The San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the
expenditure of $113,000 on Tuesday for the Oct. 7 recall election
even though the cost could reach $200,000.
Even as the Board approved County Clerk John Hodges’ request,
Hodges told supervisors he may have to appear before them again to
ask for more funds in order to pay for the election.
The San Benito County Board of Supervisors approved the expenditure of $113,000 on Tuesday for the Oct. 7 recall election even though the cost could reach $200,000.
Even as the Board approved County Clerk John Hodges’ request, Hodges told supervisors he may have to appear before them again to ask for more funds in order to pay for the election.
“The price could be much more,” Hodges said. “Every name that goes on the ballot costs us about $7,000.”
He said the cost could increase to as much as $200,000 depending on the final number of candidates in the election.
Although the Board approved the funds, which will come out of the county’s contingency fees, the approval was not unanimous.
Supervisor Bob Cruz voted a “no” to paying for the recall.
“I voted my conscience,” Cruz said. “We’ve just gone through a budget hearing that was the toughest in the seven years that I’ve been here.”
Cruz said he understood that the state requires the recall election be held, but he did not believe it was in the county’s best financial interest to spend that much money when things are so tight monetarily.
“I’m looking at this as an elected official who is trying to do the best he can for this county,” he said. “The sheriff’s department has been cut back. The mental health department has been cut back. Health and human services have been cut back, and we’ve got a hiring freeze on,” he said. “I believe there are better ways to spend that money here and let those other counties worry about themselves.”
Because the election is being held in such a short time span, voters cannot vote through an absentee ballot. Hodges said it would take too long to mail out all the ballots and have them returned and counted in a timely fashion. Therefore, everyone who wants to vote in the election will have to go to one of the polling places.
Hodges said county elections officials were scrambling to compile a list of places to set up polling booths.
“Instead of using the usual polling places, we may want to consolidate and use a few sites with larger capacity,” Hodges said.
One such venue may include setting up voting booths in the newly renovated Veterans Memorial Building.
Hodges said putting the election together has become even more difficult because of Santa Clara County.
“They have been down here trying to recruit some of our poll workers, and they pay more than we do,” Hodges said.
Hodges said the $100,000 estimate for the election could have gone even higher if the county had added the county Slow-Growth Control Initiative to the special election ballot.
County Counsel Karen Forcum said because the Board of Supervisors has set the date for the vote on the initiative for the March 2, 2004 primaries, the measure will not be moved to the Oct. 7 date.
By keeping the initiative on the March ballot, local voters will have more time to examine the controversial growth measure.
