Grover Beach voters will decide whether city clerk should be elected. What happens next?

Grover Beach voters may have the option to select the person who oversees elections in the next general election.

At its Tuesday meeting, the Grover Beach City Council voted 5-0 to approve a future ballot measure spearheaded by citizens group GroverH2O that will present voters with the question of whether or not the position of city clerk should be elected or appointed by the city manager. It wouldn't appear on the ballot until November 2026.

GroverH2O started pursuing making a change to how its city clerk is selected in April during its efforts to get a recall of City Council members Dan Rushing, Zach Zimmerman and Mayor Karen Bright on the ballot because they voted to raise water and sewer rates to pay for the now-defunct Central Coast Blue water sustainability project.

Debbie Peterson, a current mayoral candidate and leader of GroverH2O, said making the position elected would help eliminate biases that support the city government's interests.

"It's all about who we ask to run, who we support to run and who we elect to run, and that's our responsibility as citizens," Peterson told The Tribune. "Sure, if enough citizens want to want to make it partisan, they can do that, but the clerk is still required under law to behave in a nonpartisan matter, or to be independent."

City clerk battle is result of long-brewing tensions in Grover Beach

Talks of changing how the city clerk is selected started to heat up after clerk Wendi Sims denied GroverH2O's recall petitions multiple times, citing inaccuracies in two lines:

The denials kicked off a legal battle to have the petitions validated by the clerk regardless of content.

In an email to The Tribune in May, assistant city manager Kristin Eriksson said Sims took what the city believed were "legally defensible actions to protect the integrity of the elections process and prevent residents from being tricked into signing a petition based on false and misleading statements."

In the end, San Luis Obispo County Superior Court Judge Craig Van Rooyen ruled the city violated election law by denying the petitions on the basis of their content, which Peterson said violated the group's First Amendment rights.

Since then, GroverH2O has succeeded in getting the recall against Rushing on the ballot, with recalls of Bright and Zimmerman ineligible because their seats are already up for election in November. It also got its way on water rates when the City Council reverted them to their 2021 rate structure, leaving the issue of reverting sewer rate increases to voters in Measure G-24.

Still, Peterson said the initial denials of the petitions, along with what GroverH2O has perceived as intentional delays in counting signatures by the city clerk to give the citizens group less time to gather more, has weakened the public's trust in the way elections are overseen.

"I think especially when the city just consistently for four months blocked our recall petitions, people just got more and more concerned about it," Peterson told The Tribune. "That concern was supported by Judge Van Rooyen, and so (GroverH2O) thought that the city clerk might be in a better position to support the electoral processes as the elections official if the city clerk was elected by the voters and not employed as a city employee."

To get the question of electing a city clerk on the ballot, GroverH2O had to collect signatures from 10% of the registered voters, or a total of 779 valid signatures.

Because the position that would be affected by the measure is also in charge of counting signatures, the counting of signatures was outsourced to the city of San Luis Obispo's deputy clerk at a cost of around $1,000 in staff time, according to the staff report.

Signatures were validated the week of Oct. 7, with 783 recorded — just four more than the required total — meeting the clerk's requirements, according to the staff report.

City attorney Robert Lomeli said the trend in recent years in California has generally been to make city clerk an appointed position, with more than 70% of all clerks being appointed.

Lomeli said this is because appointed clerks are usually hired based on their experience, expertise and certifications. An individual elected to the position may require training, and could incur additional staffing costs if they are unable to carry out the duties of a clerk.

Former Five Cities Fire Authority Chief Steve Lieberman — who recently formed a citizens group of his own to oppose GroverH2O known as Grover Forward — also raised concerns that the measure would add unnecessary costs to the elections process.

He cited Atascadero's ballot measure that will give voters the choice to make its currently elected position of treasurer an appointed role as a sign that the measure would send the city in the wrong direction.

"I do believe an elected city clerk is a huge step backwards for us, but the process is being set in motion and we'll see what the community decides," Lieberman said during public comment.

What happens next?

If the measure is approved by voters when it appears on the Nov. 3, 2026, ballot, a special election for the city clerk position must be called within 90 days of the election, or February 2027, Lomeli said.

The special election must be held on the next available established election date — March 7, 2027 — and would likely cost around $300,000, Lomeli said.