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220214 1142 FW_ 30-day extension of time_REDACTEDFrom:Fred Galante To:Peter Grant Subject:FW: 30-day extension of time Date:Monday, February 14, 2022 11:41:36 AM Hi Pete, Fred Galante | Equity Partner Aleshire & Wynder, LLP | 18881 Von Karman Ave., Suite 1700, Irvine, CA 92612 Tel: (949) 223-1170 | Dir: (949) 250-5410 | Fax: (949) 223-1180 | fgalante@awattorneys.com | awattorneys.com This email and any files transmitted with it may contain privileged or otherwise confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that you may have received this communication in error, please advise the sender via email and delete the email you received. From: Kevin Shenkman <shenkman@sbcglobal.net> Sent: Monday, February 14, 2022 11:38 AM To: Fred Galante <fgalante@awattorneys.com> Subject: Re: 30-day extension of time *** EXTERNAL SENDER *** Fred, The unnecessary listening tour on district elections is now complete. In my view, it accomplished nothing, and just raised the visibility of the conflicts within the Cypress City Council -- most recently in an OC Register article. Cypress has a council meeting on Feb. 28. It needs to adopt a resolution at that meeting and adopt a district map by the end of May. I think you know the consequences if it fails to do so. -Kevin On Monday, December 6, 2021, 03:10:14 PM PST, Fred Galante <fgalante@awattorneys.com> wrote: Hi Kevin, I am back from vacation and wanted to confirm the discussion we had on our November 11, 2021 call. I explained that the Cypress Council is still evaluating your September 17, 2021 letter and that the timing to gain all relevant information to understand the nature of your allegations has proved difficult in light of the general unavailability of demographic consultants due to the ongoing redistricting process required by statute at this time. I also asked if you and your clients were willing to allow the City to defer any decision on responding to your Sept. 17 letter until after the Nov. 2022 Cypress City Council election so that we could ascertain if your allegations had support in light of the outcome of that election. You said your client would not agree to extend the timelines to allow another at-large election to proceed for City Council in Cypress. I then asked if Cypress could nevertheless have additional time to respond to your letter before it has to initiate the process to convert to by-district elections. At that point, you graciously agreed to allow Cypress more time and would not raise any issue of a lack of timeliness in responding to the letter; provided Cypress took timely action to convert its at-large elections to by-district elections by complying with the deadlines set by the County Registrar’s Office. We appreciate your courtesy. We estimate the time to initiate that process to be April or early May, 2022. Nevertheless, I will let you know what the Council decides and understand your explanation that you may proceed to court if the Council does not initiate the action to convert to by-district elections in time for the Nov. 2022 election to proceed as a by-district election. Please let me know if you have any questions or disagree with the confirmation I provided. Thank you. You may reach me anytime on my cell at (714)606-2728. Fred Galante | Equity Partner Aleshire & Wynder, LLP | 18881 Von Karman Ave., Suite 1700, Irvine, CA 92612 Tel: (949) 223-1170 | Dir: (949) 250-5410 | Fax: (949) 223-1180 | fgalante@awattorneys.com | awattorneys.com This email and any files transmitted with it may contain privileged or otherwise confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that you may have received this communication in error, please advise the sender via email and delete the email you received. From: Kevin Shenkman <shenkman@sbcglobal.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 26, 2021 11:59 AM To: Fred Galante <fgalante@awattorneys.com> Subject: Re: 30-day extension of time *** EXTERNAL SENDER *** Fred, Thank you for the call and email. As I mentioned, retaining Jonathan Katz is a recipe for disaster for Cypress. Below are links to a couple cases criticizing his opinions, most recently and relevantly is the court's rejection of Katz's opinions concerning racially polarized voting in Luna v Kern County. Dr. Katz knows statistics, but he doesn't have a clue about voting rights and elections, as demonstrated by his opinions in the two cases below. Better choices include David Ely, J. Morgan Kousser, Paul Mitchell, Karin MacDonald, and Matt Barreto. For the sake of full disclosure, we have worked extensively with Ely and Kousser, and Kousser's opinions have consistently been adopted over Katz's conflicting opinions, including in Luna v Kern County. If you are looking for the most economical solution out of this group, it is probably Paul Mitchell -- much less expensive than Katz, and, unlike Katz, he has experience drawing districts. His email is paul@redistrictingpartners.com. Borders et al. v. King County et al. | Seattle Weekly Borders et al. v. King County et al. | Seattle Weekly A transcript of the decision by Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges, June 6, 2005. Luna v. Cnty. of Kern, 291 F. Supp. 3d 1088 | Casetext Search + Citator On Tuesday, October 26, 2021, 10:00:38 AM PDT, Fred Galante <fgalante@awattorneys.com> wrote: Hi Kevin, This confirms our discussion this morning regarding your September 17, 2021 letter to the City of Cypress. As I explained, I am City Attorney of Cypress. In response to my request, you agreed to provide Cypress with a 30 day extension of time to respond to the September 17 letter before you would consider pursuing any judicial relief. As such, Cypress now has until December 6, 2021 rather than the November 7, 2021 deadline outlined in your letter to advise your office as to whether Cypress intends to pursue a voluntary change to its current at-large voting system. Thank you for your professional courtesy and recognition that securing the services of demographers has proved very challenging, especially in light of the burdens on their services posed by AB 849. Should you wish to discuss further, feel free to respond to this email or contact me on my cell phone at (714)606- 2728. Fred Galante | Equity Partner Aleshire & Wynder, LLP | 18881 Von Karman Ave., Suite 1700, Irvine, CA 92612 Tel: (949) 223-1170 | Dir: (949) 250-5410 | Fax: (949) 223-1180 | fgalante@awattorneys.com | awattorneys.com This email and any files transmitted with it may contain privileged or otherwise confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient, or believe that you may have received this communication in error, please advise the sender via email and delete the email you received.