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Board votes against San Luis Obispo mayor’s proposed censure

July 27, 2026

San Luis Obispo Councilwoman Erica Stewart and attorney Christine Dietrick

By KAREN VELIE

The San Luis Obispo Personnel Board voted 2-1 on Monday against a proposed censure of Mayor Erica Stewart.

Chair Calvin Stevens agreed that Stewart had committed a serious violation. However, he argued that Stewart had a temporary lapse in judgement and should not face a censure.

Jill LeMieux said she had a personal relationship with Erica Stewart, but that she could be fair. She then agreed that Stewart had a lapse in judgement before voting with Stevens against Stewart’s censure.

Patricia Ponce was the lone vote to seek Stewart’s censure.

“This error was not made in good faith.” Ponce said. “I do not think it was Mayor Stewart’s place to decide who should get the report. This is very hard for me because I had great respect for the mayor.”

Board members Sharon Seitz and Chintan Desai were absent.

On July 13, SLO Councilwoman Jan Marx submitted a complaint and request for a censure hearing to the SLO Personnel Board. If the board had determined a serious violation occurred, it should have recommended the City Council hold a censure hearing.

Marx sought to have Mayor Erica Stewart censured for releasing a confidential Grand Jury report in violation of the California Penal Code. Stewart shared the restricted report with her employer Cal Poly.

On June 13, 2025, the Grand Jury sent Stewart a copy of the report that included a lengthy list of recommendations regarding issues with Cal Poly’s fraternities and sororities. The email included a warning that it was a violation of the law to share the report before it it was publicly released.

Even so, Stewart, a long-time Cal Poly employee, shared the report two hours and nine minutes after the grand jury sent it to her.

 


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26 Comments

I am still confused why the grand jury report about Cal Poly was kept secret from Cal Poly. I think most people would have assumed that the college would have been the first party to receive the report. Oops!


GJ: “We have a list of recommendations regarding issues with fraternities”


Poly: “Can we see them”


GJ: “…No”


It reminds me of the scene in Dr. Strangelove. The whole point of a grand jury report is lost if you don’t tell anyone about it!


-7

The County Grand Jury did not have jurisdiction over state agency. The City blamed Cal Poly’s lack of cooperation in its response to the Grand Jury, because Cal Poly refuses to confirm dozens of properties that are violating the City’s laws by operating as fraternities in the neighborhoods.


6

Who was the employee that slow walked the foia to run out the clock on the statute of limitations?? There is clearly a conspiracy here to hide the truth. Welcome to the longhouse


18

The City’s legal department


0

Consider this, a personnel board of the city of San Luis made up of individuals appointed by the City Council Members. A five member board, of which three were able to attend and make a decision. At least one of the members admitted to a relationship with the mayor and the chair Cal Stevens apparently works at Cal Poly. Kudos to the one member of the committee who actually pointed out that the good faith error was pretty much a farce. Also interesting that the words good faith were used by the mayor in her defense. But we all knew nothing was going to happen and this will just go on. Certainly a dangerous precedent was set. Let’s all take a hard look at who is running for mayor and make a choice for someone that will represent all of us.


28

How much more “rigged” can it get. 2 board members absent? The prisons are full of people who had a “lapse in judgement”. Cronyism at its best!


20

There’s a cover-up that’s suspicious. The Grand Jury would discern in June 2025 that their report was leaked by receiving the Cal Poly rebuttal before the report was officially released. They would naturally be curious who leaked it and since it would be a misdemeanor crime they should report it to be investigated. But instead it was buried as a finding in the annual compliance report released in April 2026. Then the press found the nugget but 10+ months had passed of the 1 year statutes of limitations. Who in the Grand Jury quashed the awareness of this crime, why did they thwart an immediate investigation and since it had limited distribution did they know within a few days the mayor did it?


8

The term of the Grand Jury ends when the report is written, then starts over in July. The 24-25 Grand Jury had finished its term when the Town and Gown report was relased.


The 25-26 Grand Jury published its compliance report in April 2026 and said continued investigating the City for compliance and noticed that Cal Poly’s Kienow sent an email to the City Council in Semptember 2025 that had Cal Poly’s rebuttals to the 24-25 report – dated June 16, one week before the report was publicly released.


Now those Jurors are gone and the new 26-27 Grand Jury could continue to investigate the matter. The complaince report recommends it does continue the investigation into the City of SLO.


4

I find it interesting that NO ONE CARES what the Grand Jury report actually said. Rather, it’s about WHEN it got released. Seems like the focus is wrong here.


4

I know it made several findings and the City of SLO rejected all of them. The City said it adopted some of the recommendations. Maybe that’s why the subsequent grand jury kept investigating for compliance.


3

A “temporary lapse in judgment,” that lasted days, and a year later, she said she’d do it again.


Stewart forwarded the confidential report Friday evening. Early Saturday morning, Kienow texted her the actual words “Problem: Cal Poly is not identified in the report as a required respondent so I don’t believe they intend to share it with us at all before it’s published.” Translation, from Cal Poly’s own mouth: we weren’t supposed to have this.


Stewart’s response to being told that? Not “let me fix this.” It was “Happy to share your responses… Love to chat with you about it. Let me know if you have time this afternoon to chat” – and then she spent her Saturday workshopping a rebuttal to a report she’d just leaked.


Nothing says fleeting error in judgment quite like scheduling a call to talk it through and getting a pre-written alibi three days later. If this is what a lapse looks like, I’d love to see what she considers a plan.


58

Very disappointing that there will be no accountability for the mayor’s illegal purposeful action. I guess if ANYONE else commits an act like this in the future revealing confidential Grand Jury information and/or report, they can just use the excuse they had a “temporary lapse of judgment.” This totally compromises the Grand Jury process! Residents who file Grand Jury complaints in the future against the city will no longer have confidence in the confidentiality of the process. The lack of consequences for the mayor’s illegal action has set a very bad precedence and the city’s actions and/or inactions have the appearance of a cover up.


52

Caroljane, you’re forgetting that government employees in general, and elected officials in particular, belong to a modern political nomenklatura—sort of Orwellian pigs. They’ve kluged together an unimpressive system where public servants with Eloi-like intelligence muddle along with near-total impunity, while the rest of us are held to strict rules.


8

Anyone really surprised, the main job of a council is too protect themselves regardless, protecting the residents isn’t a concern. Same for the city attorney, their job is not to protect the residents it is to protect city officials.


53
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