A four-way race for Carson’s mayoral seat this November will see incumbent Al Robles face fellow City Council members colleagues Jim Dear and Lula Davis-Holmes, while municipal employee and union president Ana Meni completes the field.
Meanwhile, Carson’s first-ever district elections will see council incumbent Jawane Hilton; former veteran councilman Elito Santarina, who was voted out of office in 2018; former planning commissioner Charles Thomas; and political newcomer Vincent Kim, an attorney, vie for the seat in District 1.
Incumbent Cedric Hicks will be challenged by local businesswoman Brandi Williams-Murdock in District 3.
Also filing was Jaime G. Monteclaro, an attorney, said City Clerk Donesia Gause, but she did not know what district he resided in.
Robles, an attorney, said it was his understanding Monteclaro had filed a lawsuit against the city Thursday seeking to force the continuation of at-large elections.
Robles said Monteclaro did not reside in either district where elections will be held this November; Monteclaro could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.
Filing for the November election closed at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6 because all incumbents eligible to run filed by that time.
Neither Dear or Davis-Holmes, political allies who are frequent critics of the mayor, will lose their council seats if Robles wins a second four-year term term because they live in council districts where elections will not be held until 2022.
Dear, who was recalled in 2016 after being elected city clerk, is seeking to complete his political comeback with a return to the mayor’s seat he won three times beginning in 2004.
Dear was first elected to the council in 2001 and stunningly returned to the panel in 2018 despite previous allegations that led to his formal censure.
Robles ran unsuccessfully in March for a seat on the county Board of Supervisors.
Both council incumbents, Hilton and Hicks, who were originally appointed to their council seats, are seeking their second full term.
District 1, which includes Cal State Dominguez Hills, is in North Carson. District 3 encompasses most of the eastern part of the city.
Carson was forced to switch to district-based council elections — much like Torrance and numerous other California cities — after a Latino voting rights advocacy group filed a lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act.
The legal action alleged that at-large districts meant minority groups could not vote into office candidates of their choice. The legal firm representing the voting rights group has never lost a case and some cities have been forced to spend hefty amounts to compensate the plaintiffs for legal fees.
Carson voters will also decide whether to approve a three-quarter cent — or 0.75% — sales tax increase, which the City Council voted to place on the ballot earlier this week.
Editor’s note: Carson’s sales tax measure would increase the city’s levy on purchases by 0.75%, or three quarters of a cent for every dollar. Because of a reporting error, the amount of the potential tax increase was incorrect in a previous version of this story. Also, one of the candidates for City Council is former Planning Commissioner Charles Thomas. Because of a writing error, his surname was misspelled in a previous version of this story.
