REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Determine the 2023 Seating Arrangements for City Council
Report
BACKGROUND AND DISCUSSION
Council Policy 7.3.11 (Attachment 1) provides a process to determine the seating arrangements of Councilmembers at Council meetings. This procedure is conducted as the last item of business at the meeting during which the Vice Mayor is selected. The Mayor will be seated in the center seat, and the Vice Mayor may choose to be seated to either side of the Mayor. The remaining seats will be selected in order of Council seniority as defined in Council Policy 7.3.11.
Section 3.B. of Council Policy 7.3.11 states, "Councilmembers shall select where they wish to sit on the basis of length of continuous time of service on the City Council. The selection process shall be in the order of most senior to least senior. When two or more Councilmembers have equivalent time of service, those Councilmembers are given priority in seat selection by the highest number of votes received in their most recent election." Therefore, after selection of the seats to be occupied by the Mayor and the Vice Mayor, the following order is to be used to select the remaining seats:
On December 12, 2022, Justin Jun-Ren Wang filed a request for a Voter Initiated Recount with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters (ROV). On December 27, 2022, the ROV reported the Voter Initiated Recount resulted in a tie between the two candidates. A tiebreaker for City Council District 3 is scheduled for Tuesday, January 3, 2023 (see Attachment 3).
Seniority
Date First Elected
Councilmember
No. of Votes Received at Most Recent Election
Most Recent Election
Most Senior
11/08/16
Russ Melton
5,670
11/03/20
11/03/20
Alysa Cisneros
4,242
11/03/20
11/03/20
Omar Din
3,473
11/03/20
11/08/22
Richard Mehlinger
3,195
11/08/22
11/08/22
Murali Srinivasan/
Justin Jun-Ren Wang
2,814
11/08/22
Least Senior
Linda Sell*
*On Aug. 22., City Council appointed Linda Sell to District 1 in lieu of h...
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