Vote ends screening debate

Jennifer Kho

COSTA MESA -- With their decision to leave the process to appoint

commissioners nearly unchanged, City Council members late Monday quietly

put to rest, for now, their discussion about requiring citizenship

screening for commission applicants.

Councilman Chris Steel asked the city attorney’s office earlier this

month to determine if the city could legally require its commissioners to

be United States citizens.

But Steel did not broach the subject again Monday as council members

voted to keep their method of voting as a whole for commissioners, even

though the attorney concluded the city may require citizenship.

Steel previously said he felt an obligation to those who elected him

to request consideration for commissioner citizenship screening, but he

said Wednesday he does not plan to pursue the matter any further.

“Citizenship screening for commissioners is not a big deal to me at

all,” Steel said. “As far as committees, we might want to look at those.

And we’ve got to look at what’s going on at the job center. But

citizenship screening for commissioners is not the main issue with me.”

In fact, the city already requires parks commissioners -- but not

planning commissioners -- to be registered voters.

Only citizens may register to vote.

In a staff report, the city attorney’s office recommended that the

parks commission requirement be revoked to keep the requirements for both

commissions consistent.

However, the council did not vote to revoke the requirement and

decided not to add a step to the process to enforce the requirement,

basically ending the debate.

For now, at least.

In the future, Mayor Libby Cowan said, she might ask the council to

take another look at the requirement to try to make the commission

ordinances more compatible.

But she said the decision to retain the process for appointing

commissioners was confusing enough without adding a motion to address the

citizenship requirement Monday.

The council earlier this month decided to end all commission terms in

February and to begin selecting new commissioners then. The parks

commission also was reduced from seven to five members to match the

number of council members.

At Monday’s meeting, Cowan spoke against requiring proof of

citizenship for commissioners, saying the city “must accept the energies

of all people because we dare not lose out on anyone’s talents and

dreams.

“If this is something [Steel] is choosing not to pursue, I think

that’s wonderful,” she said Tuesday. “I think we’ve worked very well with

the residency requirement.”

Councilwoman Linda Dixon said legal residents -- regardless of their

citizenship status -- should be allowed to be appointed to commissions.

“We’re still reaching out to the entire community for applications,

and it will still be a full interview process,” Dixon said. “I think you

want people in your community who have green cards and who are here

legally to contribute to the community they live in. And no one on the

council is going to do anything that is unlawful.”

Bill Turpit, a member of the Latino Business Council who strongly

opposes citizenship screening for commissioners, said he is satisfied

with the council’s decision to leave the requirements alone.

“The status quo is that parks commissioners are required to be

citizens and planning commissioners aren’t, and I’m satisfied that so far

it has worked,” Turpit said. “I think that if it becomes an obstacle in

the future, where a person is otherwise qualified and recommended for

service, the council should pursue a change to make the [requirements]

consistent. But the important thing is that no change was made in the

context in which [the issue] was raised, and that context is citizenship

screening.”