Cambria directors struggle in creating process to fill seat

It’s not easy picking a director to fill a vacancy on Cambria’s services district board.

The board waded through a series of deadlocked votes and two special meetings before choosing Aaron Wharton to fill Mike Thompson’s seat earlier this fall, and board President Amanda Rice had hoped for smoother sailing after Greg Sanders resigned, creating another vacancy.

Instead of spearheading the process herself, as she had before, Rice appointed the two newest board members — Wharton and Harry Farmer — to an ad hoc committee charged with creating a better method of filling the new vacancy.

The committee’s recommendation wasn’t an action item at the board’s agenda Thursday, Nov. 16 meeting, but it was listed for discussion. And there was plenty of discussion over a number of recommendations made, both jointly and separately, by Farmer and Wharton.

Board members sought to hash out the details for more than an hour and, in the end, had to extend the meeting once beyond its four-hour limit before adjourning and leaving two items to be continued until the next meeting.

Directors will finalize the process at that time: 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 22. Applications are due by Dec. 1.

Different approaches

On Thursday, after a lengthy discussion, directors agreed to reduce the number of questions on the application form. Three of the directors (Wharton, Rice and Jim Bahringer) favored a single question, while Farmer preferred to keep the four-question format used in choosing Thompson’s replacement.

The single question: “Why do you want to serve as a CCSD board director?”

The process beyond that, however, remains undecided. Ad hoc committee members Farmer and Wharton agreed that applicants should be questioned individually, so they couldn’t hear one another’s answers. On other issues, however, the two had what Farmer referred to as “some minor and some major disagreements.”

One of those disagreements involved the issue of public advocacy. Farmer said members of the public should not be able to tout a particular applicant, but should focus instead on the candidates’ attributes. Several audience members had spoken out in favor of Wharton’s candidacy prior to his appointment — a fact that drew concern from some on the board and in the audience at Thursday’s meeting.

Wharton, who said he’d been surprised at that show of support, nonetheless argued in favor of allowing people to advocate for specific applicants once again. Tim Carmel, the district’s counsel, settled the issue by stating that speakers had every right to speak in favor of a candidate if they chose to do so: “Under the Brown Act, you cannot censor public comment,” he said.

Another disagreement arose over the method of voting.

Farmer floated the idea of a ranked-choice voting system, with directors awarding five points for their first choice, four for their second, three for their third, and so on. The system, he said, had been used in such varied races as the Burlington, Vermont, mayoral contest and the Irish presidential election. The idea would be to avoid the series of 2-2 deadlocks that occurred on the divided board that sought to replace Thompson.

Wharton, however, preferred to retain the standard “yea or nay” vote in selecting a new director. He suggested that candidates be given five minutes each to speak, followed by 30 minutes of public comment. Each director would then get to choose two finalists, creating a final field of eight candidates (or fewer if there were duplicate nominations).

He suggested that the ranked-choice voting system might be subject to “shenanigans” by directors seeking to ensure a specific outcome — although he later apologized to Farmer for that characterization.

In response, Rice said, “I think it’s very clear that there will be no shenanigans, because none of us can even come to an agreement on the process.”

Other business

The board Thursday approved a contract for new Finance Manager Rudy Hernandez, who is replacing the retiring Patrick O’Reilly. Hernandez will make an annual salary of $124,910, more than $6,000 less than O’Reilly makes. The district will, however, incur an additional cost of $12,600 in health insurance (something O’Reilly does not require).

The district had hoped to have a new finance manager in place by Nov. 1, but was unable to meet that timeline. As a result, the board approved keeping O’Reilly on for about a month after his formal retirement date.

Also Thursday, the board heard updates on projects including fire hydrant inspections and the new park at the Rodeo Grounds.

General Manager Jerry Gruber said, “The whole park is essentially done,” including the parking lot. The district will soon move the dog park to that location from its current site, along Main Street at Santa Rosa Creek Road.

Fire Chief William Hollingsworth told the board that the hydrant maintenance project was about 30 percent complete, with only some minor problems found: Some caps were broken and some hydrants needed to be raised.

Hollingsworth also said Cal Fire plans a series of prescribed burns over the coming weeks that could create more smoke in the community. Among them: burns along Santa Rosa Creek Road and in the fuel break corridor between Bridge Street and Pineknolls Drive, north of Main Street.

This story was originally published November 17, 2017 at 1:02 PM with the headline "Cambria directors struggle in creating process to fill seat."