Filling empty seats on a local sanitary board continues to be difficult, but the district hasn’t given up trying.
Two seats on the Cayucos Sanitary District Board of Directors remain empty after October’s meeting failed to turn up anyone that had agreed to apply for a position.
District Manager David Athey said they had to cancel the agenda item at the Board’s last monthly meeting on Oct. 22 because an ad hoc committee appointed to find people to fill the seats for Districts 2 and 3 had not yet found anyone to apply for the positions.
The committee consists of Dist. 5 and Board President Bob Enns and Board Vice-President and Dist. 1 Board Member John Curti.
Athey said it would be a standing agenda item, listed on every meeting agenda until people are found who want to serve.
The item reads: “Discussion and consideration to adopt Resolution 2026-11 recommending candidates for appointment to Districts 2 and 3 of the Cayucos Sanitary District Board of Directors.”
Under State Law special districts like the CSD are elected to 4-year terms. In the past such elections were at-large votes, meaning voters picked from one pool of candidates and the top vote getters won available seats.
The 2001 California Voting Rights Act changed all that. According to the California Law Review: “The California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) has reshaped local elections across the State of California. The CVRA spurred hundreds of cities, school districts, and other local governments to transition from at-large elections, where all voters in the local government’s territory vote for all members of the local government’s board, to district-based elections, where a local government’s territory is subdivided into election districts that each independently elect a member to the local government’s board.”
Agencies and municipalities across the state were threatened with lawsuits by activist lawyers if they did not switch the way governing board members are elected, essentially carving up a town, even one as small as Cayucos, into districts. Thios was supposed to ensure pockets of protected classes of voters, i.e. minority enclaves, from losing representation.
It was decided that at-large votes allowed the majority to take away representation from minorities and carving them all into one district with power to elect their representative would protect them.
This also required each individual board member to have to live within the district he or she sought to represent and has now led to some seats locally not having anyone step up to run for office.
Much like with the Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuit threats, to avoid litigation, many agencies voted to divide up the town into districts (or areas with some agencies) to avoid costly legislation.
That has led to offices having few people run for them like in both Cayucos and Los Osos, where three seats on the Community Services District Board were up for election this year.
The incumbents in two of those Areas (Districts) were unopposed and no one signed up to run for the third seat. The CSD Board recently approved sending Tom Maier’s name to Supervisors for appointment, so that seat appears to be on its way to being filled via appointment.
“It’s the challenge of the Voting Rights Act,” Athey said. “It’s tough to find people.”
Complicating the situation, an agency’s staff is prohibited from assisting in finding board members, leaving it all up to the sitting board to speak to people in the community.
“They’re [the ad hoc committee] still looking for candidates from the districts,” Athey said.
Adding to the absurdity of the situation, there are two men running to fill a third CSD seat. Jim Billings was recently appointed to serve out the Dist. 4 term that opened up when long-time board member Shirley Lyons stepped down. That term ends in December.
Billings is also running for the full, 4-year term against Charles Bergson, so while there are two men seeking the Dist. 4 seat, no one appears interested in either Dist. 2 or 3.
And because Billings and Bergson both live within the boundaries of Dist. 4, the loser of the November Election, despite clearly showing a willingness to serve, can’t apply to fill one of the two vacant seats, unless of course he moves into that District’s boundaries
The process, assuming someone eventually steps up to serve, Athey explained, would have the CSD Board vote to recommend the appointment and that decision is sent to the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office, who in turn forwards it to the Board of Supervisors for approval.
Athey said there is also nothing to prevent a County Supervisor from talking to people in the community about serving.
Supervisorial Dist. 2, which includes Cayucos, is about to have a new Supervisor, after Jim Dantona, a Cayucos resident, won election in the June Primary.
And, current Dist. 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson is also a Cayucos resident.
If the District Board goes into 2027 with just three board seats filled, it would be the bare minimum number needed to establish a quorum and if any of the three is absent, the District’s business would have to be rescheduled. Not having a quorum can kill a board.
In North County, the Templeton Advisory Council was recently disbanded after it no longer had a quorum of members. The TAC is simply an advisory council to the Dist. 1 County Supervisor, much as the Cayucos Citizens Advisory Council is for Dist. 2.
Athey said if anyone wants to see if they could qualify for an appointment to the District Board, they should call the CSD Office at 805-995-3290.
Besides the specific district residency requirement, normal elected office requirements are also in effect — you must be at least 18-years old, a U.S. Citizen, and a registered voter in Cayucos.
According to the District website the current board members are: Dist. 1 John Curti, Dist. 2 Justin Smith, Dist. 3 Joe Clark, Dist. 4 Jim Billings, and Dist. 5 Robert “Bob” Enns, who is also Board President.
