Aerial photo shows Sunnyside School in Los Osos outlined in red. Los Osos voters will decide in June whether to tax themselves to purchase the long-closed school and repurpose it for a park and other community needs. Photo by Dean Sullivan
A special property tax measure in Los Osos to raise money to purchase the old Sunnyside School property and pay for its ongoing upkeep will appear on the June Primary Election Ballot, now that County Supervisors have given the go-ahead.
And the clock is ticking for ballot arguments and rebuttals to be filed if they are to appear in election materials.
County Clerk-Recorder, Elaina Cano, asked Supervisors on Jan. 27 to approve placing Measure B-26 on the June Primary Ballot.
The request came from the Los Osos Community Services District Board, which itself had been petitioned in December by a citizens group seeking to purchase Sunnyside School and use it for community needs, such as playing fields, and parklands among other, yet to be decided, potential uses.
Essentially, the citizens would buy it and the CSD would run and maintain it.
Under State Law, Cano said, “when a district located within the County of San Luis Obispo schedules an election to submit a question to the voters or to elect an office on the same date as a statewide election, the district’s governing body must adopt a resolution requesting consolidation of its election with the statewide election. Consolidation ensures that the district’s measure or office appears on the same ballot as statewide offices and measures.”
The CSD had to submit the request “no later than 88 days prior to the scheduled election date.” The LOCSD Board of Directors approved making the request at its Jan. 12 meeting, after Cano’s office had verified that at least 10% of the registered voters had signed the petition.
The June Primary will also have the race for Dist. 2 County Supervisor on the ballot; the first time Los Osos will get to vote on that office since 2018.
And with long-time Supervisor Bruce Gibson announcing last May that he would not seek re-election, it will be the first time in nearly a generation (since 2007) that Dist. 2 will have no incumbent running.
So, turnout should be good for the election, as there are so-far only two people — Michael Woody and Jim Dantona — who have announced they will run, making the Primary Election likely to be the deciding contest for Gibson’s replacement.
The official filing period is Feb. 9-March 6 and because Gibson is not in the race, it will be extended to March 11, according to the County Elections Office website.
In her signature verification form, Cano describes B-26 as “Ordinance imposing a special tax for parks and recreation in the Los Osos Community Services District,” which means all private properties within the CSD’s service area would be affected. The District’s various service zones encompass the entirety of the Los Osos community, both the neighborhoods “in” town and outlying subdivisions like Cabrillo Estates and Sunset Terrace/Monarch Grove on the west and up to Los Osos Creek on the east side.
The verification document said they had collected 1,507 signatures and 1,278 had been verified as “sufficient.” There were 229 “insufficient” signatures and 45 were duplicates, according to the County document.
The exact language of Measure B-26 — a “Yes” or “No” vote — reads: “To provide open space and recreational facilities by creating a new community park with sports fields, shall the Los Osos Community Services District citizens’ initiative measure be adopted establishing a parcel tax of $185 parcel/year for 15 years, then dropping to $100 parcel/year (with CPI adjustments), to raise approximately $1,114,255 annually for 15 years for acquisition, and $602,200 annually after that for operations/maintenance, until ended by voters, with public disclosure, and local citizens’ oversight?”
In essence, the full tax would last for 15 years, unless another citizen’s group comes around and manages to get a ballot measure certified and approved to end it before then.
Otherwise, after 15 years, it will automatically reduce and continue in perpetuity, unless again, another voter initiative comes along to end or amend it.
And since voters would have decided it, it would require another vote to extend it or end it early.
And because a citizen’s group, “Sunnyside Park Citizen’s Coalition,” (SPCC) gathered the signatures and petitioned the CSD for the special election, under State Law it only requires a simple majority approval to be enacted.
Had the CSD (or any government agency) been behind this, it would have triggered a two-thirds approval requirement, as it is a special tax for a specific purpose, as opposed to a general tax increase.
Originally, the tax measure was predicted to be headed for the November General Election, but the SPCC wanted it sped up.
“The timing of the election,” said LOCSD General Manager Ron Munds, “was based on several factors but the Sunnyside Park Citizen’s Coalition pushed to have it in June.
“SPCC was able to collect the enough signatures and have them verified by the Clerk/Recorder’s Office to qualify for the June election, so the CSD moved forward with the necessary paperwork.”
The CSD has been working with the citizen’s group on this, hosting a well-attended town hall meeting at Sunnyside School, and having its engineering firm do preliminary studies and estimates on what it will cost to buy it and maintain it as well as looking at what potential uses it might have.
With these hurdles already overcome, the County set the deadlines for ballot arguments for Friday, Feb. 6. “This deadline,” reads the notice put out by the County Clerk-Recorder, “has been determined by the County Clerk-Recorder to be a reasonable date, based upon the time necessary to prepare, print, and distribute the arguments to the voters as provided by law.”
She added that arguments for or against the measure “may be submitted by the Governing Board of the district or any member or members of the governing board authorized by the board, any individual voter who is eligible to vote on the measure, any bona fide association of citizens, or any combination of these voters and associations.”
Munds said the LOCSD Board would not be submitting any arguments.
“Since this is a citizen’s initiative,” Munds told EBN, “the CSD will not be submitting an argument, the SPCC will be doing that. From the beginning, the CSD has maintained that purchasing the school is a decision the community needs to make and, if the ballot measure is successful, the CSD is willing to take on the commitment to finalize negotiations with the school district to try to make it happen.”
The San Luis Coastal Unified School District declared Sunnyside, and Morro Elementary in Morro Bay, to be “surplus properties” and ordered they be sold to bridge a gap in its budget.
Under State Law, they must first offer school-owned properties to local governmental agencies, which have a certain amount of time to formally declare interest in acquiring them. In the case of Sunnyside, this special tax vote will decide if the community will purchase Sunnyside.
And in Morro Bay, pushed by another citizen’s group, the City Council is negotiating the potential purchase of Morro Elementary.
Should either or both of these efforts fail, the school district would be free to sell to a private entity for potential re-development, though the potential uses are still limited.
The School District made these decisions when it faced a severe budget shortfall in 2025, due to the loss of property taxes (unitary taxes) from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, which had been slated to close in 2025, but could now remain open for 5 or as long as 20 years.
Efforts are now underway by the County to force Pacific Gas & Electric to resume paying property taxes on Diablo Canyon. At stake is millions of dollars annually for the school district, the County and to a lesser extent, the City of Morro Bay and even the Cayucos Sanitary District.
As for potential arguments on Measure B-26, if more than one is received the County Clerk-Recorder’s Office will pick one to appear in election materials.
Currently, with the deadline for arguments now passed, whoever submitted them will now be given time to submit a rebuttal. The deadline for those is Tuesday, Feb. 24, to be included in election materials.
The Clerk’s Office will have a 10-day period to review and potentially challenge the validity of any of these arguments.
To be valid, the arguments must be in the proper format and include certain wording, and must be true and correct, as well. So, any misinformation or lies would disqualify an argument from being included.
