Templeton Community Services District (CSD) was a candidate short this election year, so it appointed a new board member and filled the district board’s open seat.
According to CSD General Manager Jeff Briltz, the board had seven residents show interest in being appointed, all of whom were required to apply by the end of September.
In early October the board selected resident Chelsea Tirone for the job, who the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors later approved. Tirone starts on Dec. 6 and is filling the seat vacated by Geoff English, who decided not to run again.
Incumbents Debra Logan and Navid Fardanesh both filed for reelection and will be automatically elected for another four-year term.
After being one candidate short to hold an actual election, then receiving seven applications for appointment, Briltz said he still holds the same assumption he did earlier in the year: Campaigns are intimidating.
“I mean, I think it could be a little bit intimidating. Obviously, if we had one more person who submitted papers during the nomination period this summer, there wouldn’t have even been a campaign,” he said. “But I think for some people, dipping your toe in the water through an appointment process isn’t as intimidating as maybe potentially facing an election or a campaign or something.”
It’s a situation the Templeton CSD board has faced before. It nixed the 2022 election due to another open seat and no one filing papers to run for office.
In hindsight, Briltz said, maybe the district promotes appointments more than elections and inadvertently discourages candidates from running.
“Maybe we’re more aggressive about letting people know there weren’t enough people. So now we need interested parties to raise their hand, and here’s the little process we’re going to go through,” he said. “It’s really simple, right? We just have a little application. … Describe your experience and what makes you interested in that kind of thing, and then come to a meeting and the board makes a recommendation.”
Briltz said it’s possible that residents may not realize there even are elections for the board—after all, it hasn’t appeared on the ballot for four years.
“If you’re newer, maybe the community just didn’t realize how those folks are chosen or maybe thought about it,” Briltz said, adding that CSDs may be a less understood form of government as compared to cities.
To help correct this and potentially inspire residents to run, Briltz said the district has been encouraging residents to join oversight committees since 2023 (applications are now open on the district’s website).
“They don’t meet really very often, like three or four times a year—but the thought was, OK, that’s a way for people to kind of get their toes in the water, learn a little bit about the district, and then maybe down the road, they’ll be more inclined to run,” he said.
Newly appointed board member Tirone said she believes her experience working within mayoral offices and city government will allow her to serve Templeton and maintain and improve the services it values.
When it comes to campaigning and elections, she said it “feels very political.”
“The roles that I played within government were sort of apolitical, and so I see myself more, when I look at my career, as a public servant, more than like a political figure,” she told New Times.
Yet when she heard there was an opening for appointment, she saw it as an opportunity to change the narrative surrounding local elections.
“It caused me to double think my perspective, but I think in general, that also goes to my hope that the board can become a little bit better connected to the residents,” Tirone said. “So that in the future, there is more involvement and participation. And not only does an election seem more appealing and less intimidating, but it also becomes, again, more customary.” Δ
This article appears in Dec 5-15, 2024.