SLO County panel selects 3 clerk-recorder finalists from list of 44. Here’s who they picked
A committee has narrowed a field of 44 candidates applying to become San Luis Obispo County’s interim head elections official to just three finalists.
The county’s five-person clerk-recorder selection committee met on Monday to pick the top applicants to temporarily replace Tommy Gong, who resigned from the position in July to take a new job in the Bay Area.
They selected former Yolo County chief deputy clerk-recorder Jeffrey Barry, Santa Barbara County elections division manager Elaina Cano and current interim San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder Helen Nolan.
Barry, Cano and Nolan will now undergo background checks, and the county Board of Supervisors will interview them during a special meeting on Oct. 12.
Clerk-recorder selection committee process
In July, supervisors opted to move forward with an open application process instead of appointing Nolan — who served as deputy director of the Clerk-Recorder’s Office under Gong — to fill the position through 2022, when residents will elect a new clerk-recorder.
The board stipulated only three qualifications: Candidates must be at least 18, they must be California residents and they must live in San Luis Obispo County and be registered to vote in the area at the time of the appointment.
Each supervisor picked one of the five committee members. Legislative aide Vicki Janssen represented District 1, former San Luis Obispo city clerk Lee Price represented District 2, former San Luis Obispo city manager Ken Hampian represented District 3, attorney Chuck Bell represented District 4 and former Atascadero city clerk Marcia Torgerson represented District 5.
In spite of the board’s minimum qualifications, the committee and county administrative officer Wade Horton decided during an initial meeting on Sept. 8 that they should pursue candidates with leadership and elections experience.
“This is not a position for somebody to have their first experience with leadership,” Horton said. “I think it’s very important that whoever the board selects has a proven track record of leading a team.”
“I also think it’s important that this person has established experience in a clerk-recorder’s office,” he added. “This isn’t a time to learn on the job; this should be a subject matter expert. It’s a working department head. It’s down in the trenches with their team. And in order to be successful in this role, experience in the subject matter expertise and also leadership is absolutely essential.”
The committee considered 44 candidates, only four of whom had government clerking or elections experience.
Committee favors candidates with election experience
During the meeting on Monday, county Human Resources director Tami Douglas-Schatz, county administrative officer Wade Horton and county counsel Rita Neal suggested the committee members each write their top choices on large sheets of paper with markers.
All five members agreed on Barry, Cano and Nolan, citing their experience running elections. The committee discussed Lena Legge, assistant city clerk for Bakersfield, as potentially being qualified, but they noted she didn’t appear to have much experience running elections.
Bell suggested the committee shouldn’t “exclude people who have extensive management experience but not direct election experience.” He said his father had only a military background, but he eventually became a Kern County administrator and performed well because of his management experience.
He encouraged the committee to consider David Evans, a former auto mall CFO and vice president, and Stewart Jenkins, a local attorney.
Jenkins and Bell together represented Supervisor Lynn Compton in a lawsuit against Gong when she was running for re-election in a very close 2018 race against current Arroyo Grande Councilmember Jimmy Paulding. The two attorneys were trying to stop Gong from “accepting corrections of vote-by-mail ballot envelopes with mismatched signatures,” a previous Tribune story said.
“Mr. Jenkins is an experienced attorney who’s been involved in the election process,” Bell said, “and I think in a lower position, certainly as a volunteer directly on elections. But he’s interfaced with that process over the years in his practice. Mr. Evans has an interesting background to me ... as a manager of non-state systems and state systems.”
Hampian pushed back strongly against including Jenkins.
“In my 40 years of reviewing applications for professional, apolitical, nonpartisan jobs, a highly political application, like the one submitted by Mr. Jenkins, would be a big red flag,” Hampian said. “To me, that reflected poor judgment, which then, I think, gives us some insights into (his) leadership and leadership temperament, the kind that we’re (not) looking for in this interim appointment. You know, it was strategy that one might deploy in a political campaign — that’s fine, but not for something like this.”
Top 3 candidates selected for interviews
A straw poll of the committee showed no one else supporting the proposal to include Jenkins among the finalists. Only Janssen and Bell favored including Evans.
Eventually, the committee voted 5-0 to put forward Barry, Cano and Nolan. The members’ initial 4-1 vote said supervisors should consider only those three candidates, with Bell objecting.
The committee then changed the motion to remove the word ‘only,’ in order to achieve a unanimous vote.
Torgerson said she wished there were more candidates for the supervisors to consider. However she didn’t think any of the other 41 applicants would have the experience necessary to take the helm of the Clerk-Recorder’s Office on day one.
“I feel very confident recommending these three,” Price said. “They are the cream of the crop. I think that the supervisors’ job is going to be difficult with the three, because they’re all well-qualified, dedicated public servants with experience unique to the Clerk-Recorder’s Office.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2021 at 1:53 PM.
