SLO County supervisors vote 3-2 on how to replace clerk-recorder. Here’s what will happen
An interim San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder will not be chosen until after the governor’s recall election in September, the Board of Supervisors decided Tuesday.
Despite a push by two supervisors to immediately appoint Deputy Clerk-Recorder Helen Nolan, who is acting as the temporary head of the department since former Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong resigned last month, the board majority chose instead to launch a search for an interim appointee that will wrap up in October.
“I believe we’re trying to be open and honest and not just put someone in that I personally don’t know really anything about,” Supervisor Lynn Compton said during discussion Tuesday. “She may be the most qualified candidate, but that will come out in this process, if that person even wishes to apply.”
Gong, who has helmed the county’s elections office since 2015, announced he was leaving the department in June, citing a desire to be closer to family in the Bay Area, as well as the contentious political environment following the 2020 election.
His resignation set off a whirlwind of speculation and concern about how the county’s elections office will handle an unusually busy year with a recall election and the county undergoing redistricting.
“The clerk’s office is under an extraordinary workload right now,” Supervisor Bruce Gibson said. “Three times the workload they normally would have.”
In light of that, Gibson and Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg both pushed to immediately appoint Nolan to the temporary position, which is expected to last until the current term of the elected post expires in 2023.
“I think the trust of the community is at stake,” Ortiz-Legg said. “And I think that it is really important we we have an individual who has been in the office, who understands the operations of the office. And I think more importantly, the stability and the morale of that office is really critical.”
Supervisors Compton, Debbie Arnold and John Peschong, however, all voted in favor of an “open and transparent process” that would call for applicants from around the state to be considered for the position.
“What I am worried about the most is some sort of insider process that doesn’t take into account people from all over the state or all over the country that would like to apply for this,” Peschong said. “They’ll get a fair shake.”
The county supervisors must now pick representatives for a selection committee that will look through applications and select the top seven candidates to present to the board at a special meeting on Oct. 12.
The application period is expected to open in August.
Interim election official appointment will need only minimum qualifications
The board was also divided on who exactly should even be qualified for the temporary position.
On Tuesday, county staff proposed posting the job with the minimum qualifications required for an elected official in SLO County: they must be 18 years or older, a citizen of California and a registered voter in the county.
Supervisors Gibson and Ortiz-Legg both advocated for additional qualifications to be added to the job description, including experience at a county elections office as an employee and no history of partisan political involvement.
“These are extraordinary times,” Ortiz-Legg said during discussion Tuesday. “We have an undermining of the democracy that’s occurring right now across this county. ... I think that basic qualifications of having electoral experience is going to be critical in appointing this individual.”
Ortiz-Legg also said she was worried about the quality of candidates they might get given the negative attention recently focused upon the county’s elections in a hugely contentious meeting in May that was flooded by angry callers spouting misinformation and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the county’s Dominion vote tabulation machines.
“I’d be interested to see who these candidates are, other than the ones that we have seen so far, that would want to come to the county with the kind of press and notoriety that we’ve received and how the treatment has gone so far,” she said. “So I’m very concerned about, you know, where we’re heading in the election office.”
The idea of adding extra requirements was shot down by the Arnold, Compton and Peschong majority, with Compton noting that the existing requirements for the elected clerk-recorder position are less than those being proposed by Gibson and Ortiz-Legg.
“I have a little bit of a difficulty saying we’re holding a temporary position to a higher level of of any qualification or whatever, than the elected position,” Compton said.
She added about the selection process: “I think the cream will rise to the top.”
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