Petition to make city attorney an elected position fails in Grover Beach
A petition to make the role of city attorney an elected position in Grover Beach came up short on Wednesday when the petitioners failed to submit any signatures by the deadline.
In August, citizens grassroots group GroverH2O filed a notice of intent to circulate a petition to make the role of city attorney elected, with a 180-day window to collect enough valid signatures by June 4 kicking off on Dec. 7.
The petition sought to put the issue of an elected city attorney on the November 2026 ballot, and would have required valid signatures from 10% of the city’s registered voters — or a minimum of 811 people — by the June 4 deadline.
But as of Wednesday, the city had not received any signature submissions from the proponents, bringing the issue to a close for the time being, according to city manager Matt Bronson.
The Tribune reached out to GroverH2O for comment but did not receive a reply as of Friday afternoon.
Why did GroverH2O want to elect the city attorney?
In the past year, GroverH2O has succeeded in gathering enough signatures to get an initiative asking voters if the role of city clerk should be elected rather than appointed, with the issue set to appear on the November 2026 ballot.
Grover H2O was also successful in raising enough signatures to get a recall campaign on the November 2024 ballot against District 2 Councilmember Dan Rushing for his vote to raise water and wastewater rates to pay for Grover Beach’s share of the now-defunct Central Coast Blue water recycling project.
During the recall petition process, city clerk Wendi Sims initially denied Grover H2O’s recall petition, contesting the factual accuracy of several of the group’s stated reasons to start the petition.
The dispute over the recall petition’s content led to Grover H2O’s lawsuit against the city, which was represented by Lozano Smith attorney Robert Lomeli.
In April, attorney Stew Jenkins, speaking on behalf of Grover H2O, said that the efforts to make both the city attorney and city clerk elected are a response to the city’s handling of Grover H2O’s petitions.
“The appointed Grover Beach city attorney firm has violated the public interest by impairing access to city records, authorizing closed City Council meetings, been complicit in impairing voters’ right to circulate and file petitions for recall in violation of California’s Constitution and election law, filed appeal of a Superior Court ruling ordering certification of recall without prior City Council approval, has contracts with cities and districts all over California, and charges the City of Grover Beach for part-time civil work more than the state of California pays the attorney general for full-time representation in civil and criminal matters,” GroverH2O’s notice of intent said. “The voters find that the office of appointed city attorney shall be immediately terminated for cause, as against the public interest.”
In their statement of reasons to launch the petition included in the initial notice of intent, petitioners argued that the city’s current legal representation from firm Lozano Smith also risks a potential conflict of interest because they represent multiple government municipalities, though assistant city manager Kristin Eriksson said the firm’s other city government contracts are all outside of San Luis Obispo County.
In California, only around 11 of 482 municipalities have elected city attorneys, with most serving larger cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego due to their population size, according to a 2013 League of California Cities guidebook for new city attorneys.
Why did Grover H2O’s petition fail?
In an email, Eriksson said the city doesn’t know how many valid signatures were collected by GroverH2O in the 180-day window because no petition was submitted.
Eriksson said the city has not received any further communications with the group on further attempts to make the city attorney an elected position.
“Because they did not submit the requisite signatures on the initial petition, they would have to start the process over by first submitting a new Notice of Intent,” Eriksson said.
This story was originally published June 6, 2025 at 4:37 PM.
