Elections with City of Redding Clerk Pam Mize

Elections with City of Redding Clerk Pam Mize: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Elections with City of Redding Clerk Pam Mize: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
Welcome to a City of Redding podcast. We are about a week away from November 8th, Election Day, and this year we have three open city council seats, along with a host of other important voting issues. With that in mind, we thought it would be a good idea to connect with our city clerk, Pam Mize, and talk about the local election process.

Katie:
Pam has been the Redding City Clerk for almost 13 years and has seen many city council elections and meetings. She brings a wealth of knowledge to her position and works closely with her staff to ensure our city government is following all the state and federal election laws. Precisely. She'll give us some tips on how to understand your ballot and talk about why it's so important to vote for your local representatives.

Steve:
One last note before we turn it over to Pam. The city of Redding has very strict policies during election season in regard to fairness for all candidates. For this reason, we will only be discussing the City Council election process, not any of the candidates themselves for candidate information. You can visit the City of Redding website under city clerk and election information or use the link in the show notes.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
Hi, my name is Pam Mize and I'm the city clerk for the City of Redding. I've worked for the city for a little over 24 years and I've been the city clerk for almost 13 years.

Katie:
Well, thank you so much for being with us here today. Pam on the podcast, we are very excited to talk all things city elections as the election is right around the corner at this point. So we wanted to start off and just ask what does the city clerk do?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
The city clerk's office covers many different functions. In addition to being the elections official for the city, we work primarily with the City Council and city manager's office to prepare the agendas for the council meetings. We attend those meetings and we prepare the minutes following those meetings. Our office also coordinates boards, committees and commissions. We work with citizens who might be interested in applying to be on a city board. Part of what we do is to ensure that the city remains in compliance with the Brown Act. That involves making sure that our agendas are prepared in a way that citizens will know what actions the Council plans to discuss at upcoming meetings, and to also ensure that citizens have an opportunity to attend those meetings. The office also is in charge of records management for the City of Redding and also public records request. We issue business licenses in the city and we oversee the contract process within the city.

Steve:
Wow. So that is a lot that the clerk's office does. Pam, I'm curious too, with regard to yourself and also the staff that works in the city clerk's office, do most folks truly have a passion for city government involved in student government through schooling and things of that nature? I mean, how does one get involved with the city clerk's office?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I believe that the staff definitely has a passion for public service and for being a source for citizens to make connections with their governments, to make contact with their mayor and council members and other decision makers within the city. Our office is often the first place that citizens come to find those connections and to get information about the city very important to our office that we work in a transparent manner. And that's why public records request and preparation of the agenda is so important to us. The profession is becoming more and more of a profession as it deals with so many laws and regulations. It's a super interesting field. I never, ever dreamed that I would become a city clerk. It wasn't even something I guess, that I was aware of when I was younger in college. But I'm really glad that I was able to get into this department and was able to promote through the department and become the city clerk because I have found that I am never bored at work. That is.

Katie:
Awesome. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like you guys are handling so much and especially at this time of year too. I mean, I think everyone's hearing about elections, whether they're national or local. And, you know, the city clerk has a lot to do with our local elections here. Maybe you can just expand on that and explain how the city clerk helps manage our local elections.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
Sure. What is the job of the city clerk is to be the elections official for the city. And although we consolidate our elections with the county and they do the part where they set up the polls, they actually print the ballots. They do so many of those functions that we don't do. We're still very involved in the process. We work with candidates in between elections. Our elections are every two years. And in one election, two city council members are elected. And in the next round, three city council members are elected. And as well as the city clerk and the city treasurer are elected also. Primarily, we work with potential council members before each election cycle we prepare. Here a candidate's guideline booklet. And our purpose for that is to help the candidate understand what the process is going to be like and what steps will be involved when they run for office. We also meet with the candidates and issue their nomination documents to them to run for council. You actually are nominated by citizens of Redding, registered voters in Redding. And during that nomination period, which runs about a month between mid-July, mid-August of an election year, the potential candidate has a nomination petition and they must have 20 registered voters sign that petition saying, we want this person to run.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
It is the nomination process. And then at the end of that period, they return those papers along with several others that I'll talk to you about to our office. And when we verify that 20 registered voters have nominated this person, that's when the person becomes an official candidate for city council. Part of what we do also throughout that process is we work with the APC, which is the Fair Political Practices Commission. They're the watchdog of elections through the state and they are primarily interested in campaign financing. One of our responsibilities as a city is to ensure that the candidates are aware of filing deadlines and and to help them understand what forms they need to file and where to file those forms. In prior years, that was all done in person here at the clerk's office, but we now have electronic filing available and citizens can look at those campaign statements on the city's website any time. We also are a resource for the candidates as well as the citizens, to help provide direction on where they might find answers to various questions.

