It appears the Fortuna City Council’s process to appoint a new member this month was a zero sum game, resulting in the seating of Councilmember Juan Carlos Diaz and the ensuing abrupt resignation of Councilmember Jerry King a day later.
Elected in November, King listed Diaz as his second choice to fill the vacancy at the council’s March 10 meeting but joined a unanimous vote to appoint him to the seat. Then, he sent City Manager Amy Nilsen a cryptic email announcing his immediate resignation March 11 “with much regret and sadness.”
“Running for office and being selected by the citizens has been a wonderful experience and I am thankful for the opportunity that I have had over the past few months to represent this great community,” King wrote in the letter. “It is with this mindset that I have made the difficult decision to resign. I am discontent with the section process of the council person to fill the vacant seat. To me, it appeared that there were unethical actions of other council members during the voting process, something that I cannot support or ignore as a council member.”
King did not specify what actions he felt appeared unethical, or what aspect of the process he was discontent with, though he did praise Mayor Mike Johnson, who had joined King in supporting Fortuna Planning Commissioner Michael Kein as his first choice, for his “great leadership.”
Reached by the Journal, King declined to explain further.
“I don’t talk to the media,” King said. “If it’s not about advertising, I don’t have anything to talk to you about at all.”
Attempts to reach Johnson for this story were unsuccessful.
Nilsen, for her part, said she “can’t speak to what Mr. King is feeling,” referring any questions about any concerns he may have brought to staff about the process before and after the March 10 meeting back to him.
The council, with Diaz seated and King’s seat freshly vacant, met March 17 and voted unanimously to move forward with an application and appointment process to find King’s successor, setting an application deadline of noon on April 18, with a special meeting set for April 21 at 3 p.m. for the council to interview candidates and appoint its new member. (Citing a desire for transparency and the $35,000 to $55,000 cost of holding a special election, staff had again recommended the application/interview/appointment process.) Whoever is selected to fill King’s seat is expected to serve through 2026.
Looking to fill the seat vacated by the abrupt resignation of Councilmember Kris Mobley, who stepped down while under an FBI embezzlement investigation that ultimately led to allegations she stole more than $500,000 from a local construction company she worked for and federal wire fraud charges (she has pleaded not guilty), the council convened March 10 to interview applicants.
Informed at the start of the meeting that applicants Tina Christiansen and Michael Ransford had withdrawn, the council interviewed Diaz, Arryan Kianipey, Kein, Arlene Spiers and David Lancaster.
Councilmembers took turns asking each of the candidates questions from the same list — inquiring about their vision for the city, why they’re suited for the position, how they navigated an ethical dilemma they faced professionally and how they would look to increase city revenue — then used a kind of ranked choice voting system to select an appointee, who they then approved unanimously.
After hearing from each of the candidates, Mayor Pro Tem Tami Trent started the deliberations for the council.
“This is always hard to do, because we always get good candidates,” she said, voicing a sentiment soon to be echoed by her three fellow council members. “I don’t know why we can’t get so many like this when it’s an actual interest. … I had one candidate who stood out to me: very involved in the community, very good application, resume and all of that, and so Carlos Diaz would be my first choice.”
Councilmember Kyle Conley then also said he supported Diaz, saying he “truly understands what being a community member in Fortuna means.”
The council briefly met a stalemate, however, when King said his first choice was Kein and Johnson agreed. The process then demanded that council members put forward a second choice, at which point King and Johnson said their second choice would be Diaz. Conley and Trent then said they would support Spiers as their second choice, tipping the balance to Diaz.
Throughout the process, council members lauded the field of applicants and encouraged them to look for other ways to get involved and to again throw their hats in the ring for the next election.
“You’ve got two years to get warmed up,” Johnson said.
At no point did King publicly express discontentment with the outcome or say he felt anything about the process had been “unethical.”
And because he declined to discuss his decision with the media, it’s unclear exactly what he feels was unethical about the process. Because the vote was conducted orally and in real time, it’s possible he feels Conley and/or Trent were disingenuous or calculating with their second choice, knowing that if they both voted for Kein the issue would go to a third ballot and then potentially a coin flip, while a vote from either or both for someone else would cement Diaz — their first choice — as the appointee.
Trent, for her part, told the Journal that immediately following the meeting she heard King say something along the lines of, “That didn’t go the way I thought it was going to go,” but didn’t think anything of it until learning of his resignation, saying she hasn’t spoken to him since the meeting. The allegation that something “unethical” happened in the process was blindsiding, she said.
“All I’ll say to that is I don’t think it’s good practice to try to make someone else look bad to make yourself look better,” she said. “If you’re not happy on the board, then just quit. You don’t have to make somebody else look bad to make yourself look better.”
The bottom line, Trent said, is that when, with the council’s initial vote split, with two in support of Kein and two in support of Diaz, King and Johnson listed Diaz as their second choice, she knew Diaz was going to get the appointment because she had no intention of supporting Kein.
“I felt very strongly there was one qualified person,” Trent said, adding she felt Spiers was the second best candidate for the job.
Diaz, a systems analyst at Cal Poly Humboldt and 25-year resident of the city, serves as a lieutenant with the Fortuna Volunteer Fire Department and has volunteered with a number of organizations in the city. He told the council he’s excited about the opportunity to help the city.
“I believe our role as community members and human beings is to lead and build for the future, and the city council is the most important role to get that accomplished,” he said during the interview. “I love everything this community has provided me and my family, and it’s my way of contributing and giving back.”
Diaz is slated to serve the remainder of Mobley’s term, which runs through 2026.
Moving forward, Nilsen says she expects the council to follow the same interview and voting process to appoint King’s replacement as it did to appoint Diaz, noting it’s the same process as has been used recently in Capitola, San Francisco and Blue Lake.
“At this point in time, I do not anticipate any changes,” she said.
Trent said she personally doesn’t see any need to change anything about the appointment process as the city now moves forward, saying the process of appointing Diaz was thorough, fair, transparent and much cheaper than a special election. She was unequivocal in her belief that nothing unethical took place.
“I have taken the ethics class more times than I can count,” said Trent, who has served on the council for 12 years. “I know what’s unethical. Our council knows what’s unethical, and there was nothing close to unethical with this process or anything else we have done. I think it’s real unfair that someone throws that broad statement out and makes the council look bad.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the date of Fortuna’s special meeting to interview council candidates and make an appointment.
This article appears in 10 Foliies Anniversary.
