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A group seeking to oust San Benito County Supervisors Kollin Kosmicki and Ignacio Velazquez began collecting signatures on the weekend of July 12, a week after the county Registrar of Voters approved the group’s recall petition.
The group has about 10 weeks to gather signatures to trigger a recall election.
Safer San Benito must collect signatures for each supervisor by Sept. 29. For Kosmicki, it must collect at least 1,736 from voters in District 2, which includes San Juan Bautista, Aromas and parts of Hollister near Union Road and Hwy 25. For Velazquez, the total is 1,833 from voters in District 5, which covers north county between Highways 25 and 156, as well as downtown Hollister and the Hollister Municipal Airport.
If supporters gather enough valid signatures, the cost of the recall elections would range from $25,000 up to $150,000, depending on when they are scheduled, Registrar of Voters Francisco Diaz told BenitoLink. Should the vote coincide with the June 2026 elections, the cost would be $25,000 for a single supervisor and $40,000 for both. But this is unlikely because, according to Diaz, if the elections were to happen, they would likely take place between January and March next year.
In the case of a special election, the costs would be higher: $70,000 to $75,000 for one supervisor, and between $125,000 and $150,000 for both.
The recall campaign
Stacie McGrady, co-chair of Safer San Benito, the organization leading the recall effort, told BenitoLink the group could have started collecting signatures on July 2 but chose to wait until after the July 4 holiday.
“Timing is everything,” McGrady said. “We didn’t want to try and compete with the rally and everything that was going on.”
McGrady said Safer San Benito is made up of 45 to 60 community members. One of the things pushing them, she said, was how the county—led by Kosmicki and Velazquez—handled negotiations with the city of Hollister over fire protection services.
After nearly a year of discussions, which at one point included a proposal for the county to create its own fire district, the county ultimately agreed to increase its payments to Hollister for fire services in unincorporated portions of the county.
To McGrady, the process lacked transparency and was a “betrayal of public trust.” She pointed to the creation of an ad hoc committee made up of Kosmicki, Velazquez, Hollister Mayor Roxanne Stephens and Councilmember Roland Resendiz, calling it a way to avoid public scrutiny.
“Creating an ad hoc allows them to have, let’s say, secret meetings where they can talk without being in violation of the Brown Act,” McGrady said. “They didn’t have to post the meetings to the public, so other people were not aware of what was going on. They intentionally excluded key stakeholders, including the Hollister fire chief, City Manager David Mirrione and others who are normally involved in researching and developing critical contracts.”
But it’s more than the fire contract, she said. “It’s the way that they’re doing things. The secrecy, the transparency, and pushing through their own personal agendas despite what’s best for the county.”
Even though Supervisor Dom Zanger is also part of the slow-growth board majority, McGrady said the pro-recall group is focused on Kosmicki and Velazquez. Recalling three supervisors, she said, would be too much work for Safer San Benito and a heavy burden for the county as a whole.
“The attempt to recall two supervisors is a lot, and that’s asking a lot of our community,” she said. “So, while it would be nice to be able to also include Supervisor Zanger in the recall, honestly, we had to make sure that we didn’t overwhelm ourselves.”
Kosmicki and Velazquez have both dismissed the recall as politically motivated. In a written response to the petition, Velazquez called it a “sham recall” driven by people who want more housing and faster growth, and “not about a fire contract that has already been approved and extended for five years.”
Kosmicki and Velazquez separately told BenitoLink that the effort is being spurred by former Hollister mayor Mia Casey and her supporters.
“This is Mia Casey and her pro-development group,” said Velazquez. “They are trying to change the results of an election. We knew this was going to happen because Casey and her development group is out of options. They’re stuck.”
Kosmicki called it “an abuse of the recall process.”
“We just started our terms, and there’s no reason for it,” he said. “The real reason that they’re trying to do this is because they know that the majority of the county board is in favor of responsible growth, and it’s their last-ditch effort to try and convince the public to go back to the way things were.”
McGrady said the group plans to collect at least 25% more signatures than is required. To achieve this, she said the group is reaching voters door-to-door, through social media campaigns on Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram, and considering sending mailers. She said the effort is backed by community members and the firefighters union.
Kosmicki and Velazquez told BenitoLink they had no specific strategy besides continuing their work as supervisors. They are both organizing town halls as they have done in the past.
“My strategy is just to continue doing my job as a supervisor and continue to listen to the public,” Kosmicki said. “I’m just going to continue to work hard for the people.”
If Safer San Benito collects enough signatures by the Sept. 29 deadline, the county’s Elections Department has 60 days to verify them. If enough signatures are valid, the Board of Supervisors —or if needed, the Registrar of Voters—has 14 days to schedule the recall election, which would be held between 88 and 125 days later.
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