LAFCO staff to present March draft on replacing midterm vacancies; public urges special elections

LAFCO staff on Jan. 25 outlined a study on procedures for filling mid-cycle vacancies in elected office and said a draft would be available for the commission's March meeting.

Jason Fried (LAFCO staff) said researchers are comparing practices in chartered city-counties and at large U.S. cities, including examples such as Arlington and Denver, and are cataloging California charters and government-code provisions. "My hope is that we will have a draft or at least the draft information available for our March meeting," Fried said.

The study will collect rules and timelines (appointment, special election or hybrid approaches), track how long seats remain vacant in other places, and present a spreadsheet and narrative explanation of options. Fried said the report will flag jurisdictions that require an appointment versus those that hold special elections, and will surface timing thresholds that trigger different replacement procedures.

Public commenters urged more frequent use of special elections and greater transparency. Eric Brooks (San Francisco Green Party / Our City) told commissioners he supported calling near-term special elections rather than allowing long interim appointments and asked the commission to consider public-facing candidate processes.

Fried said the research will include community-college and school-board elections where relevant and recommended that the commission advise how far down the list of elected offices the comparison should go. The commission scheduled further discussion of the draft at its March meeting.