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News :: Elections & Legislation : Government Secrecy : Urban Development |
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Progressives Crush Satterthwaite Proposal to Add At-Large Seats to Council |
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by ML
(No verified email address) |
03 Nov 2004
Modified: 03:01:03 AM |
Citizens read Constitution, Flunk Mayor in Civics 101
Urbana votes at-large to reject at-large proposal proposed by mayor to add council seats |
In a stunning repudiation of Democratic Mayor Tod Satterthwaite, progressive forces in Urbana have soundly rejected the mayor’s proposal to add two at-large seats to the city council. The measure was designed expressly to undermine the voting majority that progressives had established under the ward system, which will be retained unchanged with this decision.
As of 3:00am, the vote totals stood at NO!, 7704 (63%) to Yes, 4486 (37%). With three precincts left to be counted, victory for those opposing the at-large proposal is mathematically all but certain.
The final result bodes ill for the mayor’s seeking re-election in the upcoming spring city elections, with the primary set for February 2005, with a general election to follow in April 2005. Although the mayor is a Democrat, he gambled on drawing support from Republicans and his tiny personal powerbase among conservative Democrats – and lost badly. It is likely that a strong progressive candidate will emerge to challenge Mayor Satterthwaite in the February primary. Given Urbana’s liberal voter base, winning the Democratic primary for mayor is tantamount to winning the following general election.
The at-large proposal emerged in the last few weeks before the filing date for the November election in late summer. The mayor, despite sharing the same party affiliation as the 6-1 majority of Urbana council members, has continually found reasons to engage in what many see as a destructive, petty personal politics in some council votes where he failed to even make an attempt at gaining consensus with his fellow Democrats.
The alleged need for at-large seats, according to the mayor and the mostly Republican supporters of the measure, was that the council had failed to draw a fair ward map, which is legally required to be drawn based on the latest census data. Unable to sustain a legal case, the mayor tried a public appeal to institute at-large seats to overcome the alleged “unfairness” of the ward map. Apparently, relatively few Urbana citizens shared this assessment. The election results demonstrate that there is, in fact, no substantial difference between ward sizes under the new ward map, both as a matter of opinion and as a matter of fact. Or if there is, the phantom additional citizens in Wards 6 and 7 do not vote.
Given the departure of several members of the current council and the mayor’s obvious weakness in his own party, substantial changes are looming in membership of the council with the upcoming spring elections – but likely not in the way the mayor had sought. There will be no at-large seats to be competed for, something which the largely Republican supporters of at-large had counted on to overcome their growing powerlessness in Urbana. The mayor himself is vulnerable, if he chooses to run again in the face of his most recent electoral defeat. And it is obvious that any candidate hoping to successfully compete to win a ward seat, with one or possibly two exceptions, will have to win the votes of Urbana’s solid progressive majority. |
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