San Luis Obispo City Councilmember Jan Marx’s efforts to censure Mayor Erica Stewart failed to garner support from her peers.
Following a final advisory opinion from the SLO Personnel Board that recommended against censuring the mayor for sharing a confidential SLO County grand jury report with a Cal Poly official, Marx tried to agendize a City Council discussion about a possible censure during the Aug. 18 City Council meeting.
Fellow City Councilmembers Michelle Shoresman, Emily Francis, and Mike Boswell didn’t support the idea. Stewart recused herself from the discussion.
“I do want to be clear, though, I do believe that Mayor Stewart violated the code of ethics. This should be publicly acknowledged. I know it was disappointing to many in the community, it’s disappointing to me,” Boswell said at the meeting. “I do believe that censure is not merited. … It was in good faith and not an intentional violation of the code.”
Marx’s request to agendize the censure came after a 3-2 Personnel Board vote on Aug. 14 denied her initial censure request for good, with board members Patricia Ponce and Chintan Desai dissenting.
She filed a censure complaint with the Personnel Board in July, claiming it was to facilitate an open City Council discussion about the mayor’s conduct.
The Personnel Board’s meeting in July ended in a 2-1 vote where board members Calvin Stevens and Jill LeMieux said censure recommendation isn’t warranted because Stewart’s improper sharing of confidential materials qualified as an occasional error in judgement, per council censure policy. Board member Ponce dissented, and board members Desai and Sharon Seitz were absent at the time.
Seitz and Desai returned to the August meeting to finalize the advisory opinion. While Seitz agreed that the mayor didn’t intend to violate the code, Desai supported amending the draft advisory opinion in favor of a censure recommendation.
He stressed that the Personnel Board’s role is limited to deciding whether there is enough evidence of a violation of law or a city policy to warrant a City Council hearing.
“We do not censure anyone. … City policy also treats unauthorized disclosure or confidential information as conduct that may support censure,” he said. “I accept that the mayor has described this as a good-faith mistake, and she’s apologized. Good faith goes to what the council may ultimately describe, … and it should not short-circuit a noticed hearing.”
Marx, who was absent from the July Personnel Board meeting, urged board members at the August meeting to recommend the censure. SLO residents Sharon Roberts and Sharon Whitney also spoke in favor of the censure during the meeting.
Former SLO Police Chief Jim Gardiner commented in support of the mayor, drawing from his time working with her in the 1990s when she was the Cal Poly Associated Students Inc. (ASI) president.
“This board considered all facts involved in this matter, in my opinion, correctly, made the decision that Mayor Stewart’s explanation and a heartfelt apology should put an end to this distracting issue,” Gardiner said. “At this truly difficult time in our national history, we are blessed to have a few strong leaders like Mayor Erica Stewart trying to make things better at every level.”
After the second Personnel Board vote, Marx’s next recourse for censure was to prompt a City Council discussion.
Had other council members agreed to deliberate the issue in the future, the council could have voted to pass censure since the Personnel Board can only submit an advisory opinion.
‘I always come back to Hanlon’s razor. It’s a good reminder that where we think there might be malice, it’s more often a mistake.’
—Emily Francis, SLO City Councilmember
At the Aug. 18 meeting, Councilmember Shoresman said she was ready to move on.
Councilmember Francis added that while she believes in letting the public process play out, two formal discussions about the mayor’s behavior already took place in the form of the Personnel Board meetings. She agreed with its opinion.
“I always come back to Hanlon’s razor,” Francis said. “It’s a good reminder that where we think there might be malice, it’s more often a mistake.”
The City Council plans to refine its confidentiality policy in September, based on Stewart’s proposal to update that chapter of City Council procedures. ∆
This article appears in Aug 20-27, 2026.
Councilmember Marx was the only Councilmember with any backbone. If she didn’t refer to our loser Mayor to the Personell Board and the DA didn’t press any charges against Mayor Stuart, what would that say about the law? Would it normalize illegality? The rest of the city council should be ashamed of themselves for not doing as Councilmember Marx did by referring Mayor Stuart to the Personnel Board. Shame on all of them except Councilmember Marx.
Has anyone even bothered to read Councilmember Marx’s scholarly report she used to file her referral of loser Mayor Stuart to the Personnel Board? It’s almost 175 pages long with tons of exhibits. You would have to be a moron to believe that Mayor Stuart, who apparently holds a graduate degree in Public Policy, leaked the grand jury report as a “good faith error.”