If you want to see how to take a moderate kerfuffle and make it into an exponentially bigger throbbing headache for everyone involved, look no further than the SLO County Board of Supervisors‘ handling of former Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong‘s departure and the board’s attempt to find a replacement.
The obvious choice was to appoint Deputy Clerk-Recorder Helen Nolan, who knows the department, has experience, and has already been named acting clerk-recorder. After all, there’s an election in five short months that could determine who will win the next four-year clerk-recorder term, so why make things needlessly complicated? Appointing Nolan would be the least expensive, most prudent course of action. But this is SLO County, baby, where persnickety partisan politics and posturing are de rigueur.
The five-member Board of Supervisors decided to open the position up to every Tom, Dick, and Harriet interested in applying. There were literally only three requirements: Applicants must be 18 or older, have established SLO County residency by the time they’re appointed, and be registered to vote at the time of the appointment. Election experience? Nah!
All told, 44 applicants applied for the position. No, pink-clad Los Angeles icon Angelyne wasn’t one of them. She only wanted to be governor.
Anywho, the board then appointed a five-member committee to peruse through the 44 applications, whittle the list down to seven, and present it to the board. Each board member was allowed to select one committee member. Fair is fair!
For the record, conservative 1st District Supe John Peschong chose his own legislative aide, Vicki Janssen, because I guess he didn’t want to think too hard about it and apparently doesn’t have enough for her to do.
Liberal Bruce Gibson of the 2nd District picked former SLO City Clerk Lee Price. Moderate liberal Dawn Ortiz-Legg, 3rd District, chose former SLO City Manager Ken Hampian.
Conservative 4th District supe Lynn Compton tapped Chuck Bell—an attorney who along with attorney Stew Jenkins helped Compton sue Tommy Gong over signature irregularities on ballots cast during her 2018 re-election bid.
Conservative Debbie Arnold, 5th District, picked former Atascadero City Clerk Marcia Torgerson.
Sure, there’s some potential partisanship in there, but so far, so good, right? All they had to do was come up with seven names. When the board convened on Oct. 5, the conservative board members expressed their dismay that the committee’s list was only three names long. How. Dare. They. Defy. The. Board’s. Directive!
Unfortunately for Arnold and Peschong, who both later voted to add four more names to the list, dammit, the committee took its job seriously enough to let quality, not arbitrary quantity, guide its selection. They picked the three candidates with actual election experience. Obviously Nolan was on the list, as was Jeffrey Barry, Yolo County’s previous chief deputy clerk-recorder, and Elaina Cano, elections division manager for Santa Barbara County and previous assistant clerk-recorder in SLO County.
Now, you’d think that, as usual, Compton would join forces with her conservative compatriots to force the issue, but lo and behold, she voted with liberals Gibson and Ortiz-Legg to simply move on to the interview stage on Oct. 12. Weird, right?
Well, it was either weird or politically savvy AF!
A week prior, at the board’s Sept. 28 meeting, perennial pot-stirrer Stew Jenkins, who apparently really wants the clerk-recorder’s job, did a presentation for why he should be “the guy.” He returned on Oct. 5 to reiterate why he should be on the list—although, he really showed everyone why he shouldn’t be on the list. If Compton voted to add those four names (which included Jenkins), it would look like she was pushing for Jenkins, who—let’s remember—helped her sue Gong.
What a dog and pony show! Gross.
First, Gong quits in part because of the Trumpites‘ accusations of fraud and a racist caller who asked Gong if he was a member of the Communist Chinese Party. Then, the Board of Supervisors took what should be a straightforward decision they could have made themselves and handed it off to a committee. Then, some supervisors didn’t like what the committee they chose decided. Now, in an effort to not look like a partisan hack, Compton turned on her allies.
Pass the gravy, please. This is delicious!
Look, the clerk-recorder job, while complicated, used to be pretty straightforward: oversee legal documents such as marriage licenses and run county elections. It’s an elected position, yes, but it’s supposed to be nonpartisan. Both Gong’s predecessor, Julie Rodewald (We miss you!), who held the position for 20 years, and Gong himself, were competent, fair, and admirable.
After Donald Trump‘s humiliating loss to President Joe Biden and his subsequent false claims of voter fraud, his local minions have attacked our clerk-recorder and called into question the validity of our elections. Why? Because, like Trump, they’re losers and they don’t like it.
What’s really going to sting is after all the time and money wasted and political rancor, Nolan will likely be appointed, as she should have been. Dumb. Δ
The Shredder believes in democracy. Send comments and ideas to shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Awareness Issue 2021.