Steve:
And with regard to the applications and the candidates themselves, I know this year I believe we have ten candidates. Is that an abnormally high number of candidates or is that kind of the norm during an election cycle? And if yes, what do you attribute the larger turnout of candidates this year?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
It varies. I did take a quick look back at some of our statistics, and the last time that we had ten candidates running was in 2010. That was also one of the years where there were three offices up for election. In 2012, there was three candidates for two offices in 14, six candidates for three offices. So you can see it sort of varies. I would only be guessing. But one of the reasons I think we may have a big turnout this year of candidates is because there are three seats up for election and only one of the incumbents is running. So there are two seats where the incumbents are not seeking re-election, and that may have appealed to some people interested in running.

Steve:
Well, in addition to that, too, Pam, I'm curious, given your wealth of knowledge in your time as a city clerk, have you seen trends where if there are certain topics in the community that are prevalent or certain issues that people feel really passionately about? I know right now there's some hot topic items. Have you seen that that directly correlates to more candidates being interested in running to ensure that their voice gets heard?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I can I can understand why that would be the case. And I do think that the more elections are being discussed, the more interest that people pay. It starts making people think, Well, what about me? I have something to offer and I have things that I would like to see that I want to better the community. So I definitely think that can happen. Other than that, I think sometimes it's just where people are in their lives and maybe it's something that they've always thought about and always wanted to do and now seems like a good time.

Katie:
And so you clarified earlier, we are in an election cycle that has three city council member positions open. How long do those city council terms go for and are there term limits?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
All terms are four years and the city of Redding does not have term limits. In the past we have had people remain on the council for three terms farther back, like maybe in the fifties we had people who would remain on the council for four terms, so they would be 16 years on the council. There has been discussions at various points in time about implementing term limits, but it's never moved past just a discussion.

Steve:
For the council members themselves. Do they get paid for being a council member? And I guess also as part of that question, do most council members have a full time job along with their council duties? I know some obviously are retired. How does that process work?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
So they do get paid. Their salary is $600 a month. Plus, there are a couple of agencies that they're also members of through their council ship. And those meetings pay. One of them, I think, is $30 a month and one of them is $25 if they have a meeting. So the amount of money is pretty small. They are also eligible for medical benefits through the city because they are city employees. Most council members have other full time jobs. Some council members are retired. My experience has been with council members who are retired. They are very active and are involved in a lot of other committees and community activities in addition to being on the City Council. We have many council members who also participate in full time job. And as for the amount of time it requires to be a city council person, it can be a lot of work and very time consuming. We have meetings the first and third Tuesdays of each month. We put out an agenda for those meetings on the Thursday prior to the Tuesday night meeting and we can have 2030 items for the council's consideration at each of those meetings and they're supplied with a staff report on each of those giving some background information. It's a lot to look at and to familiarize yourself with. So a lot of time is put into being on the City council.

Katie:
Wow. Between the time commitment and the pay structure, along with the fact that many of these city council members have either full time jobs or part time jobs or are involved in other community things around town, why would somebody want to run for city council? What's the reason why somebody listening out there who might be thinking about city council and thinking that that sounds like something they'd like to do either now or sometime in the future? Why? Why would you tell somebody that it's important to be on city council?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I've actually thought about this quite a lot. Why do people want to run? I believe the person has to have a passion for the city, for the future of the city. And I think that their passion for that just draws them to this desire to share their previous experiences, share their knowledge and share their hopes and dreams. And that equates into them wanting to run for the city council.

