Just as deer-hunting season opens and closes on specific dates and certain times, it’s officially election season for folks hunting up a political office in San Luis Obispo County.
The County Clerk-Recorder’s Office announced that Monday, July 15 was the opening of candidate filing and nomination periods countywide.
The nomination period ends at 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 9. But if the incumbent in a particular race doesn’t file to run for re-election by the ninth, that office’s nomination deadline will be extended to Aug. 14.
According to the Election’s Office, “Contests on the November ballot include: the top-2 Federal and State candidates from the March 5, 2024, Presidential Primary; open seats on 15 local school boards; 14 community service districts; and five special districts; and, city offices throughout the County.”
County Seats Decided
The major offices within the County — Sheriff, District Attorney, Clerk-Recorder, Treasurer and Assessor — are not up for election this time around. And there are no County Supervisor seats on November’s ballot, as the three Supervisorial seats contested in 2024 were all decided at the March Primary.
Dist. 1 Supervisor John Peschong, and Dist. 3’s Dawn Ortiz-Legg were both unopposed in March (Ortiz-Legg did face a weak, write-in opponent). Dist. 5, which was given up by the retiring Debbie Arnold, went to Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno, who won in a 2-person race against another A-town councilwoman.
Three Superior Court Judges also won’t be on the ballot after being unopposed last March. They were: Judge Crystal Tindell Seiler; the Hon. Catherine J. Swysen; and the Hon. Michael C. Kelley.
Upper Office Runoffs
Although they won majorities in March, due to the State’s Top-2 Primary rules, the races for U.S. Senator, Congress, State Senate and State Legislature, will be on November’s ballot.
In the race to replace the late Sen. Diane Feinstein, Congressman Adam Schiff and former Major League Baseball star, Steve Garvey, will face off in two Senate contests. One seat will be for just a few weeks to finish out Feinstein’s death-shortened term, as well as a full, 6-year term. (It’s possible that each term could be filled by a different man, creating possibly the shortest Senate term in the nation’s history.)
Incumbent Congressman, Salud Carbajal will run against challenger, Thomas Cole.
Dist. 17 State Sen. John Laird, who won in March by some 25%, will face challenger, Tony Virrueta.
In the Dist. 21 race for State Senate, Elijah Mack will go against S. Monique Limón. The two were separated by 3% last March.
Dist. 30 State Assemblywoman, Dawn Addis, will run against Dalila Epperson. Addis won by over 9% last March. Dist. 30 includes most of SLO County, plus Coastal Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties.
Assembly Dist. 37 incumbent, Gregg Hart, who came in second behind challenger, Sari Domingues, in SLO County voting, will run again.
Dist. 37 includes SLO County from the southern edge of Arroyo Grande down through Nipomo, into Santa Maria and down to Santa Barbara.
MB Mayor, 2 Council Seats
Morro Bay will see three city council seats up for election, and it’s possible two seats could be wide open for the first time ever in Morro Bay.
Mayor Carla Wixom is up for re-election along with Council women, Jen Ford and Laurel Barton.
Mayor Wixom has told Estero Bay News that’s she intends to run again. Unconfirmed rumors around town have said neither Ford nor Barton intends to run again, however, time will tell.
City Clerk Dana Swanson explained, “As to whether or not current Council Members will run again, regardless of any comments made, they have until 5 p.m. on Aug. 9 to make the final decision.”
Local businessmen, Jeff Eckles and Bill Luffee filed so-called “Form 501,” which is essentially a notice of intent to run for office, and allows a candidate to set up bank accounts and solicit campaign donations. Eckles filed Form 501 May 30, and Luffee filed it last Jan. 4.
Swanson said she would be posting updates on the election nominations on the City website, see: www.morrobayca.gov/DocumentCenter/View/19410/Nomination-Updates_2024.
BESS Buster on Ballot
Also on the ballot in Morro Bay is Measure A-24, a citizen’s initiative that would lock in the current zoning on the west side of the Embarcadero from Beach Street down to Morro Rock.
That includes the old power plant property, which was re-zoned “commercial/visitor-serving” when the City updated its General Plan and Zoning Ordinance a few years ago.
Measure A-24 would require the City to seek voter approval in order to change the zoning in that specific area. While not directed at the BESS Project, the intent is clearly to throw up a significant roadblock in the project’s path and turn the decision making over to the voters.
Plant owner, Vistra Energy, has proposed building a giant Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) plant, with capacity of 600 megawatts on about 22 acres of the over-100 acre plant property. The project includes tearing down the old power plant building, which rises about 16 stories, and the three, 450-foot-tall smokestacks.
That BESS Project, which is currently under environmental review by the City Planning Department, must re-zone the property to “industrial,” to have the BESS Project approved.
LOCSD Needs Three
The Los Osos Community Services District will once again dip its toes into an election with two seats on the Board of Directors up for election in November.
One director has to come out of Div. 3 (Area 3) and one from Div. 5, according to the County Clerk’s list. Area 3 Director currently is Troy Gatchell, and Area 5 Director is Board President Marshall Ochylski.
Area 3 is located on the east and southeast side of town; and Area 5 includes the area along Santa Ysabel and the northeast part of town.
As Los Osos CSD has used a district-style election model since 2021, candidates for a particular Area seat must live in that area. Both seats are 4-year terms.
This requirement has in the past led to the CSD not having anyone file to run in a particular area. In which case, there is no election and County Supervisors must decide the matter.