When the usual leftist mob shrilly insists upon the summary appointment of their favorite candidate instead of the traditional candidate search, it raises suspicions. And when this crowd justifies their stance by arguing that they’re just trying to save money, the ol’ BS detector really goes off. When has a bunch who are gleefully trying to ram through spending bills of $3.5 trillion and $1.9 trillion, and has already spent trillions buying votes, ever worried about the cost of anything?
The basic bureaucratic appointment of the next-in-line successor, by elected supervisors, was…a mob? And they were doing this during the process of scheduled, public meetings…shrilly? In a shrill way, John? And they are leftists?
John, if you don’t have anything to say you could just not say anything. Or just say what you really mean – that you’re still sad about the election results and wish you could do more voter suppression. I think we’re all aware that’s probably how you feel.
Every time I read one of Mr. Donegan’s hot takes, I shake my head so much, I’m afraid my head might fall off.
Look, there was already a natural line of succession in place for clerk-recorder. Deputy Clerk-Recorder Helen Nolan already works in that office, already showed she is up to task by conducting a safe and secure recall election in our county. Democratic and Republican poll watchers were impressed with her even-keeled and detailed explanation of her office’s vote-tallying process. She should be a lock. There are two other candidates who are just as qualified. Sadly, they are only 3 out of 44 applicants with actual experience. So picking out a finalist without that experience isn’t suspicious at all? Don’t talk about what’s suspicious and what isn’t when you don’t factor that scenario whatsoever.
There is nothing “shrill” about urging the Board of Supervisors to pick a candidate who is qualified for the job and has relevant work experience. Even if it was shrill, it’s well-deserved since one of the applicants that the conservative BOS clearly supported, Stew Jenkins, just touted Big Lie “mistrust” about our local elections on CalCoastNews. That essentially shows why limiting the finalists to three candidates with clerk-recorder experience is the only responsible choice. Period.
“spent trillions buying votes”
Evidence, Mr. Donegan. Please provide some evidence of these claims before spreading lies. You originally struck me as simply a disgruntled Republican, but now I think you are simply a liar. Prove me wrong, and show evidence of all those bought votes and where the “trillions” came from to buy them.
Liar!
@AaronOchs: I recommend a Kevlar reinforced turtleneck if you are concerned about losing your head every time someone disagrees with you and you react with convulsions from the neck up. A less attractive alternative might be a whiplash cervical collar, available from any P.I. lawyer.
If automatic succession was such a good idea, it wouldn’t be an elected position and we would have a system of bureaucratic royalty instead. Ms. Nolan may eventually prove to be the best choice, but not because of a campaign by partisans seeking electoral advantage.
@MichaelSmith: It was done in plain view, and you must have been especially obtuse if you missed it. The Democratic stimulus bills managed to grease the palms of anyone who might be bribed into voting for them, including such vital spending as $25M to remodel the Kennedy music center in D.C. Having tinkered with the system to ensure that anyone with a pulse would vote (and some without a pulse), regardless of how indifferent and disengaged they were, or whether they were legally entitled to vote, they gave out so much money that they would for ever be identified as the party of bountiful “free stuff”. They can now count on the support of everyone who would prefer to live off of the government, instead of enduring that pesky “work” thing.
John, shorten your jokes.
When you have a high-profile government job like the clerk-recorder, it’s especially crucial to cast a wide net for applicants and select the ones who objectively are the best qualified for the position. This is a rather common hiring process. Pushing for that is not part of some partisan scheme. It’s really, really simple. It’s excruciatingly simple, nonpartisan process the BOS majority needlessly bungled. If they did exactly what they were supposed to do, what the BOS has traditionally done with vacancies in staff positions, there wouldn’t a controversy.
Here’s how I’d frame the issue to conservatives. For limited government to work, that limited government needs to flow rather effortlessly when it comes to fulfilling its core responsibilities. I’m excluding the debates on public policy. That’s a separate matter. I’m talking about public processes like hiring, approving budgets, maintaining and respecting the authority of subcommittees and commissions. You don’t want your governing body to be so dysfunctional that the state comes in and uses their big government stature to override local gridlock. You don’t want that.
So it’s puzzling to see this push to add finalists that aren’t qualified, with one of those leading unqualified candidates is sowing baseless distrust of our local electoral process.
Pretty amazing that in a local government activity, national party politics intrudes with insults and misrepresentations.
Perhaps the writer could use a cold shower and get back to something more analytic than making arguments based on national politics which have virtually no bearing whatever on the local issues discussed here.