By Arturo Castañares
Editor-at-Large
A member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors has launched a campaign for County Treasurer-Tax Collector against the person a majority of the Supervisors just recently appointed to the position, while his own Party is considering supporting another candidate to run against him.
Supervisor Joel Anderson, a longtime elected Republican, just entered the second year of his second four-term on the County Board of Supervisors, but recently filed to run for County Treasurer in this year’s election cycle.
Joel Anderson
If Anderson were to win the election in November, he would vacate his Supervisor seat halfway through his term and create a vacancy his Democratic colleagues could fill.
The race for a usually low-profile position comes after longtime Treasurer-Tax Collector Dan McAllister announced his unexpected resignation on August 2nd after having been elected to the post six times over the past 24 years. McAllister’s current term expires in January 2027.
Dan McAllister
Under the County’s Charter, Supervisors must appoint someone to fill a vacancy in a Countywide elected position to serve through the next election with no restriction on the person then running for a full term.
Before the Board began its process to fill McAllister’s vacancy, Anderson asked the County’s lawyer for a legal opinion on whether a sitting Supervisor could be appointed to fill the vacancy, indicating his interest in serving in the position.
Anderson, who was first elected to the Board of Supervisors in November 2020 and re-elected in November 2024, but will be termed out of serving on the Board of Supervisors in 2028. Anderson previously served eight years in the California State Senate and four years in the Assembly.
Legislators are exempt from the state’s pension system, so Anderson did not accrue any retirement credits during his 12 years in Sacramento, and has only earned five years in the County’s retirement system so far during his tenure on the Board.
Unlike Supervisors, the Treasurer-Tax Collector’s position has no term limits and has a base salary of over $248,000, even higher than the Supervisor’s salary of $220,000.
Anderson’s run is unprecedented because there has never been a sitting San Diego County Supervisor who ran for one of the County’s other elected positions, including District Attorney, Tax Assessor, or Treasurer-Tax Collector.
On September 29, La Prensa San Diego broke the news of a backroom deal where Anderson would be the fourth vote on the Board of Supervisors to put a countywide sales tax increase measure on the 2026 ballot and Democrats would then support him for the Treasurer-Tax Collector election this year. The article was the first to mention Anderson's interest in running for the position.
Democrats and labor unions want to run a countywide sales tax increase ballot measure after a 1/2-cent tax increase was rejected by voters in November 2024. The Board can place a measure directly on the ballot with four or five votes without having to raise thousands of voter signatures, but Democrats currently only hold three seats.
Just one day after the La Prensa San Diego article, Anderson recused himself from the appointment process and walked off the dais at the Board meeting before they began the first round of interviews of nine candidates, saying he was recusing himself because he was “considering running for the Treasurer-Tax Collector position.”
That was Anderson’s first public indication that he was interested in running for the position.
The remaining Supervisors interviewed the candidates and voted to forward four finalists to a subsequent public meeting: David Baker, Lawrence Cohen, Christian Peacox, and Detra Williams.
Two weeks later, Anderson launched his campaign committee for Treasurer-Tax Collector while the Board was still waiting to consider the candidates to fill the vacancy.
On November 4th, as the Supervisors began the item to vote among the four finalists, Anderson walked off the dais and avoided the interviews.
In the end, after four rounds of voting, the three Democratic Supervisors voted to appoint Lawrence “Larry” Cohen, a former political staffer and medical industry executive who most recently served as Chief of Staff to Congressman Juan Vargas. Republican Supervisor Jim Desmond supported another candidate, Detra Williams.
Larry Cohen
Cohen, a registered Democrat, previously worked for over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry as a senior business development manager, sales director, and drug discovery specialist after having worked for Vargas from 1993 to 1996 when the now-Congressman served on the San Diego City Council.
“Maintaining safety and liquidity standards for the County Investment Pool to ensure funding for schools, public safety, health and human services, and other essential programs is one of my top priorities,” Cohen told La Prensa San Diego in an exclusive interview.
Cohen, a resident of Carlsbad, earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego, and a Masters in Business Administration from Strayer University.
“I have already opened a campaign committee and intend to win election to a full four-year term,” Cohen said.
Cohen filed his campaign statement of organization on November 19th, the day after he was officially sworn in as the Treasurer-Tax Collector, and began raising money for his campaign.
Cohen shared his up-to-date fundraising report with La Prensa San Diego this week showing he raised over $200,000 since November, including $95,000 he loaned his campaign, over $80,000 raised through December 31st from family and friends, and $23,000 donated by the San Diego County Democratic Party.
Anderson confirmed he has not raised money for the Treasurer-Tax Collector race.
The other candidate indicating she is also running for Treasurer-Tax Collector is Shirley Nakawatase, an Imperial Beach Certified Public Accountant (CPA) who was one of the nine applicants for the Treasurer vacancy.
Shirley Nakawatase
Nakawatase, who ran for Imperial Beach Mayor in 2022, told La Prensa San Diego this week that she is committed to running but has not yet opened a campaign account. Republican Party Chair Paula Whitsell confirmed Nakawatase asked for and is being considered for endorsement by the Party. Anderson did not seek his Party’s endorsement.
Mariko Nakawatase, Shirley’s daughter, currently serves as District Director in Anderson’s office. Mariko Nakawatase was appointed to the Imperial Beach City Council in October 2025 to fill the vacancy left when then-Mayor Paloma Aguirre won a July special election to the County Board of Supervisors after Nora Vargas resigned in January 2025.
Under current election laws, if only two candidates file to run for a seat there is no Primary Election and the two automatically advance to the General Election.
If more than two people file to run for Treasurer, the candidates will face off in a June 2nd Primary Election with the top two candidates continuing on to the November 2nd General Election.
