It’s been nearly four months since 5-year-old Kyle Doan was last seen and his family is pleading for state and local agencies to resume their searches.
Kyle was swept away by floodwaters near San Miguel while his mother, Lindsy, drove him to school on January 9.
“Our son is still missing, and the agencies and people in responsible positions haven't been following through with their rhetoric. It just seems like he's just our son, just gets pushed off the grid," said Kyle's father, Brian Doan.
Kyle’s family isn’t staying silent. They want to hold the Governor’s Office and San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office accountable.
“Hoping that other people take note of what's going on and to put more pressure on them, too, to follow through with what they supposedly have stated publicly and bring my son home, bring our son home, here," Doan said.
On May 1, during a press conference in Los Angeles County, Governor Gavin Newsom was asked about Kyle’s search efforts.
“I was down there. I was very proud of the remarkably large-scale effort to find his body. I was down actually a few days after he vanished," Governor Newsom said.
Brian Doan told KSBY the family has never spoken to the governor in person.
“He was two and a half hours away. We never saw him," Doan added.
That prompted Kyle’s mother to start a petition and write a letter aimed at the SLO County Sheriff’s Office and Governor Newsom.
“The letter is basically our anger and frustration with the chief executive officer of this state totally melting down and not having answers and quite frankly, he didn't have the humility to give a straight response," Doan explained.
In an email to KSBY, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said,“The state stands ready to provide any and all available resources to continue a robust search. And that all costs associate with the search would be fully reimbursable under President Biden’s approved major disaster declaration.”
“We expected to be treated a lot better. We expected to be in on things that are going on and not kept at arm's length and we expected a straight, straight line of communication as to what's going on and the next step and that just hasn't happened. It's extremely frustrating," Doan said.
The lead agency on the search is the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
In a statement to KSBY, a sheriff’s spokesperson said, in part, “We have a large-scale search plan in place where we will be seeking outside agencies through Cal OES. This search will involve search and rescue teams, drones, and K9s. The river conditions are still an issue. The ground in that area is still so saturated we can’t get crews in to search let alone heavy machinery to dig.”
The SLO County Sheriff’s Office said an estimated date planned for this large-scale search will depend on weather and ground conditions.
