Prop. 218 Protest Count Entering Day 18 (Not Including Weekends)
Three weeks have passed since the hearing on the rates, two since the date originally scheduled for the announcement of its success or failure. Those watching the process during the first week (before they closed their doors to the public) say actual counting didn’t start until Friday, July 18 and continued through that weekend. Validations started Monday the 21st of July.
According to Ms. Rudock, the staff is not working on this full time anymore. A friend who went in to the CCSD office to pay her bill today asked the questions a lot of Cambrians have on their mind about the Prop 218 voting: First, can I find out if my protest was counted? The standard answer, provided in a nice way, was “not until the counting is finished.” Concerned her vote would not be validated and added to the total AFTER the counting was done, she asked if she could leave a sample of her signatures, since she has two distinct ways she signs things. The woman behind the counter (Suzy, I believe) was helpful, but unsure whether or not she could accept such a thing (though she was very helpful and professional - even during and after a call from a customer who was clearly neither). Monique came into the front office during their conversation and took the copies of my friends signature, though she wasn’t sure they’d use it.
The staff has likely been fielding many calls and visits every day of the past three weeks, some less than polite. Most of the staff is just as in the dark as the rest of the community, as the counters work behind closed doors and with no small amount of secrecy. The District Clerk, District Counsel, two other CCSD staff members and the League of Women Voters reps (I assume) had been working on the count…whether this is still the crew counting and how many hours a day are devoted are unknown.
Doing a bit of math, if they check each and every protest (up to 2001, the number needed to defeat the increase) and each one is examined for about 5 minutes, it would take about 167 hours for one person to count and validate that many. That comes out to about 20 full-time 8 hour days with no lunch break. They MUST be getting close. It’s been over two weeks since an update - so how about one? Perhaps the Cambrian will have some new information….For now, here is some information originally posted as a comment to another post. Recommended reading from Mary Webb, who watched the whole first week of counting - free of charge to Cambrians. Thanks, Mary.
From Mary Webb:
It took 3 CCSD employees and 2 (CCSD paid) League of Women Voters representatives eight full days to alphabetize and review 2500 protests. Although the CCSD continues to label this review a “League of Women Voter’s” process, most League questions were directed to and answered by CCSD staff members Pam Duffield and Kathy Choate. In fact, the C.F.R. observers were concerned enough about this lack of oversight by the LOWV at the beginning of the week that we asked the League of Women Voter’s to observe what Duffield and Choate were doing, rather than sorting and alphabetizing the protests by street name. In response to our requests, LOWV Sara Horne agreed to move her chair closer to the CCSD employees following our request for more oversight.
After one week, of sitting in mandatory silence and observing the CCSD staff and League of Women voters sort and alphabetize and remove ballots for signature concerns, and supposed duplicates, we were finally getting to the validation process. Friday, July 18 was spent in an orderly fashion checking off addresses alphabetically, beginning with “A thru F”, a process that took 7 hours. I learned a lot on Friday as the CCSD staff was finally talking loud enough that we could hear what was being said, and the conversation involved the actual dispositioning of the protests. In other words, I could figure out what they were deciding and compare the results to my county database of protest names, addresses and parcel numbers.
When we (the Cambrians for Fiscal Responsibility) observers left on Friday, July 18, District counsel Art Montandon announced that the CCSD staff was going to meet “in the offices” over the weekend to review some of the protests that were questionable. Mr. Montandon explained that the League of Women Voters was not expected to attend this weekend review. The citizen observers were not invited to attend as it was to be held in the district offices, rather than Suite 204, and they were physically going to check files.
On Monday morning July 21, at 9:00 a.m., contrary to Art’s statement, we discovered that the League of Women voters did attend this weekend session with the CCSD staff. I also discovered that protests involving street addresses “G thru Z” had been reviewed over the weekend, and, unfortunately, I and the C.F.R. observers missed out on the conversations regarding the validating of all of those protests.
The League and staff proceeded to review protests they pulled over the weekend comparing them to the CCSD’s ‘ratepayer’ list, to see if those people can be found on the County’s property owner list or a “CIS” list.
