Group will relaunch effort to recall SLO County supervisor after missing deadline
An effort to recall San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson ended Wednesday when the petitioners failed to meet a deadline in the recall process, the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s Office announced.
But that doesn’t mean the effort is dead. The group plans to refile its petition.
On Oct. 27, the Committee to Support the Recall of Supervisor Bruce Gibson filed a notice of intention to circulate a recall petition to remove the District 2 supervisor from his position.
The notice included 70 signatures, among them former District 2 candidates Bruce Jones and John Whitworth.
State law required the committee to “submit two blank copies of the petition to be circulated, along with proof of publication of intent ‘at least once in a newspaper of general circulation’” by Monday, according to a Clerk-Recorder’s Office new release.
The committee missed the deadline, then attempted to file the blank copies of the petition and proof of publication on Wednesday, the department said.
“By law, the recall proponents are entitled to initiate a new recall effort should they choose, but they must begin the process again from the start,” the release said.
Jones declined to comment on the recall effort, and Whitworth did not respond to the Tribune’s requests for comment.
Erik Gorham, the District 5 Chair of the SLO County Republican Party, said the committee plans to initiate a new recall effort to remove Gibson.
Gorham spoke with a representative of the committee about the recall effort, but he is not a member, he said.
The committee published its notice of intent to circulate a recall petition in the Atascadero News, Gorham said. Because the newspaper publishes weekly, the committee didn’t receive poof of publication until Monday and had to make last-minute changes to the petition — causing it to miss the county’s deadline, according to Gorham.
To start the process again, the committee must submit another notice of intent to circulate a recall petition to the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office.
Once approved, the committee must collect 7,374 signatures from District 2 voters to trigger a special election to remove Gibson from his position.
Gibson was in Oakland at a California State Association of Counties meeting when he heard about the hiatus in the recall effort. On Friday, he will be sworn in as president of the organization, which advocates for county governments at the State Legislature and federal government.
Rather than responding to the recall efforts, Gibson said he’s focused on county policy and his work with the California State Association of Counties.
“My interest is focusing on working on issues that are of importance to the county, like homelessness, early childhood issues, impacts of artificial intelligence, housing costs — the things that actually matter to people,” Gibson said.
This story was originally published November 15, 2023 at 6:46 PM.
