Hermosa Beach will hold a special election by mail-in ballot to fill the seat vacated by Nanette Barragan.
At its meeting last Thursday, the city council voted 4-0 to instruct City Clerk Elaine Doerfling to call a special election to fill the seat until the term expires in November 2017. Ballots in the all-mail election, which the California Elections Code permits for filling vacancies in smaller cities, will be due by March 10 of next year.
Doerfling presented the council with three options for filling Barragan’s seat. In addition to the all-mail option, the city could have held an election with staffed polling places, or appointed a successor.
The cost for the traditional election was estimated at $52,000, Doerfling said. The all-mail election will likely be less expensive, Doerfling said, but she was not sure what the cost would be. Doerfling’s report to the city council said that it was unclear whether the cost savings of an all-mail election — not using poll workers and polling places — would be outweighed by the additional costs associated with the all-mail option, including pre-paid postage and signature verification. Â
Despite the cost, community input at the meeting tilted heavily against appointing a replacement.
“This appointment idea is a very bad idea. It shouldn’t be just your decision,” said resident Sheryl Main, addressing the council. “I’m totally against spending $50,000, but I know how much you guys spend on consultants, so maybe we could go without one of those consultants, and pay for it that way.”
Council member Michael Divirgilio disagreed, saying that the council was capable of making a worthy appointment, but said that an election was nonetheless the proper course.
“I think this is a conversation about trust,” Divirgilio said. “In light of the fact that there’s not a lot of trust in this community, an election might be a way to restore that.”
The all-mail election will fill the seat more quickly than a polling-place election. The earliest that a traditional election could held would be April 12, due to specific timing requirements California law imposes on filling city council vacancies.
The Government Code obligates the city council to either call an election or appoint a successor within 60 days of the seat being open. Additionally, cities must wait at least 114 days after the resignation of a council member to hold a special election to fill the seat.
Barragan resigned Sept. 3, making it impossible to include a measure to fill her seat on the city’s regularly scheduled, Nov. 3 election, when five candidates will compete for two open council seats.
Resident Alex Smith proposed satisfying residents’ desire for a democratic selection process by appointing whoever comes in third in the Nov. 3.
Doerfling responded that were the council to appoint someone to fill the vacancy, they would have to name the replacement. And the date of the November election falls one day after the 60-day deadline for appointing a replacement or scheduling a special election.
Barragan, who is running for Congress in California’s 44th congressional district, initially planned to resign July 31, but delayed the move to ensure passage of the city’s plastic bag ban. The ban passed unanimously at the council’s Aug. 25 meeting.
Barragan could not be reached for comment on the timing of her resignation. ER
