San Simeon voters will not be electing the members of the area’s community services district, as not enough people filed papers to run for the open seats and the board reappointed director Daniel de la Rosa to his position.
De la Rosa was appointed by the board of directors in June to fill a vacant seat.
He said he didn’t file paperwork with the SLO County Clerk’s Office for his candidacy because the due date for the candidate application was a week after his June appointment and he wasn’t notified.
“Those documents were sent from the county to everybody else on the board, but I didn’t receive those documents,” De la Rosa said.
Nevertheless, the board appointed him to what would have been an empty seat with no other interested candidates. No other residents filed applications to run except incumbent directors William Carson, Bill Maurer, John Russel, and Gwen Kellas.
De la Rosa told New Times that he plans to continue representing the community and fulfilling his vision of keeping San Simeon environmentally healthy, safe, and prosperous for all residents and visitors. Δ
This article appears in Oct 22 – Nov 1, 2020.
There are many problems with this article.
Mr. De la Rosa was appointed to the San Simeon CSD Board on June 10, 2020. The deadline for all incumbents to sign up for a seat was August 7th. Seems like plenty of time to me. Lost paperwork? Seems unlikely.
The “documents” was a one page notice identifying which seats were up and hung in the district office window beginning the week of July 20th and only recently was taken down. To get candidate paperwork, one has to contact the county Clerk’s office and make it known that you’re interested in a seat, then the Clerk will send “those documents” to you.
Additionally, the SSCSD Board does not have the authority to appoint De la Rosa, they did make a recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to appoint De la Rosa, without inviting any other community members for their recommendation. Only the Board of Supervisors has the authority to appoint someone for this particular seat and will do son on November 3rd during their board meeting. They could chose to accept the recommendation from the SSCSD Board or not.
There were four seats open; De la Rosa’s, Kellas’ and Carson’s (4 year terms) and Maurer’s (2 yr. term).
Mr. Russell (who was not up for election) resigned on October 14th due to conflicts of interest. The SSCSD board will have the authority to replace him. They will consider the process on how to appoint a new member at their November regular meeting, the appointment will likely be in December.
I encourage anyone who wants to have a four-year seat in San Simeon to make themselves known to the County Board of Supervisors BEFORE November 3rd. If you only want to finish Russell’s term let SSCSD Board know.