Voters in Cayucos will have a chance to meet and hear from the two men vying for the Dist. 2 County Supervisor’s seat, at what will likely be the final forum before the June 2 Primary Election.
Candidates Jim Dantona and Michael Woody will address Cayucos voters’ concerns at the forum set for 10 a.m. to noon, Saturday, May 16 at the Boradori Garage, 455 N Ocean Ave., Cayucos.
The forum is sponsored by the citizen’s group Preserve Cayucos and focuses on issues facing the Town that Time Forgot specifically, and the North Coast in general.
Whosoever gets over 50% of the votes will win the seat being vacated by long-time Dist. 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson who is retiring after his term is up in December. Gibson, who came out of Cayucos when first elected, has held the seat since 2007.
The election happens in early June but mail-in ballots will already have gone out before the May 16 forum.
The election will be the first time the North Coast communities have voted together for their highest-ranking local representative since 2018.
After the 2020 Census, the conservative majority of the Board of Supervisors, who although officially non-partisan could be described as “conservative vs. liberal,” in 2021 adopted a new Supervisorial District Map that greatly changed the boundaries.
While Cayucos, Cambria and San Simeon stayed in Dist. 2, Morro Bay was moved into Dist. 3 and Los Osos into Dist. 5 for the 2022 elections.
Dist. 2 picked up all of Atascadero and San Miguel, plus part of Templeton in a District that looked very different from the one that had been in place for decades.
The 2022 election saw Gibson re-elected by the narrowest of margins, just 13 votes, and the Board majority flipped to the liberal side.
In 2023, the new majority threw out the 2021 district map and adopted one that was nearly identical to the previous, long-time map, returning Morro Bay and Los Osos (plus part of San Luis Obispo) to Dist. 3. San Miguel and Templeton returned to Dist. 1 and Atascadero to Dist. 5 for the 2024 elections.
So, 2026 will be the first election with a reunited North Coast constituency and fittingly, will see a new face take the seat.
Dist. 2 again spans from the Monterey County Line (at Ragged Point) down to Los Osos on the coast and inland down Chorro and Los Osos Valley to the west side of SLO. It includes the communities of San Simeon, Harmony, Cambria, Cayucos, Morro Bay and Los Osos in their entirety.
The forum’s format, according to Preserve Cayucos, will be 30 minutes of introductions followed by basic questions about how they will represent Cayucos. Then there will be a 1-hour Q&A from the audience.
County Supervisor is the representative for unincorporated communities that are governed by the County Government. They also sit on countywide agencies such as the Regional Transportation Authority, Council of Governments and Flood Control District.
Dist. 2 has the most towns with the largest population of the five Supervisory Districts in so far as unincorporated communities are concerned. Only Morro Bay and its 10,400 residents live in an incorporated city with its own city council and government bureaucracy. The County Board of Supervisors governs everyone else.
Preserve Cayucos said, “The Supervisors of our county are the legislative and executive authority for the County responsible for setting policies approving budgets, managing land use, and providing services for unincorporated areas such as Cayucos.”
Unless the June vote ends in a tie, the candidate who gets 50%-plus one vote will win the seat, but doesn’t take office until the current term is up.
Though it’s highly unlikely, should there be an absolute tie, the two would have a run off in November’s General Election, where it’s hoped the tie would be broken.
With all the marbles up for grabs, the two candidates have been facing each other in several forums sponsored by different organizations — Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters, and the Rotary Club (see related story).
“We are fortunate,” Preserve Cayucos said, “to have both of them joining us to address issues specific to Cayucos in a candidate forum.”
In a public forum in Morro Bay the two men answered an impressive 22 questions sourced from a packed house at the Vet’s Hall. Though most of their answers were in general agreement, they did differ on a few issues, of note was support for (Dantona) and opposition to (Woody) offshore wind energy being proposed for a large patch of ocean offshore from San Simeon.
Preserve Cayucos, LLC. “is a community-based organization created to preserve the unique characteristics of Cayucos.” Email them at: -preservecayucosllc@gmail.com.
