On February 14, supervisors briefly floated the possibility of hearing from Katrina Bartolomie, Registrar of Voters, during the standing item for updates from department heads at the next regular meeting. Bartolomie did not report during that item on February 27th, although more voting irregularities have come to light since all 53,000 voters in Mendocino County received misprinted GOP ballots for one precinct in the first supervisor district. An unknown number of voters have not been reapportioned according to their post-2021 redistricting boundaries.
This reporter requested an agenda item to have a public discussion about what happened with the misprint. At Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisor Ted Williams tried to get more information about the closed session, asking, “Is there any possibility of getting more clarification on the scope? I understand everybody got a Republican ballot, but then the redistricting wasn’t respected. Is that part of the item? Are other failures part of the item, and is this limited to addressing the immediate problem and not subsequent elections? Because I would like to be part of the discussion about addressing it for future elections.”
Interim County Counsel James Ross, formerly of Shasta County, responded by reading the publicly available agenda item, statin that, “The item is agendized under the Brown Act for exposure to litigation specifically arising from mailing of incorrect ballots for the March 5th 2024 presidential primary election.”
Supervisor John Haschak raised a question for County Counsel, “because there are two members of the board who are on the ballot. Should there be recusal of those people from decision-making on any item whenever we discuss this issue? Whether it's because of their inherent conflict or perception from the public or other candidates; that there might be a decision” that they would be influencing.
Williams is running for Second Assembly District for the State of California, and Supervisor Maureen Mulheren, who is running for re-election as Second District County Supervisor and is the chair of the board. Williams reported that, “At 7:50 this morning, I received a note from Counsel suggesting that perhaps I should recuse myself on this item.” He added that the note suggested he seek advice from his own counsel, but, “In that period of time, there's no way for me to have counsel review. I'm sitting in a car getting ready for this meeting. Inadequate time. Reading the agenda item, I don't really know what will be discussed. It's overly broad. It's vague. I don't want to put the county in an awkward position where I didn't recuse and I should have. I couldn't ascertain from what's there. I don't think it's a conflict that everyone wants a fair election. And I don't think there's a financial consequence here for me because actually, the position that I'm about to not get elected to but in theory I could, is actually an overall compensation decrease from where I'm at today.” He concluded that he had decided to “recuse myself out of an abundance of caution;” but he finds the language and the way the suggestion came to him “inappropriate…I hope the board stays within a very narrow scope. There are other elections issues that I would like to discuss.”
Mulheren added that, “I received the same notice as Supervisor Williams. Since we first heard of the ballot situation, I've thought a lot about this. I think that as a person, and as a believer in every voter's right, I don't think that I have a conflict, but just out of an abundance of caution, I will also recuse myself,” from the discussion about the legal exposure that may have resulted from the ballot misprint.
Ross provided the legal theory for the request, saying, “Typically, the County Counsel's office is not in a position to give individual board members advice on their own potential conflicts of interest. It's not completely clear that there would be a conflict of interest in this particular situation, although there is a suggestion under the Political Reform Act that there may be. I think it's up to each individual supervisor in that position to determine whether or not they think they should recuse on this, whether it be out of an abundance of caution or an appearance. But at this point, the law is not completely clear that there is an absolute conflict.”
Though Bartolomie did not choose to provide an update one week before the election during the standing item for department head reports, the board did hear from Acting Auditor Controller Treasurer Tax Controller Sarah Pierce about an upcoming auction for 299 parcels owned by people who have defaulted on their property taxes. Acting Deputy CEO Tim Hallman reported that a contractor installed a support wall in the ag building. And CEO Darcie Antle provided a weather forecast, which includes snow, road impacts, and high winds over the weekend. “We will be pulling our partners together in the next couple of days to make sure everybody is prepared for the upcoming storm,” she declared.