As the protests are compared to differing lists, it is readily apparent to anyone witnessing the process, that the County’s list contains more current information and more accurate information than the CCSD’s ‘ratepayer’ list or the “CIS” list. Many of the protest names and addresses that did not show on the CCSD database were approved by checking the county’s list. When this scenario occurred, CCSD Staff member Pam Duffield often asked “why are these names on the county list - has this change taken place recently?” only to be answered by CCSD clerk Monique “no , those changes in the County’s database had taken place in either 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2007.” I could have answered that question myself as most of those names and addresses appeared on the database I was referring to, which is a County list of Parcel Numbers, but did not show on the CCSD’s ‘ratepayer’ list.
Although the staff complained about their intermittent internet service it’s important to know the county list can be downloaded into your computer without having to be ‘on line’. CCSD staff member Monique commented that “half of the owner’s names may have been dropped from the CCSD’s rate payer list when the CCSD databases were updated”. Once this was discovered, I wondered why the CCSD didn’t just compare ballot names to the County database, and work from that list rather than the CCSD’s ‘ratepayer’ database. Seems it would have saved a lot of time…and money.
There are stacks of protests that have been checked against one ‘list, but not ‘all’ lists, and other tenant protests that will only be checked against ‘certain’ lists. If the CCSD does not have a tenant’s name on their tenant list, and the owner of the property has not protested, I believe those votes may be discounted, even if that tenant has paid a CCSD bill. According to the League of Women voters, there are protests that are ‘suspect’ as the signatures do not match a limited signature ‘database’ at the CCSD office, and those may be declared invalid. Art admitted the CCSD only has about half of customer’s signatures on file at the CCSD office! I am also concerned that there are tenants who have signed protests that the CCSD may not know are tenants. Couldn’t we just get a cancelled check from those people who have protested and paid a CCSD bill at some point in the last year? There are protests that have been called ‘duplicates’ that I believe represent more than one vote as the customer has more than one APN (assessor’s parcel number) with water, and there are protests that have been set aside for review, due to confusion on ownership name if the property is in a trust account.
Protests were placed in separate stacks for ‘review’; some are considered ‘provisional,’ some are considered ‘duplicates’, and some are ‘verified’. Art says there are no actual ‘rejects’ yet, because each one will be review again before calling it a ‘reject’. Art said we would be able to obtain copies of the ‘rejects’ once the vote is certified, but it is unclear whether we will be able to act on a ‘reject’ or discuss ‘rejects’ after the vote is certified and before any action is taken on a rate increase.
If the protest does not succeed, Cambrians for Fiscal Responsibility will request a 10-15 day period in which to try to verify supposed ‘rejected protest forms’. On Friday, Art said he didn’t know if they would be finished with the process Monday, July 21. This prediction turned out to be correct – the count has not been completed as of this writing, Saturday August 2, and the citizens have not been given an estimate of when the count will be completed and certified.
I, and others, have questions about the methodology used for this process and submitted questions, not only to the CCSD, but in person, to the League of Women Voters expressing concern during the vote verifying process. Those questions have never been answered. Because the CCSD never set forth a procedure for this vote protest, I believe the League of Women voters did not fully understand the complexities of our situation when counting began Tuesday, July 15. This is not a Presidential Election – there is no database of voter’s signatures in this process as there would be in a Presidential Election. I believe the League is just now realizing it is NOT “one person = one vote” as in a Presidential election, nor is it “one site address = one vote”, but it is actually “one parcel = one vote” according to property ownership (or ratepayer) and water meter account. It’s unfortunate that these questions were not answered by the CCSD Gen. Manager, and clarified in full before beginning the process of protest validation. I believe the citizens of Cambria, the CCSD staff, and the League of Women Voters would all been better served.
So, will we reach a majority of 2001 (a number that must be substantiated)? In July, Montandon didn’t believe the CCSD would continue to pay him or staff, to research all the ‘questionable’ ballots once we reach the supposedly successful 2001 number. In effect, we are now paying Mr. Montandon, CCSD staff, the League of Women voters (and a handwriting expert?) to ‘re-review’ all of the votes because the process was not clear enough in the beginning.
Mary
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