Steve:
On that note, I'm curious too, from the technology standpoint, again, given your time in the role. Obviously with the advent of social media and video streaming. Council members are more accessible and accountable to the community really than ever before. Have you found them to be a benefit for council members or have you, I guess have you found that council members maybe are more reticent to participate in knowing that their likeness and face will be in front of the community, maybe more than historically when they were if they didn't show up at a meeting, It was really just whatever you read in the in the paper.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I think that that is important. And when I was discussing the amount of time that it take to be a council member, I didn't even touch on all the other aspects. And that is representing the city at various functions and fundraisers and discussion groups and responding to your citizens and being available to them. We have a city of over 90,000 people and they want to have communication with their council members and they are they should have that ability to contact their council members and share their thoughts. We need people to bring things to our attention to sometimes as a council member or as a city employee, because we don't see everything that happens in the city so helpful. Sometimes when citizens bring that to our attention and we can say, Oh, that's something we need to look into and then we can do that. I think that the social media is a two edged sword. I think that, like we probably all know, social media can be a really good thing and you can have people with true interest. You can also have people that just have very negative attitudes. And I'm not a council member, but I can imagine that sometimes that would become difficult to take when you're receiving criticism that is undeserved, that doesn't come with a point of something that you could do something about.

Katie:
Yeah, that is definitely true. I think the entire world is different post social media, but certainly it factors into local elections. I wanted to pivot just a little bit to the election that's coming up Tuesday, November 8th. So we are submitting our ballots and on those ballots we will be voting for city council members, three of them as we've mentioned. The candidates need to have a certain percentage of the vote to win. Or how how do we decide who gets those three seats?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
So it's determined by the number of votes. We have ten candidates and the top three vote getters will be the winners. So, no, it's not a percentage and probably a good thing when you have as many as ten candidates, because if you if we had a requirement like 50% plus one, that would be next to impossible to get this many candidates.

Steve:
With regard to city policies, obviously the city has to remain neutral and it can't display favoritism towards any candidate's perspective or incumbent. How does the city ensure that that is the case? Is it tougher to do that with incumbent candidates who are actively working on city businesses? And if it's shown in some way, shape or form that the city has shown favoritism to a candidate, what what happens then?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
So in the beginning of the election cycle, our city manager and city attorney sent out a memo to all employees as well as all candidates. And it explains the laws about employee participation in elections. It is very important that no employee participate in campaigning in any kind of a campaign during their working hours or utilizing any kind of city asset. So we are not allowed to use our copy machines or our computers to send out emails or any other city asset that you can imagine. We are not allowed to use that. And they also notify the candidates so that the candidates will understand when employees say, No, I can't talk to you about that now, or if we can't, I can't make those copies for you. My office in particular, we are so aware of the fact that we are elections officials and it's so incumbent upon us to not play favorites that it's become second nature with us. We understand that any credibility that we would have as elections officials would be lost if people came to believe that we were favoring one person over another person.

Katie:
With so many people applying for city council positions, you know, many of them, this is their first time doing this or the first time applying for any kind of official position with the city. What are some common questions that you get from prospective city council members?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
Usually they want to know about the qualifications and the requirements to be eligible to run for office. Those questions are answered by the California Elections Code and the government code, and they're relatively simple. You must be a registered voter at the time that you take out nomination papers. You must be a registered voter in the area where you are running. It also says you must be 18. But that's kind of the same thing because you have to be a registered voter. So what we do is when someone comes in to obtain nomination papers, we contact the county clerk registrar voters and we verify that the person is registered to vote within the city limits of Redding. And basically that's the legal requirement. Other things that they ask about is campaign financing. That's much more complex. The FEC has many requirements about how you collect campaign funds and how you spend those funds. We go over with each candidate the basic outlines of what the FEC is looking for. We provide them with forms and with manual of how to go about that. And then we explain to them that further advice to that would be through the FEC. I have to say that I think that it can be confusing working through all that documentation about your campaign finances. But I also think that it's very important, it's important to the candidates and it's important to the citizens, because the citizens have a right to know how that candidate is financing their campaign. And sort of related to one of your prior questions about how much they get paid. I have never had anyone asked me how much do you get paid for being on the council? And I find that kind of interesting.

Steve:
Pam, I'm curious with your intimate knowledge of the Council and obviously seeing firsthand of all the decisions they make and all the processes, why would you tell the community that it's important to vote in local elections?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I think it's essential that we vote in local elections. The fact is that the decisions made by your local city council impact your lives daily, maybe not so much with federal and state. They definitely. Impact our lives by the city council makes decisions about the roadways that you drive on and the utilities that you have and the recreational opportunities, the parks where you're going to take your kids for a picnic. Those are things that impact us every day. And that's why I believe that it's so important to be involved in local decisions because those are the things that are going to determine decisions that you make about you and your family. And I also think that it's very important not to think that your vote doesn't count because your vote does count. Back in 2012, we had a race for city council. There were two open seats and three candidates in that vote. So there was the top vote getter and then there was the two other candidates. One of those candidates got 15,382 votes. The other candidate got 15,371 votes. 11 votes decided who would be the next city council member. So to me, that's a local example of how important your vote is.

