---

---

Three Del Norte County supervisors on Tuesday agreed to place the vacant District 5 seat on the June 6 ballot, giving candidates until March 16 to file their election papers.

Depending on the number of people who run for the seat— formerly held by Bob Berkowitz, who died on March 2 — a candidate receiving 50 percent plus 1 of the vote on June 6 could be sworn into office about two to three weeks later, according to County Counsel Joel Campbell-Blair.

However, the California governor can appoint a replacement “right now” to serve until the June primary or, in the event the District 5 race goes to a run-off election, until the Nov. 8 general election, Campbell-Blair told supervisors.

“It’s not ideal as the filing period is pretty short, but this is the earliest available time for the people of District 5 to choose their own supervisor,” Campbell-Blair said, “and it would shorten the time an appointed supervisor from the state would serve.”

District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey was absent.

Candidates vying for the District 5 seat will run for election using district boundaries from 2011 even though candidates for the other two supervisor seats on the June ballot will run using the redistricted map the Board approved in December.

This means, voters who had lived in District 5 and found themselves in District 4 when supervisors adopted the new maps in December will be able to vote for both seats, Campbell-Blair said. Those voters could also choose to run for either the District 4 or the District 5 seats, he said.

Campbell-Blair said he based that decision on a December 2021 opinion from the California Attorney General’s office following the 2020 death of San Luis Obispo county supervisor, Adam Hill. In that situation, the appointed supervisor, Dawn Ortiz-Legg, ran to keep her seat in a special election held at the same time as two normal races.

In Del Norte County, Districts 3 and 4 are up for election this year. The District 5 seat — along with Districts 1 and 2 — would normally have been up for election in 2024.

Most members of the public urged the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday not to wait to ask District 5 voters to decide who should represent them.

“You’ve got at least a week, and I would say that’s plenty of time for somebody to step forward, get the paperwork done and to be able to run for this office,” said Karen Sanders, chair of the Del Norte Republican Party. “It gives people of District 5 to have the opportunity to have a vote as opposed to it being at the governor’s level.”

One former resident of District 5, Kevin Hendrick, chair of the Del Norte Democratic Central Committee who ran against Berkowitz for supervisor in 2020, questioned the rush to place the matter before voters.

Eight days isn’t enough time to attract good candidates, Hendrick said, noting that candidates for the other supervisor races had at least 32 days to collect signatures and file their paperwork.
Hendrick also added that Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors agenda mentions setting the District 5 election on Nov. 8, not the June 6 primary.

“You have to read the fine print of the resolution to understand and know an election could be settled in June,” he told supervisors. “If somebody’s elected in June, they could be sworn in in July. It’s not at all clear on the agenda.”

District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, however, said the possibility of having to hold a special election for District 5 has “been on our radar for more than months — close to a year.” Howard said people have called to ask him about the job and said he didn’t think collecting 20 signatures in eight days is a tough lift.

“I know what it takes to go through putting my name on a ballot right now and the amount of time it takes to get signatures, which is a one-day effort,” said Howard, who is seeking re-election this year. “If we’re serious about wanting to serve the community, people should have a choice.”

Howard’s colleague, Board Chairman Gerry Hemmingsen, noted that though it wasn’t Berkowitz’s fault, there’s been a lack of representation for District 5 “long enough.”

“The fairest way — certainly in our democratic rules — is to put it out for a vote not to have one person decide who is going to represent you,” he said. “If there is a way to get this done and on a ballot so people can decide, that’s what I’m in favor of."

---

SHARE →