County Democratic Party's attempt to oust chairperson ends in a unanimous vote to keep her.

How many Democrats does it take to get through a Monterey County Democratic Central Committee meeting? 

Hard to say, because the county party's recent meetings have been rather circuitous, starting with disputes about who is or is not a member in good standing (meaning they have the ability to vote). Getting an accurate and up-to-date membership roster is one subject on a long list of disagreements that have lately split the party into factions, resulting in one former chair, Vinz Koller, calling to remove current chair, Karen Araujo, from the leadership post. 

Koller's effort to remove Araujo was up for a hearing on Tuesday, April 25, and members who participated voted unanimously to keep her seated. Although amid unresolved, baseline disputes—including who is technically a member, and who is currently the first vice chair and hence responsible for presiding over a hearing on whether to remove the chair—Koller believes the vote that was taken does not actually count. 

"What happened [on April 25] happened in violation of the bylaws," he says. Koller says that official notice of the hearing was made less than five days in advance, and the wrong person ran the hearing based on a disagreement about who should be currently functioning as first vice-chair of the committee.

Besides those procedural concerns, he attempted to withdraw the resolution from consideration entirely. "I can see nothing good coming from the proceeding," Koller said. 

But Araujo's supporters said it was too late—that once it was on the agenda, it was the committee's decision whether to vote, and other committee members were ready to proceed. "To chicken out after you’ve caused this to happen is quite disgusting and unacceptable," committee member Andrew Sandoval said to Koller.

The committee proceeded to consider the resolution to remove Araujo, and Koller—along with supporters for ousting Araujo—left the Zoom meeting and convened separately; the people remaining cast their votes supported Araujo. 

"i think you’ve done a phenomenal job," committee member Regina Gage told Araujo. "I think that you are owed a formal apology."

One exception was Elena Loomis, also a former party chair, who abstained from voting on the resolution to keep or remove Araujo. "One reason I decided to abstain is I don’t want it to look in any way like I am trying to reclaim my position at all, I have no interest in that," she says. Loomis adds that she joined Koller and Araujo in a meeting two days prior to try to talk through some of their differences and reach a resolution. That got close, Loomis says, but not quite there—but she was confident that with more dialogue, they would have. To that end, Loomis herself attempted to introduce a discussion on Tuesday night about whether to delay the hearing on the removal of the chair, but the committee voted not to take up the discussion, so Loomis never got the chance to make her case. 

"I found that to be an unfortunate way of proceeding," Loomis says. 

"I feel the whole thing is unfortunate. I think it’s unfortunate it got in the media, that hyped it up. It’s kind of like a family feud that got publicized—positions harden when that happens."

(The Weekly first reported on the internal disputes in the Monterey County Democratic Central Committee in March.)

The committee is composed of three types of members: those who are directly elected by voters who are registered Democrats; Democratic elected officials (and who generally serve through alternates they appoint, rather than appearing themselves—Koller, for instance, is the alternate for U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley); and members who are appointed to represent Democratic clubs, such as the Marina Democratic Club, for example.

The committee's meeting on Tuesday was mostly about procedural stuff; the night's agenda was finally approved after 8:00pm, 90 minutes after convening at 6:30 on Zoom. “Let’s move this meeting along, this is getting ridiculous,” said committee member Joe Aliotti. (The night's meeting required two separate votes to extend past the originally scheduled end time.) 

For Araujo's part, she says she hopes this puts conflict behind the party. "The damage done to our organization can’t be undone," she says. "It’s going to take a lot of additional work. I want to get on with the business of the organization.”

In an April letter to Araujo and members of the executive board, elected Democrats—Congress members Panetta and Zoe Lofgren; retired Rep. Sam Farr; State Senators Anna Caballero and John Laird; Assemblymembers Robert Rivas and Dawn Addis—wrote that they want to see the party move past the leadership conflict. 

"The last few weeks have seen heated discussions about the leadership of the Monterey County Democratic Central Committee," they wrote. "We hope that committee members can work together to find a path forward. This letter is not about taking a position in that debate…

"Our party’s success in past years has depended on accepting Democrats of all stripes under one big tent—and making sure that we work through internal issues in a way that we do not lose sight of what we are fighting for."

Those issues remain front and center to both sides in the leadership dispute, but many of the underlying concerns remain unresolved. Those include financial reporting and concerns about whether the committee will or won't have to pay a $6,798 penalty for late campaign finance reporting to the California Secretary of State (currently pending review); whether or not to keep paying for a physical headquarters, the Center for Change, which has been mostly empty since the pandemic (Araujo suggests launching a music series there this year); underlying questions about the membership roster; and development concerns. (The former development chair, Pris Walton, resigned after she raised concerns about how long it took to get authorization to send out a fundraising letter, and also to pay vendors who worked at a fundraising event.)

To Loomis, who attempted to be a bridge-builder and peacekeeper, there's hope that this vote—as contentious as it was, with Koller and his supporters declining to participate—can help the party move forward. "I hope there is a way we move forward and resolve our differences and get back to the business of electing Demcorats," she says.