Katie:
That is really important to tell people that their vote actually does count here. And I did want to highlight to the places that people can vote. I know that City Hall has a drop box in the front roundabout of city Hall where you can actually drop your ballots. I wanted to see, do those ballots go directly to the city clerk or what happens to those ballots that are collected in that ballot box?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
Okay. So the ballot box at city hall is used a lot. I can see that box for my window. And sometimes I will look out and I will see as it gets closer to the election lines of cars and people dropping off their ballots, which as an election official warms my heart because I love to see people voting. The city clerk's office does not have any contact with those ballots. Those ballots are picked up periodically by the Shasta County Registrar of Voters Office. They are locked and secured by them and we have no access to them. Also, the community room here at the city hall will be a polling place on Election Day. And several other buildings throughout the city are used as polling places. There is also a drop box at Redding Electric Utilities Facility out on tap, which is very convenient for people sort of southeast region of the city and the county as a whole, because it doesn't matter if you're a city of ready voter, you can still use those boxes. They all go to the same place.

Katie:
Any other fun facts or like just tidbits about elections that you find fascinating.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
And you look at your ballot, you'll see the person's name on the ballot, and then underneath their name it will have a title. And there is actually a four page form that candidates use to determine what that title can be and if the title that they want actually complies with state rules about the title that you use, it seems small until you think about the fact that there are some people who don't do a lot of research maybe, and they're just looking at that name and title, and it's really important that it be truly indicative of what that person's experience is or their life skills. The second thing that I think is interesting is the order of names on the ballot. In years past, it was purely an alphabetic order, and then the state did a lot of research and it's probably make sense that the people higher up on the voting ballot might get more votes than others. So the state determined that they would change that. And what they do is Secretary of state's office has basically a lottery. From that lottery, they determine the order that people's names will show up on the ballot. And so this year, people with D as the first letter of their last name are the first on the ballot. So when you look at that ballot and if you ever wonder why are they in this order, that's the reason. And then when other thing that I wanted to mention is when you get your voters guy, you'll see statements of qualification for various candidates and the candidates write those statements themselves and they pay to have those statements put in the booklet. So sometimes there are a few candidates that don't put a statement in, others that do, but it's their option to do that, and that's not put in at taxpayer expense.

Steve:
And Pam, on those candidates statements, what type of verification is done on those? I mean. I'm a candidate running. Can I just put whatever I choose in my candidate's statement to be published or is it vetted?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
And actually, no, you can't. There's specific rules already about that. You're supposed to speak about your own qualifications and you're not supposed to talk about other candidates and perhaps their lack of qualifications. But in addition to that, those statements are kept confidential here in the clerk's office until the filing period closes. When the filing period closes, those statements become public record. And there is a ten day viewing period for anyone interested to read those statements. And if they believe that there is anything not factual, they can go to court and file for an injunction to stop that process and have the person have the statements analyzed and perhaps update it.

Katie:
Interesting. How much is it to get a candidate statement put in there?

City Clerk Pam Mize:
So what happens is that the beginning of the process, the county clerk makes an estimate of how much they think that it will cost to basically purchase that much space, because it means more pages, more printing, more postage, and they give us an estimate and then the candidates pay up, give that estimated amount to the city of reading. And we then later on pay the fee to the county for this election process, the estimated cost was $700. If it is less than that, then the difference will be refunded to the candidate. And if it's more, then we'll build them for the difference.

Katie:
Yeah, because I mean, I guess that dollar amount was higher than I imagined it would be, but it actually makes sense if you're covering the cost of the paper and the printing for that many. If you go all over the county so.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
That you go out.

Katie:
Yeah, yeah. Make sense. Interesting.

City Clerk Pam Mize:
I think you can tell there's a lot to it. I mean, there's a lot of little nuances that we never think about until we're involved in this.

Katie:
Thanks so much for listening. To ask a question or suggest a future episode. Send an email to podcast at City of Redding dot org. Or tweet us at City of Redding.

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