For the first time in three decades, Santa Clara County voters will elect a new assessor as the Board of Supervisors this week called for a special election to fill the vacancy left by Larry Stone’s resignation. But it will come at a hefty cost — at least $13.1 million or potentially twice as much.
Stone, 84, was first elected in 1994 and announced on Monday that he will be stepping down on July 6, leaving more than a year left in his term.
At a Wednesday afternoon board meeting, supervisors set Nov. 4 as Election Day with a potential runoff scheduled for Dec. 30 if a candidate doesn’t receive a majority of the votes. With a single special election costing $13.1 million, runoff would bring the cost to roughly $26.2 million — a likely possibility if a crowded field emerges.
“This is a very unfortunate situation and it’s hard to stomach the cost of this, but we really have no legal options otherwise,” Supervisor Margaret Abe-Koga said.
The county’s charter requires that an election be held within 120 days of a vacancy.
In an interview, Stone called the cost of the election “outrageous.” Special elections tend to have a much lower voter turnout, but state law dictates how many voting centers the county is required to operate based on the number of registered voters.
“We’re going to have a very low voter turnout election for one office and we’re going to spend like it would be for a statewide election where the governor is on the ballot,” Stone said.
When asked whether knowing the cost of a special election would have changed his decision to run for reelection in 2022, Stone said that he is not making “life decisions of my own and my family and what’s right for me after 30 years in office based on the cost of an election.”
Stephen Chessin, a Mountain View resident who sits on the county’s Citizens’ Advisory Commission on Elections, criticized the assessor’s decision to resign at the meeting.
“It’s too bad that the $13 million or actually $26 million if there’s going to be two elections, if that money that’s going to pay for those elections couldn’t come out of the assessors budget since he’s the one responsible for this having to be a special election as opposed to him completing his term,” he said.
Chessin added that if the county had implemented ranked choice voting — an election method where voters rank candidate instead of choosing one — they could have avoided a costly runoff if no assessor candidate receives a majority of votes in November. Supervisors are expected to review a proposal to institute ranked choice voting later this year, however, it would likely not take effect until at least 2028. Stone has been a vocal opponent of ranked choice voting.
The costly move to hold a special election comes following the board’s approval of the county’s $13.7 billion budget, which required spending reductions across departments. The county is bracing for more budgetary impacts later this year as Congress discusses cuts to Medicaid and other social services that could be devastating for local governments across the country.
According to a memo from County Executive James Williams and County Counsel Tony LoPresti, the cost of the election could be reduced if other cities or school boards need to call a special election in November as some of the administrative costs would be shared. Since the Registrar of Voters can’t absorb the cost of the special election in its adopted budget, county officials will have to come up with some adjustments to the budget, the memo said.
Saratoga Councilmember Yan Zhao had previously launched her assessor bid for the 2026 election. Los Altos Vice Mayor Neysa Fligo, who works in the assessors office, announced Thursday morning that she was also running and that Stone is endorsing her campaign.
“After 30 years as assessor, no one knows better than I do what the job entails — and what kind of person is best suited for it,” Stone said in a press release. “Neysa is without doubt that person. Neysa has a unique combination of management experience, leadership acumen, people skills, assessor knowledge and political moxie to be the next assessor.”
After Stone’s departure, Assistant Assessor Greg Monteverde will take over as acting assessor. The board is expected to appoint an interim assessor on Aug. 12 who will serve until the election.
The board also voted on Wednesday to waive a policy that would have required a public interview process for the temporary job. Given the short time the interim assessor would serve, county officials recommended that the board skip that process. The board has waived the policy in the past — most recently when they needed to appoint an interim sheriff following former Sheriff Laurie Smith’s resignation in 2022.
