Councilman Peter Yao will not be allowed to run for re-election because he was appointed Thursday to be one of 14 commissioners who will redraw the borders of California's Assembly, state Senate and congressional districts next year. These are some of the comments he made at the Nov. 23 meeting, his last.
"Thank you Mayor Elderkin for the airtime. In my first election win I made a big mistake. I failed to give credit to my wife's contribution in my campaign. So I'm not going to make that mistake again. So I want to thank my wife publicly for supporting me over this past 8 years on the council. Her friends will recognize that she's the happiest lady in town because she no longer will have to run another political campaign.
Secondly I want to thank the Claremont city staff for their support throughout the last two terms. You clearly are the most competent and professional group of employees in my tour of duty, thank you. I want to thank the past and also the present councilmembers for putting up with me on all the long hours that we spent together, thank you. Lastly, I want to thank the residents of Claremont for giving me the opportunity to serve on the council, it really has been an honor.
I never thought watching a bingo cage spin was so exciting until last Thursday. When my name and number came up I was speechless. I knew what had happened but I couldn't believe it. I think it took three days before I came down from cloud nine.
As to what's next, the first meeting of the citizen redistricting committee is scheduled for Nov. 30th Sacramento. The eight of us are scheduled to pick the next six commissioners to fully compose the team of 14 candidates. At the state level they have the equivalent to the Brown Act called the Bagley Keene act. And there they have to give, instead of a three day notice of a meeting, they have to give 14 days advance notice. As such, their schedule, because not knowing how long it will take to do the work, the schedule has been agendized for the next 18 days on Nov. 30 through Dec. 17. So I have no idea how to pack for either two days or 18 days.
When the 14 members are fully in place, we are to initially agree on a process of how we work and then we're going to get the census data around the end of March. And then we'll complete drawing all the district boundaries, roughly 130 boundaries for Assembly, Senate plus the Board of Equalization by August. And we may get to start on the federal district this year. I don't know that until we get up there. So that's basically what's ahead us.
My neighbor asked if I was moving or not I said I hope not. When I first signed up as a candidate for the citizens redistricting committee it was with the understanding I could do both. I could be on the city council and at the same time work on the redistricting district. And that understanding existed all the way through until a telephone conversation that happened at around the June time frame with the legal staff working for the state auditors department. By the time we finished talking as to how I do my job on the city council, how I run the independent city association organizations, we just simply communicate way too much with the state elected officials who provide funding to most of our projects. And it would be almost impossible, it's not just a perceived problem or a potential problem, we both concluded that it is a serious conflict of interest. So at that point in time I understood I had to give up one or the other. And that's the reason I'm resigning from the council tonight.
Tonight will be my last council meeting because as I mentioned to you the redistricting starts Nov. 30 ... and I'm going to submit a letter to the mayor identifying Nov. 30 as my final day. I'm simply afraid of getting a text message on my phone with the two words just kidding. So I'm going to wait until the last minute in case that happens.
We're still working on it but we're going to have a party. My exit party. It's probably going to happen sometime after Dec. 17 when they let us off the hook.
Now we do anticipate issues. And if you look at Nov. 2 election on the Proposition 27, this is getting rid of redistricting committee. Even though the no vote in other words not disbanding the commission, won over the yes vote, there were 3.6 million people that wanted to disband the redistricting commission. So there's a lot of people out there that would wish we failed. That's the challenge ahead of us.
How do I see my assignment? Obviously drawing the line is the task. But the way I see it is I really see it as an opportunity to implement changes at the ground level the voters wanted. The proposition that passed in 2008 was called the voters first act. What that means to me is that if were successful in making these good changes there will be a voters second act, voters third act and we really have an opportunity to correct a lot of things that we find wrong at the state level and so that to me is a challenge. And also I'm looking forward to having a successful implementation at the state level ..."
... I just want to share one personal thought with you. As you read on magazines and newspapers there's been a lot of negative discussion on illegal immigration as to whether we should call them undocumented workers and so on and so forth. Even this past week there was discussion on whether we should charge in state tuition for the undocumented students. So it appears that the state may be on the verge ... in a change of attitude toward immigrants. I want to point out the fact that I was selected to be on the commission by the voters. It confirms that our political system in the year 2010 placed the trust on first generation refugees, which I am, who migrated to this country 50 years ago. And I'm asked to make these fundamental decisions that will have significant impact on the future of our democracy. So to me that's how I envision the interpretation of my being on the council.
This action speaks loudly, louder than a newspaper and louder than the magazine, that America continues to reaffirm that we are a nation of melting pot and that diversity is our strength. We will continue to improve our form of governance and be the best that we can be. I'm proud to be an American and as deeply honored to have the role in the performance of this important task."
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