District era takes hold

First, assuming my recollection is correct, always risky, this is the first time the board has an elected female majority, Gauthier and Speier joining Noelia Corzo on the board.

Second, this is the first all-district-elected board. Tuesday signaled the formal end to the terms of Dave Pine and Warren Slocum, the last two supervisors elected countywide.

The county adopted district elections in 2012, and it is instructive that it took 12 years for the system to reach full effect.

Now, nearly every city in the county has district elections. This change has prompted complaints among some prominent county figures that district elections have been a disaster, with too many uncontested seats and too many unprepared officeholders.

But, on the board, it has been a resounding success by any measure. In addition to the first elected female majority, there are two women of color — Gauthier and Corzo — on a body that just two years ago could have been an all-white-male lineup. However, the first female majority was from 2010-12, with Adrienne Tissier, Rose Jacobs Gibson and Carole Groom, who was appointed to fill Jerry Hill’s seat.

Still, there is no question that district elections have hastened the day when the board more fully reflects the diversity of the county.

THE LOOMING ISSUE: There was a notable unanimity among the board members of the leading challenges facing the county — housing, the cost of living, child care, to name a few.

But there is one issue that will dominate the attention of the board and the county’s political establishment for the next 85 days, and, in fact, well beyond — the March 4 election to amend the county charter to give the supervisors the authority to fire Sheriff Christina Corpus.

Private polling confirms what most of us must be sensing — she is in deep political trouble.

Corpus and her sidekick, the good doctor Victor Aenlle, have done all they can to cloud the issue in one-sided and unquestioning television interviews and strident news releases of dubious credibility.

It has not worked. The polling — exact numbers are being closely held — shows that the public holds an overwhelmingly and nearly unprecedented negative view of her, the kind from which public figures do not recover. And the same polling shows the public is uncommonly well-informed of the scandal that has roiled the Sheriff’s Office.

Her most recent actions do little to reverse the trend.

The absurd $10 million claim filed recently on her behalf reads like it was dictated by someone weaving in and out of traffic at 100 mph. The claim refers to her throughout as “Christy,” for god’s sake.

A story in this week’s Palo Alto Daily Post reports that Corpus authorized the purchase of a $74,000 conference table. This, despite specific internal warnings that it would end up in an embarrassing front page story, I am told. In keeping with prior office scandals, perhaps she bought the table for the Bat Cave.

When the time comes for Corpus to campaign in earnest, she will start with a cupboard that is bare and has a hole in it. By mid-2024, she had raised no reelection money. In fairness, she did not know she would need to raise campaign money at that time. But she still is owed $10,800 she loaned her 2022 campaign. The reality is that she will be unable to rely on the coalition, including more than a dozen sheriff’s sworn personnel and prominent elected officials, that helped her win two years ago.

STOP IT: The county issued a slow-motion response to the legal claim Wednesday. Amid the rhetoric maligning the filing was the tidbit that it cost “approximately” $200,000 to hire retired Judge LaDoris Cordell to investigate the dozens of complaints emanating from the Sheriff’s Office. Why they have an inexact number is anyone’s guess.

The news release is unattributed to any human being, described in feeble anonymity as “a statement from San Mateo County.” Gee. The whole county? Just some parts? Maybe someone put an ear to the new county building and divined the statement from the vibrations generated by the air conditioning.

Regardless of the sheriff’s popularity, the credibility of county leaders is on the line in this controversy. Someone — a supervisor, County Executive Mike Callagy, County Attorney John Nibbelin — ought to step up and speak directly to the public.

It smacks of county leadership trying to avoid trouble. Too late. It is already here.

Mark Simon is a veteran journalist, whose career included 15 years as an executive at SamTrans and Caltrain. He can be reached at marksimon@smdailyjournal.com.