CAMPAIGNING FOR THE POSITION
Although Anderson has not yet reported raising any money for his campaign for Treasurer, he still has over $18,000 cash on hand left from his 2024 re-election campaign for Supervisor, as well as over $236,000 in a campaign committee he maintains for election to the Republican Party Central Committee.
The Party’s Central Committee is the countywide official body of the Republican Party, and candidates for the committee run on the ballot in primary elections in presidential years. Anderson ran in the June election among 24 people vying for nine elected member positions from his Supervisorial district.
Anderson’s Central Committee campaign account had a cash balance of over $300,000 at the end of 2023 before the 2024 primary election cycle began. During the primary election when he was running for Central Committee, Anderson received additional contributions into the Central Committee account: $10,000 from the Building Industry Association, $20,000 from the Carpenters’ union; $1,500 from the electrical workers union; and $10,000 from Frank Riolo, a local gaming industry consultant.
Between January and the March election, Anderson donated $20,000 to the Republican Party, and spent over $29,000 on political consulting, $400 a month on a campaign office, $170 for postage, and $1,750 paid to Bill Baber who served as his campaign treasurer, yet he did not report paying for any campaign pieces mailed to voters.
Anderson received 26,663 votes, the second-highest among the 24 people running for the Central Committee from his district. The highest voter-getter was Frank Hillier, who did not spend any money campaigning, but is well-known for his Hilliker egg farm.
Of the nine candidates who won election to the Central Committee in the March primary election, only one other candidate spent any money toward winning a position on the Party’s board; Santee Mayor John Minto.
Minto reported spending $3,500 during the primary election when he was running for Central Committee, including $2,500 to the same consulting firm as Anderson, and $1,000 to Baber, who also served as his campaign treasurer. Minto was the ninth and final candidate of the 24 to secure a seat on the Central Committee.
After the March election where Anderson won a seat on the Republican Central Committee, he raised over $283,000 and spent over $333,000 through the account which he amended to be named Anderson for Central Committee 2028, reflecting the next time Party leadership members will be elected.
At the time, Anderson was only running for re-election for County Supervisor.
Anderson accepted contributions from entities and individuals with interests before the County Board of Supervisors, including $10,000 from the Deputy District Attorneys’ union, which was due to renegotiate their labor contract the following year; developers with projects seeking approvals; the Deputy Sheriffs Association, the labor union for Sheriffs Deputies who received a new contract just months before their $10,000 contribution; and $7,500 from the County Probation Officers’ union, which received a new labor contract exactly one year earlier.
Anderson voted for all three labor contracts.
Of the $333,000 Anderson spent from the Central Committee account through the General Election, nearly $130,000 was paid to political consultants, over $72,000 was for campaign literature and postage, and nearly $11,470 was used to pay for a political poll.
In addition to the Central Committee account, Anderson also had a re-election committee which started 2024 with nearly $165,000 cash on hand, raised over $184,000, and spent over $334,000 during the year.
Anderson spent over $54,000 on campaign literature, over $61,000 on postage, $27,500 for political consulting, and over $17,000 on advertising vendors.
TREASURER VACANCY
After McAllister’s resignation in August, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors appointed longtime Treasurer office staffer David Baker to manage the office until a successor was appointed. Baker applied for the appointment process but was not selected.
Dan McAllister, 74, who was first elected as San Diego County Treasurer-Tax Collector in 2002, served nearly 23 years as the official responsible for collecting property taxes and investing over $18 billion in county and special district reserve funds.
McAllister was elected six times by county voters and was well-known in political circles, although not as well by the public, even though his name appears on annual tax bills mailed to every property owner.
On July 25th, McAllister announced he would be retiring on August 2nd, nearly 18 months before the end of his current four-year term which expires after the 2026 elections, but he did not provide any reason for his early departure.
Before his announcement, McAllister had been planning to run for re-election next year and maintained an open campaign committee funded with approximately $10,000 left over from his 2022 campaign where he spent just over $72,000 on his re-election efforts.
One month after Cohen’s appointment, McAllister passed away just four and a half months into his retirement.
“Dan was an excellent money manager and built up an exceptional staff to serve the people of San Diego County,” former County Supervisor Greg Cox told La Prensa San Diego after the announcement of McAllister’s death. “Dan prided himself on consistently collecting over 99% of the property taxes due each year to help our County maintain its financial stability,” Cox added.
Cox, who served on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors from 1995 to 2020, overlapped with McAllister’s tenure for nearly 18 years.
McAllister was a fixture at community events and meetings, and attended countless informational meetings to help residents better understand property tax programs like reassessments, property tax reduction programs, and even payment plans for delinquent taxes.
In the community, McAllister served on nonprofit organization boards, including for the Jackie Robinson YMCA, the New Americans Museum, the Peace Corps, and Habitat for Humanity.
Although McAllister’s time in office saw few financial issues, reports of past lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment surfaced last year.
In July 2022, just four months before McAllister was easily re-elected to a sixth term, the County quietly paid $105,000 to settle a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit filed by a female employee who complained that McAllister constantly stopped by her workspace and made crude or inappropriate comments to her, treatment she says would not have happened had she not been a woman.
McAllister had personally paid an undisclosed amount in 2007 to settle a similar lawsuit after another female employee claimed he recruited and hired her mainly to accompany him to public events, but developed “an unusual interest in her” that led to McAllister discussed his personal sex life and that of others with her, often called her late in the evening, and constantly approaching her work area to have non-work conversations.
Ironically, McAllister’s initial campaign for Treasurer in 2002 was against incumbent Bart Hartman who himself was accused of sexual harassment by the highest-ranking female employee in his office just one year into his term. The County paid $100,000 in 2000 to settle that lawsuit and Hartman publicly apologized.
McAllister easily defeated Hartman by a margin of 49.6% to 40.3% in the November 2002 election.
