Two local service districts are set to have county supervisors appoint members to their boards after the districts failed to turn out any candidates for open seats prior to November’s election, echoing instances among other organizations in West Marin that have struggled this year to fill vacancies in their administrative bodies.
If no one steps up to run for open elected board seats before the registration deadline for November elections, then by law the county’s supervisors must appoint individuals to those posts. Supervisors and their aides usually consult local board members on candidates, but the county has sole responsibility to make appointments.
In January, supervisors will appoint two new members to the Tomales Village Community Services District, which over the summer also replaced its longtime administrator, Karl Drexel, with three part-time positions: secretary, bookkeeper and general manager. Tomales residents Peter MacLaird, who owns an auto business, and Dru O’Neill, a dispatcher for Golden Gate Transit, will come on as board members. Vacaville resident Jose Ortiz—a civil engineer who has worked for many years with the district’s maintenance contractor—was approved by the board this month as the new part-time manager.
Next month supervisors will appoint Stinson Beach resident Jeff Walsh, a lawyer, to a seat on the Stinson Beach Fire Protection District. The district’s president, Marcus White, said it’s the first time in his 36 years as a commissioner that the county has had to appoint someone in lieu of a candidate running for election.
“I’m not sure it’s an apathy kind of thing,” said Mr. White, who is Stinson’s postmaster. “But people in small towns, we’ve got a lot of things to do. And we fly under the radar with our governments.”
The rules differ slightly for school districts, whose boards must receive approval from the county Office of Education to make an appointment should no candidate run for election. Earlier this month, Shoreline Unified’s board appointed Valley Ford resident Vonda Jensen to an open seat.
A fourth group, the Point Reyes Station Village Association, has yet to turn out a new president following the announcement last month that Ken Otter would not seek another term. Since the village association does not participate in the county’s general elections, its members earlier this month discussed forming an alternative governing body that would involve eliminating the president position and replacing it with an executive committee composed of the vice president, secretary, treasurer and chair of the group’s design review committee.
“The life pulse of the village association is not just vested in one person,” said Mark Switzer at the Dec. 10 meeting. “But I’m not sure how that would work otherwise.”