Rexroad Charges Racism in Woodland Vote

For those of you who believe that Yolo County Supervisor Matt Rexroad is merely a right wing hack read on. Perhaps he is now auditioning for a sister blog--the People's Vanguard of Woodland which looks into the Dark Underbelly of Woodland.

I jest on this point but I was reminded as I read this of something that Rexroad told me last summer after he voted against peripheral growth in Davis--some in the Woodland Republican party dislike him because they think he's a liberal.

Anyway the impetus of the following blog was the election results in Woodland which featured a couple of candidates with Hispanic Surnames and who Matt Rexroad believed got fewer votes than they should have.

Here is his blog entry from Wednesday morning:

"Woodland has a great history of having minorities serve in public office. Personally, I am not a believer in the idea that a person should be in office only because of their race. That to me is discrimination.

Here is my problem with the election results from last night. I think race played a role in some of the results.

We all have different views of the candidates. That is fine. To each their own.

We had a couple races where there was a clear distinction in terms of the ability of the candidates to serve. No reasonable person could possibly look at the candidates and not make the clear choice. Yet, these side-show candidates got hundreds of votes.

It is a free country and anyone can run for office. I will never think otherwise. However, I have noticed over the years that when we have an exceptional candidate with a "different" sounding name (often times Latino) running against someone with an Anglo name and few credentials the Anglo candidate gets way more votes than would be expected.

We have some voters out there in Woodland that are discriminating against candidates based on their surname. Seems pretty clear to me.

We have a free country .... that sometime provides disappointing outcomes."

Woodland Daily Democrat Editor Jim Smith chimed in as well:

"I think Rexroad has a point, but I'll take it a step further. I think Woodlanders did what they always do when there are no issues of substance: Voted for an old-town family name and an "Anglo" name. I think voters did the right thing in returning Carol Souza Cole to the School Board. I also think they did the right thing in voting to put Rosario Ruiz-Dark on the board as well. Ruiz-Dark is a sharp, smart person. She's also a native Woodlander with a well-known name, and those who voted went for what was familiar.

Now, given a choice between two "newcomers" to Woodland, Evis Morales and Michael Blackwood, those few who went to the polls selected Blackwood over Morales. Rexroad endorsed Morales, so I can see why he thought Morales should have finished higher in the polls.

But Blackwood has an Anglo name and those who voted were most likely middle-aged and white, and were probably long-time local residents. So the voters went with whom they felt comfortable, people like themselves.

It's appalling our town would do this, but probably not surprising. "

In case people believe they misread Matt Rexroad's words, he reiterated his point yesterday morning:

"NEWS FLASH -- race is in the equation. I'm just pointing out what is true. I'm not advocating it. I'm making an observation about something I think is wrong in Woodland.

For those of you that can't read between the lines Cirenio should have gotten every vote but one -- that of his opponent. Further, there is no reason that Evis Morales should have done substantially worse than than Blackwood."

I do not know enough about Woodland to know if he is right or wrong on this one, I suspect that he is correct, however.

A bigger point to be made--love Matt Rexroad, hate Matt Rexroad, the guy is willing to go out there and speak his mind, even if it pisses off his base. Someone the other day posted from my thoughts about Rexroad a year ago, frankly, I could not have been more wrong about the guy. Do I agree with his politics most of the time? No. He is far more conservative than I am. On local issues, I probably agree with him more. I think he has been a good ally for Davis on the Board of Supervisors especially on growth issues. But more than that, I respect his willingness to go out there and speak his mind.

Frankly, I think this statement is going to hurt him politically with some in his base. I hope he has built up enough capital to get past it, but he stepped out on a pretty big limb here.

---Doug Paul Davis reporting