Proponents of an effort to recall San Benito County District 5 Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez—who has served on the board for less than one year—submitted a petition with more than 2,200 signatures to election officials last week.
In a Sept. 23 letter to the committee’s treasurer, Chief Deputy County Clerk Ana De Castro Maquiz noted that the elections office had received the group’s petition. The office’s raw count showed 317 petition pages containing 2,256 signatures.
Election officials have until Nov. 3 to verify if the petition contains enough valid signatures to move forward with a recall election. In order to move forward, the proponents must have collected a minimum of 1,833 signatures, or 25% of registered voters within Velazquez’s district, which includes northwest Hollister and northern unincorporated areas of the county.
If the petition contains the minimum number of verified signatures, it will be deemed “sufficient” and sent to the board of supervisors for their consideration, De Castro Maquiz’s letter says. If the board does not issue an order within 14 days of receiving the petition, the elections department must set an election within five days, says the letter.
De Castro Maquiz said that would be within the timeframe to consolidate a recall on the June 2026 primary election ballot.
The committee wants to recall Velazquez “in response to growing concerns” with his voting patterns on the board since he took office in January, says a “background” document compiled by committee members. The committee classified a pattern of majority board votes by Velazquez, District 2 Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki and District 1 Supervisor Dom Zanger as “unilateral decision-making.”
The county board consists of five elected members, and most decisions by state law require a majority of three in order to reach adoption.
“Time and again, these supervisors have used their majority to push through policies and contracts that impact every resident of San Benito County, while ignoring community input and the voices of their fellow supervisors,” the committee—which bills itself “Public Safety First”—said in a statement.
The committee cited recent negotiations on a county fire service contract with the cities of Hollister and San Juan Bautista as a “tipping point” leading a group of about 30 voters to form “Public Safety First” and begin the recall effort.
The same committee had planned earlier this year to also recall Kosmicki. Committee Treasurer Heidi Connor said they abandoned that effort in late summer due to time constraints related to collecting another minimum of 1,736 signatures from District 2.
The proponents hired Santa Cruz-based firm Plain Dan Solutions to send paid signature gatherers to San Benito County District 5, Connor said. The committee paid the company about $25,000 to collect signatures.
Connor said the committee has collected mostly small contributions to cover that cost, with some revenues from “a few larger donors” that she declined to name before they are required to file political financial disclosures. If the petition results in an election, the next disclosure filing deadline will likely be Jan. 31, 2026.
“We got to about mid-August and realized we had quite a few names for Kollin, but realized we had to focus our efforts,” Connor said. “We went out to look for a petition gatherer group because the level of names we had to get was 25% in each district—such a high mark.”
She added, “We decided to focus on just one of the supervisors.”
The deadline to submit their petition for both districts was Sept. 29.
Velazquez said the recall proponents have based their petition campaign on lies, and are motivated by entities that support faster growth in San Benito County.
The recall proponents have accused Velazquez of intimidating their petition circulators.
“They can’t do it without lying. They flat out lie to the public, over and over,” Velazquez said.
Velazquez, a former mayor of Hollister, was elected to the board of supervisors in 2024 and was seated in office in January 2025.
The county’s cost to add a local recall election on the June ballot could range between $20,000 and $85,000, De Castro Mauiz said.
Public Safety First committee are not liars. I serve on that committee and I do not work with liars. That’s why while on council with Ignacio I did not work with him on ad hocs because he is a back stabber and a liar. He has lied about many good residents in this county. I count his overdue mayorship and I do not support anyone that screws over the city of hollister.