Why the City of Willits Wanted to Cancel the Election for City Council

Everyone knows the City of Willits is experiencing hard times. So when the two incumbent council members who were up for re-election decided not to run again — and only two candidates stepped forward — the city clerk began preparing an agenda item that would have enabled the council to cancel the election and save between $7,000 and $8,000.

But it turned out there wasn't enough time. "Last Thursday was the last day to cancel the election," said City Clerk Delores Pedersen.

In an uncontested election, the California Elections Code allows municipalities to make appointments "in lieu of election." That's how Council Member Bruce Burton ended up on the council in 2025.

But the appointment must be made on a strict timeline. Under California Elections Code Section 10229, which governs general-law cities such as Willits, a city council may appoint uncontested candidates in lieu of an election only up to the 75th day before that election. After that point, the code states, "if, by the 75th day before the municipal election, no person has been appointed to office … the election shall be held."

The complication began with the incumbents. When Burton and Council Member Larry Stranske did not file for re-election, Pedersen said, she had to extend the candidate filing deadline by another week. That left little time for the steps state law requires before an appointment, including publishing public notice and observing a waiting period. The rules themselves had also changed recently.

State law requires such notices to run in a newspaper a court has adjudicated as one of general circulation — a status held by legacy print papers, not digital outlets. MendoLocal.News, which publishes this article, reaches a larger local audience online but is not adjudicated to carry legal notices. It will gladly publish such notices for public awareness, but doing so won't fulfill the requirements set by election law.

"To be sure, this was an error, a mistake," Council Member Matthew Alaniz wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. "I understand that some people will be upset but there is nothing behind the oversight beyond a complicated and recently changed timeline."

The race is not necessarily settled. A write-in candidate could still enter: the write-in candidacy period runs from Sept. 7 to Oct. 20, according to Mendocino County Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie.

Robin Leler, who ran in the last election and lost to Alaniz by a handful of votes, said she is glad to be on the ballot. "I want people to be able to vote for me," she said.

She said Alaniz's record as a council member is one of the things that has inspired her. She said she appreciated his willingness to challenge a new consulting contract with one of the city's former interim city managers, and the contract with Muchmore Than Consulting, which was already doing human resources consulting work for the city, in the absence of more than two competing bids.

Alaniz said he was concerned by the perception that Muchmore might have an insider's advantage.

Leler, who ran for the Willits City Council three other times, has long been willing to stick her neck out for her community. In 2015, she and her partner, Tom Fristoe, published a detailed letter in The Willits News questioning the safety of the city's drinking water — citing violations for a class of cancer-linked disinfection byproducts and calling for a granular-charcoal filter, an audit of the city's Water Enterprise Fund, and more transparent oversight. The letter drew a sharp public rebuttal defending city staff. What matters, Leler said, is that the problem got fixed. After the election, she said, the city manager "cleared up and authorized everything that needed to be done."

A decade later, she was still pressing. In November 2025, Leler co-wrote a letter — which she read to the council on Nov. 12 — alleging conflicts of interest and "back room irregularities" in the council's approval of a project she said would convert a buildable housing site near the high school into heavy industrial use.

"The reason I keep running is I get to talk about the real issues," she said. The issues she raises, she said, range from the safety of the city's drinking water to the Willits Farmers Market's return to City Park to what she calls questionable use of contractors.

Sherrie Ebyam, a retired finance director and former math teacher, summed up her interest in serving on the city council in three words: "budget, budget, budget."

She said she has already started creating the spreadsheets needed to understand the big picture and the granular details — both necessary to help Willits navigate current cost pressures. As MendoLocal.News has repeatedly documented, the city's revenue streams are not keeping up with its rising costs.

Mayor Tom Allman said he is looking forward to serving with both Ebyam and Leler. "I worked with Sherrie Ebyam on Measure B and I'm so happy she made the decision to run for city council," Allman said. He also praised Leler for her dedication to the city and for "asking good questions."