SLO County board picks clerk-recorder from 2 finalists, ending weeks of drama
After a lengthy and closely watched process, San Luis Obispo County has a clerk-recorder — and she may be a familiar face for many residents.
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday voted 4-1 to appoint Elaina Cano, currently Santa Barbara County elections division manager, to the role.
Supervisor Debbie Arnold cast the sole dissenting vote, continuing to express frustration that the board’s screening committee returned three finalists, instead of the seven she’d wanted to interview.
Cano, a longtime county resident who lives in Arroyo Grande, previously served as county assistant clerk-recorder, as well as city clerk in San Luis Obispo and Pismo Beach.
She beat out current acting clerk-recorder Helen Nolan, who’s overseen the department since former clerk-recorder Tommy Gong resigned from his position in July to accept a new job in the Bay Area.
The third finalist, former Yolo County chief deputy clerk-recorder Jeffrey Barry, dropped out of the application process just prior to the interviews.
Cano will serve as clerk-recorder for the final year of Gong’s term, which ends in January 2023. Voters will have an opportunity to elect a new clerk-recorder in 2022.
Cano and Nolan discuss importance of election transparency, voter outreach
During the Tuesday interviews, Cano and Nolan each got five minutes to introduce themselves and share their visions for the Clerk-Recorder’s Office. The supervisors then asked them questions, after which the finalists had one minute to provide a closing statement.
Cano and Nolan talked about their passion for public service, the importance of maintaining a nonpartisan office and the need to educate voters and combat election misinformation.
Both said they would run for clerk-recorder in 2022 if the board appointed them to the position.
Nolan said she considered “integrity, transparency, honesty” to be key values for a clerk-recorder, as well as “a commitment to the community” and “listening to understand, not listening to hear.”
She said she had strong objections to any perception that elections the county Clerk-Recorder’s Office has conducted were rigged.
“I take that personally, because my integrity, if there was any indication that this election was rigged, or any other election, I would speak up,” Nolan said. “I would never allow that to happen under my watch, nor on any team that I’m part of. Every election that I’ve ever seen, that I’ve been a part of, has been run with honesty and integrity.”
Nolan talked about hosting poll watchers and the importance of de-escalating tense situations with empathy and a “calm, kind manner.”
“People who come in — observers — to see our elections process, they are seemingly ready for a fight,” Nolan said. “They’re ready to find something wrong. They’re looking for something so they can point it out. They’re looking for wrongdoings. They’re looking for suspiciousness, or whatever they can... and just taking the time and answer their questions, and build a rapport with the person — builds trust, it builds safety.”
Cano said she thinks the key value for a clerk-recorder is “a willingness to provide excellent customer service both to internal and external customers.”
“I think that the clerk-recorder has to be very visible and willing to meet with the public,” Cano said. “I think that the values that the clerk-recorder instills in the public is trust, so long as there’s the transparency and understanding and knowledge.”
Cano also talked about a situation that occurred during the Sept. 14 gubernatorial recall election, when a group of angry people followed ballot box drivers back to the elections office and demanded to be let in. She said she waited for them to calm down and then showed them around and answered their questions for more than two hours.
“I took them room-by-room, showed them process-by-process, all the while listening to their comments of them disagreeing with everything that I have to say,” she said. “And I, with patience, stayed with them.”
Cano said speaking to voters and educating the public on elections is a very important part of the clerk-recorder’s job. She said she’d be willing to speak to residents about voting wherever they may want to hear her, and she encouraged people with concerns to contact the Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
“You know, there comes a point where it’s up to the voters themselves and the community members, themselves, to reach out to us,” Cano said. “Instead of, you know, being so concerned and so driven with the mindset that things are so terribly wrong, just give us a call. We love this. This is why I want to do this. This is why ... to be able to squash those concerns or those thoughts that people hear from their neighbor, or from somebody else. Come in and ask. We’re open, we’re transparent in every step of the way.”
Supervisors appoint Cano clerk-recorder
After conducting the interviews, the supervisors took a straw vote to determine initial impressions of the candidates.
Ortiz-Legg said Nolan was her preference, citing her statement on the importance of “listening to understand, not listening to hear.”
However, Compton, Gibson and Peschong said they all favored Cano. Arnold opted not to pick either candidate, again sharing her displeasure at the lack of additional candidates.
“This is an elected position normally chosen by the people,” Arnold said. “Today, we are the voice of the citizens, and I just want to do my job. This is not the process for appointment we voted for. How can the public’s voice be heard if their elected representatives are ignored? This is a pretty big deal to me.”
Ultimately, the remaining supervisors voted to confirm Cano as clerk-recorder, with Arnold as the only person voting against the appointment.
Compton said she agreed with Arnold’s complaints. However, she said redoing the selection would add to the distrust residents already have in the process.
“We’re handed this plate with these mistakes that are made, then we have to deal with it,” Compton said. “And I think it becomes a mockery in the county if we go back and redo it and throw up our hands and start again. So I honestly don’t disagree with anything Supervisor Arnold said, and I made that same pitch last time. But the phrase ‘it is what it is’ comes to mind, and then you just move forward.”
Clerk-recorder selection process rife with controversy
The process of selecting a clerk-recorder ended up taking a long, winding and heavily debated path.
Supervisors decided against appointing Nolan to serve out the rest of Gong’s term, instead opting for an open application process.
The supervisors required only minimal qualifications. Applicants needed to be at least 18, they needed to be California residents and they needed to live in San Luis Obispo County and be registered to vote in the area at the time of the appointment.
The position drew 44 applicants, most of whom had no experience in government clerking or election management.
The supervisors formed a five-person selection committee to pick finalists and asked for seven candidates. The committee members developed their own screening criteria to narrow the list of applicants, which included leadership and elections experience.
They ultimately picked three finalists, saying the remaining candidates were not qualified for the job.
However, Arnold was not happy with the committee’s decision to advance a smaller number of finalists than the board requested. Arnold, along with Supervisors John Peschong and Lynn Compton, last week debated whether to allow more candidates to interview on Tuesday.
But, at the last minute, Compton voted alongside Supervisors Bruce Gibson and Dawn Ortiz-Legg to allow only three finalists into the interview round.
This story was originally published October 12, 2021 at 2:30 PM.
