The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to rotate its president position by district, rather than seniority, but still agreed to instate Vice President Warren Slocum and Supervisor David Canepa as the next president and vice president, respectively, to honor previous expectations.
As the informal policy currently stands, the acting vice president assumes the president role at the start of the new year, and the board member who has served the longest amount of time is selected as the new vice president.
But the process was recently reexamined, as the addition of two new supervisors in the same election cycle — Ray Mueller and Noelia Corzo — surfaced questions and concerns about the entire rotational policy.
During the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday, Dec. 12, Mueller offered a new proposal, which would maintain Slocum and Canepa as the incoming leaders in 2024, but would then follow a district rotation model, with District 2 assuming the vice president position when Canepa, who represents District 4, is president. District 3 would follow and then District 1, as the latter currently occupies the president position.
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“The board would recognize a district rotation policy, so that no district would ever go longer than five years without serving in the presidency. Recognizing that we are district-elected and each district has its own specific needs, we would always thereafter rotate based on district,” Mueller said. “I think it meets the expectations of where the current board is but also moves it away from a policy based on seniority, which I think was something that Supervisor Corzo and I were bringing forth to the board.”
The rotational policy caused a rift among board members last month when Corzo and Mueller both argued the seniority approach does not allow for new representation in leadership, with Mueller suggesting what he perceived as a more equitable rotation model used in Menlo Park, where he had previously served on the council. Canepa and Slocum countered by stating the pursuit of a new process was being politicized, and the November meeting culminated with board President David Pine and Mueller creating a subcommittee to further assess the matter, which resulted in the draft compromise.
Canepa and Corzo vocalized their support for the new approach, which was unanimously accepted.
“I support the proposed policy and want to thank you both for working on it and finding something that worked better for our county,” Corzo said to Pine and Mueller.
The board directed staff to draft a written memorandum for record-keeping and precedential purposes, although it will be nonbinding for future boards.
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