Who is Jim Dantona? Meet SLO County’s newest supervisor
Jim Dantona, the incoming supervisor for San Luis Obispo County’s Second District, has been surrounded by politics his entire life.
His early memories revolve around his father discussing policy at the dinner table after long days working as the chief of staff for then state Senator David Roberti.
While growing up in Simi Valley — now home to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library — Dantona remembered getting in fights with the other fifth graders over why Democrat Walter Mondale was a better presidential candidate in 1984. He recalled standing on the state Senate floor as a kid, and the time when former California Governor Pat Brown stopped by their family home.
“Always a top conversation was politics and policy,” Dantona told The Tribune. “So from a very early age that was very interesting to me.”
Dantona would tag along with his dad to the political front lines — walking precincts, talking to voters and learning how campaigns operated.
Those experiences came in handy this year.
After District 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson announced that he would not seek reelection, Dantona, a Democrat and the then-CEO and president of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, hopped into the race along with independent Morro Bay engineer Michael Erin Woody.
The two competed in a close contest to represent the North Coast communities spanning from Los Osos to the Monterey County line. After 17,546 votes were cast in the race, Dantona officially won the seat by capturing 53.4% of the vote.
Now this January, SLO County’s Second District will have a new leader for the first time in 20 years.
Dantona said he’s thrilled to finally move off of the political sidelines and start making county policy decisions.
“Local government is amazing, because you can actually see impact, and you can have real impact on people’s lives,” he said. “They see it, they feel it when you’re successful or when you fail.”
Who is District 2 Supervisor-elect Jim Dantona?
Dantona graduated from Sacramento State with a degree in government.
He started his career in the private sector after struggling to find a job in the Sacramento political arena. At the time, Republicans controlled all three branches of the state Legislature, he said.
Eventually in 2003, Dantona clinched a role in Los Angeles city council member Tony Cardenas’ office where he tackled planning and land-use issues. He went on to serve as chief of staff for several Los Angeles City Council members, including Cardenas, Nury Martinez, Felipe Fuentes and Wendy Greuel.
After spending 15 years in Los Angeles politics, Dantona said he grew tired of the lack of progress at the city level.
“I was a little frustrated in not being able to move the needle on policy issues that I really thought were important,” he told The Tribune.
He left politics to work for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, which then opened the door for him to take the top role at the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce and move to Cayucos with his family.
While at the local chamber, Dantona forged relationships with every San Luis Obispo County supervisor and focused on outreach and advocacy efforts, which included encouraging business leaders to run for office.
He vividly remembered meeting longtime Supervisor Bruce Gibson for the first time at the “dive bar” — Niffy’s Merrimaker in Los Osos.
“I walk in there and my shoes stick to the floor,” Dantona joked — but their conversation sparked years of teamwork focused on finding childcare and affordable housing solutions in the county.
Gibson to leave District 2 seat after two decades on the board
When Gibson decided to not run for reelection, folks in the Chamber community pushed Dantona to get into the race.
“I said, you know what, I’ve now got to put my money where my mouth is, right?,” Dantona recalled. “I’ve said others should do it, and now I should try to do it.”
But Gibson didn’t immediately endorse Dantona.
“I wanted to see how he went out and organized a coalition, and how he led people, how he inspired people toward the idea that he could be an elected official,” Gibson told The Tribune.
“You gotta see how much commitment the individual wants to put in,” he added. “That’s always telling.”
In the end, Gibson said his test worked. Dantona proved the strength of his leadership and support, and Gibson saw a passionate leader who cared about the community and the environment, with values that closely aligned with his own.
Gibson gave Dantona his endorsement and a new job, chief of staff, after he had a sudden vacancy during his final months in office.
“I get why people felt like that was strange ... all of a sudden hired,” Dantona said. “But it really came from a legitimate kind of need to continue to serve the district.”
Throughout the campaign, Dantona ran on a platform to create more jobs and affordable housing on the Central Coast. Sustainable energy was also at the top of his priorities, standing in opposition to offshore oil drilling efforts and in favor of offshore wind projects, as long as they were “developed in the right places with the right safeguards,” he said on his website.
After officially winning the race in early July, Dantona said he was looking forward to being a “bridge-builder” on the Board of Supervisors, defining himself as someone who is willing to work across the aisle to craft policy, even if that means incremental progress at times.
“Rather than lose the vote, I will take the 25%, right?” he said. “I want to move the needle ... in the direction that I want policies to go, but I also won’t be all or nothing.”
Dantona shares priorities as incoming SLO County supervisor
The District 2 supervisor-elect said the county’s biggest issue is the budget — its current limitations have made it harder to invest in necessary services and construction projects.
“(The infrastructure) is old, it’s falling apart throughout the county, but it gets beaten up more than normal here on the coast with salt air and how we’ve built out,” he told The Tribune. “So we’ve got to really improve our infrastructure that goes to sewers, roads, but especially water.”
He said the county needs to come up with a strategic plan to prioritize the budget and focus on spending that goes towards these kinds of projects as well as more services like parks, mental health, housing and homelessness initiatives.
“I love solving problems, I love the idea of seeing an issue, and like, ‘OK, we got to fix that,’ and there’s never a shortage (of problems),” he said.
