RSM City Council Games Attracts The ACLU
Introduction
In June of 2023, the city of Rancho Santa Margarita was served notice of a CVRA (California Voting Rights Act) demand to switch to district voting. I covered the gerrymandered results here. There appear to be two violations of the CVRA in the map the city council approved; one is a violation of the FAIR MAPS Act, and the other is that they went to four districts with an at-large mayor (so the five existing council people could all stay on the council), instead of five districts. The at-large mayor is the violation, and by doing it, that means another party can sue the city again over that part of it.
The CVRA caps the plaintiff’s legal bills to $30,000 to keep it from being a cash grab. The RSM city council and their questionable city attorney, Greg Simonian, have been playing games over the bill ever since. Because the city adopted districts, that means they accepted what the lawyer did, and at this point, these games are opening up the city to a much larger lawsuit, closer to a quarter million, because Greg always plays these games. Greg also works for the city of Laguna Hills, but he advised them to fight the re-districting, never mind that no city ever wins that fight, but they’ll spend millions fighting it. Why does Greg care though? He gets paid the same either way. As a matter of fact, he makes over $300,000 a year from his part-time gig at RSM. You add in the much larger Laguna Hills, and he’s probably pushing $1 million a year in billing for his firm for two part-time gigs.
What has that wrought? The ACLU is not at all pleased with the games being played and is getting involved. The city was warned this would happen, but they were too arrogant to listen, and now they are going to play with the big dogs. Without further ado, the letter sent to the city on April 8, 2024, is presented below. I understand the Boys & Girls Club is a pressing concern for our residents, but this ties in with the same racist attitudes from the majority of the city council. This is just the first of what will likely be several actions from the ACLU, depending on whether our city council realizes the hole they dug or not.
