After years of debate centered on city council term lengths and elections, Mission Viejo City Council members decided to stagger term limits – giving some elected officials two-year terms in the next election.
The move also drew criticism from some residents, who said the selection process should’ve been randomized.
Cathy Schlicht, former Mission Viejo mayor and vocal critic of the council, said that the council ignored calls to randomly select which district gets two-year terms.
“The public consensus was to randomly pick the districts for two- and four-year terms,” Schlicht said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “This council totally ignored what the voters had requested, and in fact, did the direct opposite of what the voters wanted.”
It comes after a years-long battle over switching the city’s election system to district voting and after a judge found council members improperly extended their terms in 2022.
Last week, Mission Viejo City Council voted to stagger councilmember term lengths following the 2026 election, giving four-year terms for Districts 1, 3 and 5, while Districts 2 and 4 get two-year terms.
Currently Councilmembers Bob Ruesch, Cynthia Vasquez and Wendy Bucknum represent districts 1, 3 and 5, respectively, and their terms will end in 2026. The next representatives for these seats will serve four years.
District 2 Councilmember Brian Goodell and District 4 Councilmember Trish Kelley will also leave their seats in 2026, but their successors will serve a two-year term.
All council positions will be up for reelection in 2026.
After the 2028 election, all council seats will return to the full four-year terms in staggered elections – meaning three seats will be on the ballot one election cycle, followed by two seats in the next election cycle
The council approved the changes in a 3-1 vote during their Oct. 28 meeting. Vasquez voted no, and Goodell was absent from the meeting.
Vasquez echoed Schlicht’s concerns.
“Ignoring what residents, voters had asked for — in terms of random selection — what is the harm in that?” she said during the meeting. “That was never really addressed. It just feels like, in some ways, the public was ignored.”
Bucknum countered Vasquez’s concern, pointing to the public comment that was available on the city website for residents to voice their opinion on the matter.
“I understand that it’s sometimes not fun to be on the losing end of a decision,” Bucknum said. “But it was addressed, and there was a comment provided by the mayor and by the rest of us as to the thought behind this. And it does provide for us to have fair elections.”
Vasquez also raised concerns that the majority of district elections fall on midterm election years, potentially resulting in a lower voter turnout.
Bucknum said that midterm years allow for the local issues to be brought to light.
“The advantage of the three seats in an off year is that those elections are often focused on local issues, local people, your city, your community, and there’s an advantage to that,” Bucknum said.
Kelley said the move puts the council back on track.
“I will also say that this action that we approved at the last meeting gets us back on to the track that we were previously on,” she said. “In 2020, Districts 2 and 4 had a two-year term.”
Mission Viejo’s Controversial History on Election Systems
The decision to stagger terms comes after a judge pulled a majority of council members from the dais in 2022, following a slew of lawsuits against various members for improperly extending their terms.
[Read: Local Judge Throws Majority of Mission Viejo’s City Councilmembers Off Dais]
Mission Viejo’s election system controversy began in 2018 when elected officials began debating a new voting system for the city after legal threats alleged the old voting system disenfranchised minority voters.
At this time, the city council began exploring the idea of transitioning to a cumulative voting system to replace their at-large system, which critics say can silence minority voices.
[Read: Mission Viejo Likely First California City to Use Cumulative Voting]
At-large voting allows for voters across the city to vote on all candidates. That means if there are three seats on the ballot, residents get to cast their vote in all three races.
The 2018 lawsuit alleged that system violated the California Voting Rights Act for disenfranchising minorities in the city, leading the city to eventually transition to by-district voting.
District voting allows residents to vote only for one councilmember who’s running in the district where they live. Proponents of this voting system say it gives voters more opportunity to elect candidates who represent their community, while critics say it gives voters less say over the entire council.
But Mission Viejo officials previously considered a cumulative voting system, which would allow residents to distribute multiple votes among their top-choice candidates.
For example, if three seats are available in a cumulative voting system, residents can distribute three votes in any way they choose, including giving all of their votes to a single candidate or splitting them up between multiple candidates.
The idea was ultimately denied by Secretary of State Alex Padilla.
No other city in Orange County elects council members using a cumulative voting system.
When officials were considering cumulative voting in 2020, councilmembers voted to cancel some elections due to the unclear voting processes, allowing three councilmembers — Bucknum, Ed Sachs and Greg Raths — to continue their two-year terms for two additional years.
This decision extended the terms to cover until 2022, when the city was required to have a finalized voting system in place.
[Read: Mission Viejo City Council Extends Their Own Terms as Elected Officials]
The other two councilmembers, Kelley and Goodell, followed suit, requesting that their two-year terms be extended to four years, ending in 2024, in order to maintain the staggering of cycles.
[Read: Mission Viejo To Again Discuss Extending Council Member Terms Ahead of November Election]
In May of 2022, a lawsuit was filed against councilmembers by a resident, claiming that the council’s term extensions were unlawful, ultimately leading a judge to call for the removal of Bucknam, Sachs and Raths from the dais.
The judge also denied the extensions to Goodell and Kelly’s terms.
But days before the council was set to be booted, the state appellate court blocked their removal. The council members ultimately made it to election day without a final decision from the appellate court on whether or not their term extension was constitutional.
All five council positions ended up being placed on the ballot in the 2022 election.
[Read: OC Judge Orders All 5 Mission Viejo Council Members Must Stand For Election in November]
Goodell, Kelley and Bucknum returned to the council, serving districts 2, 4 and 5, respectively. Ruesch was elected to represent District 1 and Vasquez was elected in District 3.