Richards Ranch asks LAFCO to bar Bob Nelson from annexation hearings

A local developer’s lawsuit against Santa Barbara County didn’t delay a recent study session tied to 44 acres of proposed housing and commercial real estate in Orcutt.

In a letter dated May 5, attorney Beth A. Collins asked the Local Area Formation Commission (LAFCO) to postpone its May 8 workshop centered on the Richards Ranch mixed-use project and its owner’s application to annex some county land into Santa Maria in order to use city water.

Collins also asked LAFCO to require commissioner and 4th District Supervisor Bob Nelson to recuse himself “from any action at a hearing or otherwise” about the proposed annexation moving forward.

“We have become increasingly concerned that LAFCO member Supervisor Nelson has shown disqualifying bias towards the annexation application for the project and should not be allowed to continue to violate my client’s constitutional due process rights,” Collins wrote. “We request that Supervisor Nelson be barred from participating in any LAFCO meetings (or other discussions) regarding our client’s project.”

The letter to LAFCO was attached to a 200 plus-page petition, filed on May 2, which compiles several of Nelson’s “readily verifiable quotes from videos of public meetings and citations to publicly available documents” to support the plaintiff’s claim, according to Collins.

“These facts collectively demonstrate Supervisor Nelson’s actual bias against our project’s annexation application, and clearly meet the legal standard to demonstrate a probability of actual bias that is too high to be constitutionally tolerable,” Collins wrote. 

LAFCO legal counsel Amber Holderness addressed the petition at the commission’s May 8 meeting.

“I do not believe there’s anything in the record that has indicated that the processing of the application has been anything but fair,” Holderness said. “It has followed the same process as other annexation applications to date.”

In response to constitutional due process concerns the letter raised, Holderness said that LAFCO’s determinations are legislative and “not subject to the same constitutional demands of due process as quasi-judicial or quasi-adjudicatory matters are.”

Nelson told the Sun that the petition “weaves a story that’s inaccurate and out of context.” He denied the claim that he was “rallying opposition” to Richard Ranch’s proposed annexation, but added that, even if it was true, it wouldn’t warrant his recusal from future hearings.

“It would be completely improper for somebody to have bias and state their position on something going into a hearing where you’re acting as a judge. On LAFCO, we’re really legislators where we’re basically writing laws, and laws come with perspectives and biases and opinions,” Nelson said. “If I wanted to [rally opposition], legally I could, … I’m not doing that.

“I could be going on Facebook and paying for advertisements to rally the troops,” he continued. “I’m not, but legally I could if I wanted to.”

The Sun reached out to Richards Ranch attorney Collins for comment but did not receive a response before press time.

During LAFCO’s May 8 meeting, Nelson said he had “no intention of recusing myself or stepping back from the issue of annexation whether in public or on this commission.” 

Based on LAFCO’s current policies, a commissioner’s recusal from a hearing must be voluntary, legal counsel Holderness said after 3rd District Supervisor Joan Hartmann asked about the commission’s stance when there’s a conflict or a perceived conflict.

Nelson added that he’s open to consulting with the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) on the issue, “but based on the information I’ve received from our counsel, no conflict exists at this time.”

“For the record, I’ve never said I blankly am against annexation. What I do publicly discourage is piecemeal annexation. I’ve consistently encouraged the city and the county to work together,” Nelson said at the meeting. “When this annexation came before us a couple years ago, my question to the city was simple: What’s your plan for Orcutt? Is there a comprehensive vision for expanding your city limits into the community that’s been in your sphere of influence since 1978? To this date, I haven’t heard of one.” 

This article appears in May 15-25, 2025.