor Smith, that any one of them would receive an outright majority, and pretending as if we could somehow know otherwise is a very dangerous precedent to set. Something that escaped both Mr. Madison and Ms. Rivas was a willingness to see past their blinders and listen to the voices that aren’t as loud.

After District 1 Councilmember Tyron Hampton made the motion to appoint Mr. Jones and it was seconded by District 2 Councilmember Felicia Williams, Mr. Madison voiced his opposition to picking someone other than Brandon based on his vote total in the previous election and the “landslide” of support he received in letters and correspondences to council. Ms. Williams responded quite rightly with a fact that all members of public bodies should know, public comment and correspondence is always disproportionately biased towards the opinion of the more privileged. While I do not believe Mr. Lamar does not have a significant level of support, he also has had a structure in place for months that was able to facilitate the specious landslide of support he apparently had through letters and comments. Ms. Williams responded that when she was actually out and talking with residents in District 3, that many of them supported someone other than Brandon, a fact that should be no surprise to anyone given that 61% of the voters in the past election voted for someone other than Brandon. Mr. Madison asked for specific people that Ms. Williams was, righteously, unwilling to divulge. Mr. Madison replied that he couldn’t just take that information on trust alone. Perhaps Mr. Madison forgot that at the top of the meeting, the City Clerk announced that while Brandon had in the neighborhood of 80 letters of support and Justin had around 25, Justin actually had more letters of support from people that provided addresses and confirmed that they lived in District 3. So if Mr. Madison was able to trust that all 80 of Brandon’s supporters lived in District 3, it’s exceedingly worrying why he was unable to trust that Ms. Williams had talked to residents who did not support Brandon.

The 5 members of Council who supported Mr. Jones correctly pointed out that we cannot know what the residents of District 3 would want because there cannot be an election by law, and to simply take the word of the most vociferous is not what the Council is charged with doing. The Council is charged with making the best decision, and anyone who listened to all 3 applicants knows that Justin was clearly the most prepared, most informed, and most experienced applicant, and will most likely be the most effective representative for District 3. One of the most telling points was one that Ms. Rivas and Mr. Madison conveniently overlooked, the voting history of the applicants. Mr. Lamar failed to vote in 7 of the last 9 municipal elections. He did not vote in the Mayoral primary in March of 2020, nor did he vote on the critical Measures I & J in November of 2018, nor did he vote on the charter amendment measures pertaining to elections and the zoning of cannabis dispensaries in June of 2018. Mr. Jones voted in all of those elections. Civic engagement also means voting.

At the end of the night, Mr. Jones was appointed to the vacant seat, and I am confident he will represent it well through December, and, provided he proves himself to be a responsive public servant, I hope he will continue to serve well past that date as well. One of the most important aspects of an elected official is the acknowledgement that you not only represent the people who voted for you, but also the people who voted for someone else, and the people who didn’t vote or could not vote. When you start ignoring the people who don’t agree with you, that is a dangerous path to go down, and one that I hope the voters of Districts 5 and 6 will remember in the future. But we don’t even need to look past a few months ago to ascertain how Ms. Rivas will act as a representative for people with whom she disagrees. Despite being an appointee herself, and without any mandate from the voters, Ms. Rivas waited until she was assured of no challenger to her District 5 seat before coming out in favor of Measure H and the rent control campaign. In doing so, she denied whatever portion of District 5 that may oppose Measure H the chance to organize an opposition. Grandstanding is, unfortunately, something not foreign to the City Council, but her hypocrisy is deplorable. It is very easy to listen and work with people who agree with you. The mark of a true representative is being able to listen and work with the people who don’t agree with you. Councilmembers Madison and Rivas fell short of that last night. Thankfully it appears Councilmember Jones will not.

Milo Kirsch, Pasadena Resident

Got something to say, email Managing Editor André Coleman, at andrec@pasadenanowmagazine.com