[caption id="attachment_3983" align="alignright" width="300" caption="New San Diego County Supervisor David Roberts is sworn into office Monday."][/caption]

The new year always brings new beginnings – and every two years it brings a new class of county supervisors. As 2013 has kicked off, nearly 60 newly elected supervisors are being sworn in.

Some enlightenment about those joining the supervisorial ranks – and those who recently said good-bye.

• Thirty-eight counties have new county supervisors, including San Diego which is seeing its first new supervisor (Dave Roberts) since 1996.

• There are 55 new faces – and four others (Tim Alpers, Mono; Burt Bundy, Tehama; Todd Spitzer, Orange; Skip Thomson, Solano) have returned to office after some time away.

• Six county boards – Alpine, Calaveras, Inyo, Kern, Modoc and Mono — will have a majority of new supervisors. Each are welcoming three new board members.

• Four former legislators – Bruce McPherson, Kevin Jeffries, Joe Simitian and Todd Spitzer – have joined the county supervisorial ranks. (Spitzer for the second time.) There are now nine former legislators serving as county supervisors.

• California Counties are losing a significant amount of supervisorial experience – a grand total of more than 550 years retired with outgoing supervisors this year.

• Seventeen county officials who just left office served three terms or more, including Thomas Tryon in Calaveras who was first sworn into office in 1984.

• There is currently one vacancy in Madera County now that Frank Bigelow (our 2007 President) threw his hat into the legislative arena and won an Assembly seat.

CSAC is excited about this new crop of county supervisors – most of whom are attending our New Supervisors Institute. We have learned a lot about them during our recent two-day Institute session and we look forward to them coming back for two more days of instruction and interaction in February.