Cypress Investigates Leak of Secret Decision on Voting Rights Lawsuit

 Cyprus politicians launch an investigation to find out who leaked secret voting results from a closed meeting to a local newspaper.

The Event-News Enterprise reported earlier this month that the Cypress City Council agreed to mediate a voting rights lawsuit that routinely urges cities across the county to implement precinct- by-county voting.

While it’s unclear exactly when council members reportedly voted in secret session to enter mediation, the last time the lawsuit was scheduled for a closed session was at the Aug. 28 special meeting. The city attorney reported no specific action.

Mediation typically involves bringing in a third party to help both sides reach an agreement.

Legal threats have forced cities throughout Orange County, including Fullerton, Anaheim and Mission Viejo, to move to district elections, but last year Cypress and Brea officials decided against changing their voting system.

[Reading: Could two of OC’s smaller cities buck California’s trend toward district elections]

The city is also facing a lawsuit from CalAware — a group that advocates for transparency — for allegedly violating the Brown Act, California’s main open government law, by secretly deciding against switching to district elections on March 14, 2022.

[Read: Cypress officials sued for allegedly violating open meetings law]

Council members voted 4-1 on Sept. 25 to launch an investigation to find out who leaked the information to the newspaper, since it was actually intended only for the City Council, city attorney and city manager.

“Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was one person in the room. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a bug in the room. We are not investigators,” Mayor Anne Mallari said during the meeting.

“When something goes wrong in a business, you have to find out what happened so it doesn’t happen again.”

The City will seek a third-party organization to conduct the investigation and a separate entity to oversee the investigation of the source of the leak.

Councilman David Burke voted against launching the investigation, saying the leaked information was not “particularly sensitive” and appeared to have been released to the public inadvertently.

“Why wouldn’t we pause and try to get a better understanding of the facts before taking drastic steps like launching a divisive investigation or openly accusing council members of breaking the law?” Said Burke.

Councilwoman Frances Marquez voted in favor of the investigation, but said it was a waste of taxpayer money.

“If we’re going to use taxpayer money for this investigation, the public should know what’s happening,” Marquez said. “They should be able to see what the results are”

Marquez was the dissenting vote in the closed session to reject the legal threat the city had received to move to district elections. She was with

Last Friday, Mallari released a letter to the news agency stating that the reporting of the confidential information violated public trust.

“Event-News Enterprise’s reporting of confidential votes in closed sessions is deplorable, contrary to the ethical principles of journalism, and makes an already difficult situation even more divisive,” she wrote in the letter.

Fred Galante, Cypress district attorney, and Shenkman, attorneys on both sides of the voting rights lawsuit, released a joint letter condemning the leak.

“Disclosure of confidential information from a closed session has the potential to prejudice the city and is an impediment to open, productive discussion in a closed session and between litigants working to find possible solutions that benefit the public,” the letter states.

Shenkman has routinely represented voting rights groups in lawsuits across the state and has earned a reputation for forcing cities to change their voting systems.

In general elections, city residents can vote for as many candidates as there are seats on the city council. That is, if there are two seats to be filled in the city council, the residents can elect two candidates.

However, in elections by district, residents can only vote for one candidate to represent the district in which they live.

Cities across the state have switched to district elections after a single letter from Shenkman, but Cypress has been one of the few to resist in the last two years.

[Read: Cypress sued for violating Voting Rights Act after rejecting district elections]

The issue was scheduled to come up for discussion again at the Oct. 23 City Council meeting.