Under the heading “Insufficient Nominees,” the LOCSD bylaws say, “If by the close of nominations for a given office, there are insufficient or no nominees, and a petition requesting an election has not been filed, the district will not hold an election.
“Those candidates who filed Declarations of Candidacy will be appointed in-lieu of election by the Board of Supervisors. Upon recommendation of the District, the Board of Supervisors will make appointments where no candidates filed the requisite papers.”
Candidates for all CSDs and Special Districts must get nomination papers at the County Government Center. “The Elections Division of the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office, located at 1055 Monterey St., Ste. D-120, San Luis Obispo, urges interested candidates to call our office at 805-781-5228 to make an appointment to come in and obtain the Declaration of Candidacy,” reads the County’s news release.
Three Seats in Cambria
The Cambria Community Services District has three seats up for election this November.
The three directors up for election are: Incumbent Board President Tom Gray; Dir. Harry Farmer and Dir. Karen Dean.
Cambria CSD directors are elected “at-large,” so everyone gets to vote for each candidate, and the top three vote getters win 4-year terms.
Maybe Two in San Simeon
According to the County, the San Simeon CSD has two seats up for election — one each in Area C and A — each carrying a 4-year term, however, there may not even be a CSD in San Simeon for much longer.
The San Simeon CSD has had difficulty adjusting to the new reality of local governance in California under the California Voting Rights Act.
That State Law requires small governing bodies to change to being elected by voting districts, to prevent disenfranchising certain, protected classes of voters.
In San Simeon, it’s meant the end of representation for one area of the tiny community.
San Simeon CSD provides water, sewer, road maintenance, street lighting and weed abatement services to roughly 450 residents, plus a slew of motels and restaurants. The town voted to form a CSD in 1961.
The directors are in the process of dissolving the CSD in favor of turning over the delivery of all of its services to the County and becoming a “County Service Area,” governed by the County Supervisors with an appointed advisory board.
“In 2022,” reads the SSCSD’s report on dissolution, “under the California Voting Rights Act, the community’s two hundred voters were divided into five mini-voting districts, adversely impacting governance. The district has struggled to maintain a five-member Board.”
Indeed, at the November 2022 Election, no one entered the race for one seat. “In early 2023,” reads the dissolution report, “two directors resigned. Eventually, one candidate came forward for Area A. No candidate came forward from Area C, which has only twenty-four registered voters. That area remains unrepresented.”
Perhaps not too surprisingly, the two vacant seats in San Simeon are for Areas A and C.
The report concludes, “It is unlikely that the community will ever again have elections where residents can choose from multiple candidates. Instead, local and County appointments and uncontested elections will be the norm for SSCSD.”
Dissolution would have the County take over delivery of its services. It would also give the County responsibility for building a new community sewer treatment plant, as ordered by the Coastal Commission.
San Simeon’s tiny sewage treatment plant sits on a dead end street just about 12-feet from the beach. The Commission has been after them to move it away from the coast and avoid potential “coastal hazards” (i.e. tsunami, sea level rise and climate change) since about 2019.
“The district faces an increasingly complex environment for services and management that is internally unsustainable and unresolvable,” the dissolution report said. “The district has become unstable.”
Three Up in Cayucos
The Cayucos Sanitary District has three seats up for election, including one member who’s been around over three decades.
Board President, Robert Enns, is up for election for another term on a board he’s been serving on since 1991.
Other Directors up for re-election are Hannah Miller and Michael Shopshear.
The Sanitary District collects and treats the town’s wastewater, and nothing else. It is responsible for building Cayucos’ new, state-of-the-art wastewater treatment and water recycling facility on farmland located up Toro Creek Road, about a mile off Hwy 1.
Two in Cayucos School District
Two seats are open in the Cayucos Elementary School District Board of Trustees and once again they must come from specific Areas in town.
The school district has Trustee Areas 4 and 5 on the County list of races.
Current Area 4 Trustee is Susan Brownell and Area 5 is Val Wright. As with the LOCSD, anyone wishing to run for these offices must go through the County Clerk’s Office.
Coast Union S.D.
The Coast Union School District has three seats up for election in November, each representing a certain area of the district, which encompasses San Simeon, Cambria and Cayucos.
Tiffany Silva, is the incumbent for Trustee Area 1, which is a massive territory encompassing the entire eastern side of the district and stretches from the SLO-Monterey County line down to the border with Morro Bay.
Juli Amodei, is the trustee for Area 4, which encompasses the majority of the developed areas in Cambria and the hills around the East Village.
Area 5 Trustee Samuel Shalhoub’s district starts in Cambria and runs down the Coast to include Harmony and all of Downtown Cayucos.
Three Up at SLCUSD
The San Luis Coastal Unified School District has three Trustee seats up for election, each representing a specific area of the District. San Luis Coastal’s district includes Morro Bay, Los Osos, SLO, Avila Beach and the areas in between.
Chris Ungar, the Trustee for Area 3 is up for re-election. Area 6’s Eve Hinton and Area 7’s Brian Clausen are also up for re-election.
Ungar’s Area 3 includes parts of Los Osos and rural Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo. Clausen’s Area 7 has the northern part of San Luis Obispo, and Hinton’s Area 6 is in the eastern part of SLO. There are a total of seven trustees on the district board.
Estero Bay News invites local candidates to send us your election news on fundraisers, meet-and-greets, and events during the campaign; as well as any announcements on candidacies can be emailed to: neil@esterobaynews.com at least 2 weeks in advance for inclusion in our election coverage.
