A San Benito County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the recall election for Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez may proceed as scheduled on the June 2 primary ballot.
Velazquez filed a lawsuit last week seeking to remove the question from the ballot, arguing that its proponents had filed incomplete paperwork to begin the recall process in June 2025. But the District 5 supervisor waited too long to try to keep the item off the upcoming ballot, according to Judge Omar Rodriguez, who heard attorneys’ arguments and voiced a ruling on the lawsuit at the Hollister courthouse on April 10.
Rodriguez noted that under state elections laws, Velazquez had 10 days to challenge a “notice of intention to circulate petition” that was filed by the proponents more than nine months ago. Velazquez’s lawsuit, filed April 3, had argued the notice contained insufficient information and was incorrectly validated by the Registrar of Voters office.
But the complaint missed the 10-day deadline to challenge the notice.
“Supervisor Velazquez sat on his rights,” Rodriguez said in court, ordering in favor of Registrar Francisco Diaz, the lawsuit respondent.
Velazquez and his attorney, Nick Sanders, had argued that the allegedly insufficient notice of intention was still relevant because Diaz’s office had rejected similar paperwork just last month—this time targeting Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki. Elections officials rejected that notice as insufficient, after Kosmicki challenged it, because it did not include enough verifiable signatures from voters in his district.
After hearing these and other arguments from both attorneys, Rodriguez said the “more specific (10-day deadline) takes precedence over the general.”
The state elections code details the steps a proponent must take in order to recall an elected official. The first of these steps is a notice of intention to circulate a petition, which must contain a minimum of 60 signatures from the targeted official’s district.
Under state law, the petition must contain each of the signers’ names, addresses, cities and zip codes.
Diaz’s attorney, Joseph Ellinwood, had argued that the June 2025 notice was “substantially compliant,” containing enough information that Velazquez and Diaz’s office were capable of identifying and contacting the District 5 voters who signed it. Ellinwood noted that District 5 is a “compact and small district.”
“These are Mr. Velazquez’s neighbors,” Ellinwood said.
He added, “He would be obligated to bring this action within the 10-day period.”
Explaining his ruling, Judge Rodriguez added that when writing the current recall election laws, the state legislature was seeking to protect the voters who seek to initiate a recall—and not the officials who may be targeted by them.
The law is at least partially based on a history of registrars in California rejecting notices of intention under differing interpretations of a previously vague law, Rodriguez said.
More than a dozen of the proponents of the Velazquez recall—including former Hollister city council members Rick Perez and Carol Lenoir, and former mayor Mia Casey—attended the April 10 hearing. Also present was Stacie McGrady, one of the lead proponents for the Velazquez recall and the petition targeting Kosmicki that was rejected in March.
After the hearing, McGrady said she has not determined if she will still seek to circulate a petition to recall Kosmicki. Under the state law, McGrady could seek to submit a new petition containing all the required information, or file a lawsuit challenging the registrar’s rejection.
“It appears the registrar has discretion. We’ll take direction from him,” McGrady said.
Back in summer 2025, after the registrar’s office approved the notice of intention to recall Velazquez, the proponents circulated a petition to place the question on the ballot. They gathered 1,842 signatures from District 5 voters that were later verified by elections officials—more than enough to qualify the recall for the ballot.
The registrar in late 2025 scheduled the Velazquez recall for the June 2 gubernatorial primary ballot.
Ballots for the election are scheduled to be printed statewide starting April 13, and elections offices will begin mailing ballots to registered voters by May 4, according to the California Secretary of State’s office.
Recall proponents have said they want to remove Velazquez from office due to his and the county’s approach to negotiations for a new fire contract with the City of Hollister—a contract that was approved by the board of supervisors in a 4-1 vote in September 2025.
The June 2 ballot will also include primary elections for District 3 and District 4 supervisors; county superintendent of schools; assessor; auditor-controller; county clerk-recorder; and county treasurer.
