Choosing a new SLO County clerk-recorder has turned into a farce. Blame these 3 supervisors

The conservative majority on the county Board of Supervisors is out of control.

There is no other way to describe the outrageous maneuvering that occurred Tuesday, when three supervisors set the stage to handpick their own candidate to replace Tommy Gong as county clerk-recorder.

Republican Supervisors Debbie Arnold, Lynn Compton and John Peschong essentially voted to disregard the recommendation of a committee that vetted 44 applications and narrowed the field to the only three who had actual experience running county elections.

That wasn’t good enough for the three supervisors.

They voted to bring the item back on Oct. 5, when they will discuss widening the field of finalists prior to interviews, which are scheduled for only a week later on Oct. 12.

There’s been speculation that the conservative supervisors favor attorney Stewart Jenkins, who represented Compton in an election-related lawsuit she filed against Gong in 2018. While Jenkins has been campaigning heavily for the position, he was not among the three finalists.

In making her case to bring in more candidates, Arnold accused the selection committee of “completely disregarding” the direction the board provided back in July when it voted to form the committee.

She insisted the board had instructed the group to choose seven finalists; Supervisor Bruce Gibson said the motion was “up to seven.”

Undeterred, Arnold said she disagreed and suggested reviewing the recording at the next meeting: “We can play the tape back and then everyone can decide,” she said.

We listened to the recording and found it confusing. At one point, Arnold’s motion on July 13 included “maybe choosing up to 10 candidates for us” but later in the discussion she did clearly say “bring us back seven candidates.”

The five-member committee — each supervisor appointed one person — did consider naming additional finalists.

Compton’s appointee, attorney Chuck Bell, supported adding Jenkins and David Evans, a former auto mall CFO, to the list.

But in the end, the committee voted 5-0 to recommend the three candidates with previous county elections experience: current interim San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder Helen Nolan, Yolo County chief deputy clerk-recorder Jeffrey Barry and Santa Barbara County elections division manager Elaina Cano.

The fact that the committee settled on only three candidates should speak volumes — except to the shamelessly manipulative board majority that appears to be trying to subvert the process for political gain.

Instead of trusting the judgment of their own appointees, Arnold, Compton and Peschong are essentially overriding them and taking matters into their own hands.

To what end? If you have a vast number of applicants who clearly have no business springboarding into the position of top elections official in the county, why would you waste time and energy considering them?

Maybe the three conservatives don’t intend to appoint their own favorite, but it’s certainly looking that way, and it’s yet another example of the overtly partisan tactics being used around the country, as conservatives try to control how elections are run.

Ironically, when the appointment process was discussed in July, Supervisor Peschong publicly stated that he was worried about this becoming “some sort of insider process.”

Yet that’s exactly what it’s in danger of becoming — a process based not on experience and competence, but on currying favor with a board majority hell bent on catering to its conservative base.

What do Peschong, Arnold and Compton really want in a clerk-recorder? Someone with a high level of integrity, professionalism and proven experience who can be trusted to conduct honest elections in San Luis Obispo County? Or a cherry-picked mouthpiece who might echo election fraud misinformation and actively work to subvert our democracy?

Because that’s what’s occurring right now, however this conservative trio might like to spin it. They have an agenda and the power to execute it with their three votes alone, and no one can stop them — at least not now.

Remember, none of this charade was necessary. The board could have avoided the appearance of partisanship by appointing Nolan, who has proven herself to be well-qualified to run the office, including the much-scrutinized Elections Division.

But now, instead, there’s a bona fide possibility that someone with little or no experience in running elections could actually become her supervisor.

That’s not just absurd, it’s farcical.

If that happens — and at this point, nothing would surprise us — at least voters will have the opportunity to right that wrong by electing a truly qualified candidate in 2022, assuming whoever is in charge has enough integrity to honor the will of the voters.

While they’re at it, voters also can begin evicting this cabal of partisans who have hijacked our board, because they’ve made it abundantly clear they will do almost anything to bend our government to their will.

This story was originally published September 29, 2021 at 5:00 AM.