A handful of Orange County cities have grappled with recent city council vacancies — raising questions over leaving the decision to voters or going through an application process before elected officials fill the gap.
Council members in Cypress and Aliso Viejo scrambled to fill city council vacancies ahead of the holiday season after elected officials in both cities resigned unexpectedly, cutting their terms short and leaving a seat empty on their respective councils.
In Cypress, council members almost flipped a coin to make a decision after going back and forth among the seven candidates.
In Aliso Viejo, council members decided to not open an application process, instead making nominations without advertising the vacancy to the public through applications.
Both cities filled the vacancies through appointment. Instead of holding a special election, which often comes with a price tag of several hundred thousand dollars, city officials decided to fill their vacancies through a nomination and appointment process that requires a majority council vote before the new member can be sworn in.
But the two cities went in opposite directions on how a new council member got appointed.
While Cypress officials decided to open an application period to make nominations and decide the appointment, city council members in Aliso Viejo directly nominated — and appointed — a resident who ran for city council and lost seven years ago.
Cypress Holds Public Application Process
Cypress’s vacancy opened last month when Councilmember Scott Minikus left his District 5 seat early to take an out-of-state job.
Instead of calling a special election, the city council voted to fill the seat by appointment, citing cost, timing and state election deadlines. Staff opened an application period and drew 16 candidates citywide.
At the Nov. 10 meeting, council members narrowed that list to seven people whom they interviewed during the next meeting on Nov. 19: Anne Mallari, Bill Wostenberg, Candi Kern, Claudia Nessary, Frances Marquez, Quintin Bentley and Rachel Strong Carnahan.
On Nov. 19, city officials voted 3-1 to appoint Bentley, a relative newcomer to the city, to fill Minikus’s term that expires in November 2026.
Bentley is currently serving his first term on the city’s recreation and community services commission. Councilmember Bonnie Peat voted against his appointment because she said he’s been absent from too many commission meetings.
Originally from Seattle, Bentley has lived in Cypress for about four and a half years with his wife and children. He’s currently a special education teacher at Cypress High School and also a sports coach for youth in town.
“Cypress is home. It’s where my family’s roots run deep, and it’s where I want to continue building a bright future for the next generation,” he said during his interview with the council at the Nov. 19 meeting.
Cypress Civic Center on April 17, 2022. Credit: AYDA TUNCAY, Voice of OC
Officials were split on the appointment decision, requiring multiple nominations and debating spending nearly $1 million on a special election before three council members could agree on a single candidate.
Council members even discussed flipping a coin in order to make a decision — but after more debate, officials agreed to appoint Bentley.
“He’s a newcomer, we really don’t know what to expect from him, but he does have quite a bit of experience working with communities,” Councilmember Kyle Chang said at the meeting. “He’s quite involved with the city.”
Councilmember Leo Medrano didn’t originally support Bentley’s nomination, changing his mind later in the meeting in the name of compromise.
“I’m a big believer in compromise,” he said before nominating Bentley. “We need to move this forward.”
Cypress council members also discussed appointing Mallari or Marquez, both former city council members in Cypress, but a majority of the council did not support either of their nominations.
Over the past few years, Mallari and Marquez have both been entangled as part of a lawsuit with the city. Marquez is the plaintiff in a federal civil rights lawsuit filed against the city and multiple city leaders: Minikus, Mallari, Peat and former City Manager Peter Grant.
In that case, Marquez alleged harassment and retaliation for her support for changing Cypress’s election system — after threats that accused the city’s at-large system of diluting minority voting power. She also claimed that Minikus, Mallari, Peat and Grant unlawfully censured her and adopted policies that retaliated against her.
[Read: Cypress City Councilwoman Sues Colleagues, Alleging Harassment After Voting Rights Lawsuit]
During Marquez’s interview with the council during the Nov. 19 meeting, she said her lawyers have notified the city about settling the lawsuit.
“I look forward to putting any past conflicts behind,” she said. “In fact, I want to say that my lawyers have sent a letter this morning to the city’s attorney accepting the city’s counteroffer to settle the current lawsuit, subject to some clarification on the terms that our lawyers will work out very quickly.”
Former Councilmember Frances Marquez speaks to council members during her interview at the Nov. 19 council meeting. Credit: City of Cypress livestream
Marquez’s federal lawsuit came after city officials agreed to pay over $835,000 to settle a California Voting Rights lawsuit accusing the city’s at-large voting system of disenfranchising minority voters and calling on the city to switch to district voting.
In an at-large voting system, residents can vote for as many candidates as open seats. That means if there are three open city council seats, then all the city’s residents can vote for three different candidates.
In a district-based voting system, the city is separated into zones. With this method, residents can only vote for the candidate who’s looking to represent the district that they live in, with the candidate also having to reside in the district.
In 2022, Cypress council members voted 4-1 to reject a letter demanding the switch to district elections. Marquez was the dissenting vote.
Afterward, the council majority voted to censure her twice in that same year.
Aliso Viejo Fills Vacancy, Forgoing Applications
Aliso Viejo city leaders also recently grappled with how to fill a council vacancy — ultimately deciding against a public application and interview process that Cypress used to fill its vacancy.
On Sept. 19, Councilmember Richard Hurt resigned from his District 3 seat on the Aliso Viejo City Council.
During their meeting on Oct. 15, council members voted 3-1 to appoint Garrett Dwyer to fill Hurt’s vacant seat. He was sworn in and took up the council position during that meeting.
Dwyer previously ran for city council in 2018. Of the five candidates that year, Dwyer came in fourth place with 4577 votes — about 15%. Current Mayor Tiffany Ackley won the election that year with 9626 votes, about 32%, cast for her.
Ackley voted against Dwyer’s nomination because she said the council should have opened the vacancy for applications instead of deciding to nominate and appoint a replacement.
Aliso Viejo City Hall on Nov. 28, 2023. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR, Voice of OC.
During the previous council meeting on Oct. 1, Mayor Ackley asked the council to fill the vacancy by appointment and open an application period, but that effort failed due to a lack of support from her colleagues.
Instead, the council voted to conduct a nomination process, resulting in Dwyer’s appointment.
Two other residents, Jason Sams and Nina Linh, also asked council members to consider them for the appointment.
“I’m respectfully a no because I do think this should be open to applications,” Ackley said on Oct. 15 when voting against Dwyer’s nomination.
During that meeting, she also said that the council’s decision to nominate a new council member instead of opening applications “really gave me a bad taste in my mouth about politics.”
The rest of the council supported Dwyer since he ran for office before.
“When this district became open, I looked back at who has run in that district in the past,” Councilmember Mike Munzing said at the Oct. 15 meeting. “Seven years ago, Madam Mayor, when you ran, a gentleman ran as well. He was not victorious, but he was well known in the community and a solid resident, father, husband, hard worker and businessman.”
Councilmembers Max Duncan and Tim Zandbergen also supported Dwyer’s nomination.
“The fact that he did go through that vetting process prior and did have the courage to step up and put in tons of work to try to get elected, he would have my nomination too,” Duncan said at the meeting.
Dwyer will serve the remainder of the District 3 council term, which is slated to expire in November 2026.
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.
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