Challenger cites pension liabilities in run against incumbent supervisor

San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley, whose district includes Menlo Park, Atherton, Woodside and Portola Valley, is facing an electoral challenge from Dan Stegink, a computer programmer and planning commissioner for the city of Pacifica.

Mr. Stegink – who faults Mr. Horsley for having backed away from a 2009 campaign promise to work for an annual salary of $1 – said his chief concern as supervisor would be public employee pensions that have added $11,000 of debt to every household in the county. (He cited Stanford professor Joe Nation in providing that figure.) The county’s unfunded pension liabilities are a systemic problem that no one has addressed, he said.

(In a budget review issued Feb. 27, 2018, County Manager John Maltbie said the county is “on track to significantly slash its unfunded pension liability by 2023 and remains one of only a handful of counties in the state with AAA ratings from both Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s.”)

Mr. Horsley, who was first elected supervisor of District 3 in 2010, retired as county sheriff in 2007 after 35 years in law enforcement, including 14 years as San Mateo County sheriff. Between his retirement as sheriff and his election to the Board of Supervisors, he served a term on the Sequoia Healthcare District board. His law enforcement pension provides him an annual benefit from the county of $215,000.

When asked about the $1-a-year pledge upon announcing his decision in January 2013 to start taking his then-current $120,000 salary as supervisor, Mr. Horsley said, “I don’t know if I said it. I don’t remember.”

The decision to take a token salary, Mr. Horsley said in 2013, reflected what county officials were saying at the time: that the county had a “structural deficit” that “put us in an austerity position.”

Mr. Stegink said he “would not take a pension” if elected, and would serve just one term. “I’ll never have a vested interest” in a decision before the board, he said. “No broken promises, no double-dipping, no pension,” he said in his campaign statement.

He also vowed not to support raising taxes.

Asked about Regional Measure 3, which is on the June 5 ballot and would incrementally raise tolls by $3 on seven Bay Area bridges if approved by a simple majority of voters in nine counties, Mr. Stegink initially said he was “not necessarily” against it, but didn’t see “a compelling reason” to vote for it. Asked to describe the measure, he said he’d get back to the reporter.

In a subsequent email, Mr. Stegink seemed to recommend removing toll stations, calling them “a bottleneck that impedes traffic throughput and an anachronism from a pre-digital age.” As for paying $9 to cross a bridge in 2025, that is “what many working families pay every day to feed their kids,” he wrote.

Among Mr. Stegink’s other priorities, were he to be elected:

• Closing the Ox Mountain landfill in Half Moon Bay. “We’ll have to meet the capacity somehow,” he said when asked about alternatives. A cost comparison study for trash handling among cities in the county could be informative, he said.

• Banning commercial trucks on state Highway 92 between San Mateo and Half Moon Bay during commute hours. On 20 recent days, Mr. Stegink said, he counted more than 21 vehicles backed up behind slow-moving trucks. “They’re a huge constraint on traffic,” he said.

• Re-evaluate the infrastructure impacts of the storms of the winter of 2016-17, see if the aggregated damages add up to more than $53 million – which he said is a federal threshold – and if they do, seek relief from the federal government.

A sea wall in Pacifica developed eight holes between January and March, Mr. Stegink said. “I believe we would (reach $53 million) if we aggregated them across the county,” he said.

• Housing, affordable and otherwise. Mr. Stegink would work to establish a homeowner’s bill of rights that would expedite approval of home remodel projects that would not add more than 50 percent of the square footage of the existing home. Remodels frequently result in more bedrooms, he said. “I consider that increasing housing,” he said.

Mr. Stegink is married and has two children. He said he serves on several boards of directors as well as the Pacifica Planning Commission. His campaign website was not yet up and running as of March 16.

Man who tried to kidnap Sequoia high student avoids prison time19 hours ago

Car crash causes hourlong closure of Woodside Road in WoodsideMarch 17, 2026 11:19 am

Potential jail time halved for ex-East Palo Alto employee accused of molesting a minorMarch 17, 2026 11:46 am