This had better be the last installment, because these photos are getting more and more disturbing.
Part 3 of this review of election results will follow OJB’s Guide to Your Whole Freakin’ Ballot, starting down with “Community College Board” races. (Just search on the word “Labrado,” and it will put you right near the right spot.) Our Guide (in its October and November forms) received a combined over 4000 page views, which is pretty good for us.
By the time you’re done with some of the entries here, you may want to know more about provisional voting procedures; you’ll find the info you want at that link. If you’ve moved within the city, your City Council votes will count. Here’s the rule you’ll most need to know:
Voters who are not on the polling place roster for an unknown reason. Should this occur, the elections official will check the county’s official registration records after Election Day. If the voter was properly registered to vote in the county and in the precinct in which they voted, their provisional ballot will be counted. If the voter was registered to vote at another address in the county, their votes will be counted in the races they voted on as if they were voting in their home precinct (i.e., their votes for U.S. President, statewide, and countywide measures will be counted, but their votes in a city council race may not be counted if the precinct they’re registered in is in a different city council district than the one in which they cast a ballot). If the voter is not registered to vote or is registered to vote in another county or state, their ballot will not be counted in part or in whole. (Elections Code section 14310(c)(3).
Now, we’re off to the races!
School Boards
Community College Boards
Coastline, Seat 5: David Grant beats Joel Flores with 67.9%.
Rancho Santiago, Seat 4: Larry Labrado Sr. gets 53.4% to beat Trung Quang Nguyen and Robert Douglas.
South OC, Seat 4: Nancy Padberg beats Quinlan Rakin with 69.7%.
Unified School Boards
Brea-Olinda Unified: OJB endorsed newcomer Carrie Flanders becomes the highest vote-getter with 20.9% — displacing, unfortunately, OJB-endorsed incumbent Alicia Maciel, who had 13.6%, 2.6% behind fourth-place Joe Rollino.
Capistrano Unified: In Seat 4, Marthan McNicholas beat Craig Alexander with 58.1%. In Seat 6, Gila Jones beat incumbent Ellen Addonizio with 58.9%. In Seat 7, incumbent Lynn Hatton beat Julie Collier with 52.4%. My understanding is that each of the winners was supported by the Teachers Union. It would be hard to overstate what a dramatic reversal this represents on the Capo School Board, which was a contentious disaster not long ago, in just a few election cycles.
Irvine Unified: Incumbents Democrat Sharon Wallin and Republican Ira Glasky ran as a de facto slate, holding off Republican Bob Vu. Wallin got 39.4%; Glasky got 37.6%. This race was very contentious within Democratic ranks, but it’s not that interesting a story.
Laguna Beach Unified: Incumbent Ketta Brown, Dee Namba Perry, and Carol Normandin won; Annette Gibson, with 18.5% of the vote, didn’t.
Los Alamitos Unified: Incumbent Republicans Jeffrey Barke and Diana Hill beat Cathy Larson (who lost by 10%) and Greg Shellenbergar (who lost by more).
Newport-Mesa Unified: In Seat 1, appointed incumbent Vicki Snell got 69.1% against Steve Smith for this short-term seat. In Seat 2, (Katrina Foley’s old seat), Charlene Metoyer beat Michael Collier with 69.3%. In Seat 7, incumbent Walt Davenport got 56.5% against the relatively evenly matched Lisa Manfredi and Fidel Mora.
Orange Unified: In Seat 4, Kathy Moffat got 61.4% against two challengers. In Seat 5, Tim Surridge fended off a challenge from Florice Hoffman with 53.7%. In Seat 7, Rick Ledesma got 57.2% against who challengers, the lesser of whom was Steve Rocco.
Placentia/Yorba Linda Unified: Incumbents Carrie Buck and Karin Freeman scored in the mid-30% rangle against Brenda McCune (17.1%) and Jim Brunette (12.5%).
Saddleback Valley Unified: Incumbents Dolores Winchell and Dennis Walsh both got about 40% against challenger C.J. Brower’s 20.5%.
Santa Ana Unified: As expected, John Palacios was reelected as the top vote-getter with 25.2%. The second seat isn’t quite settled. Valerie Amezcua is leading Shuntelle Andrews by 337 votes, 14.6% to 13.6%, with five others training. Unless there are a boatload of provisionals favoring Andrews, Amezcua should be safe.
Tustin Unified: Incumbents Lynn Davis and Jonathan Abelove roughly doubled the scores of Michael Jones and David Yang, with Elias Teferi lagging well back.
High School Boards
Anaheim Union HSD: In Seat 1, appointed incumbent Al Jabbar is hovering right at 50.0%, defeating Maureen Christensen (29%) and newcomer Linda Lobatos (21%). In Seat 2, incumbent Annemarie Randle-Trejo fended off a spirited challenge from former Trustee Thomas “Hoagy” Holguin, 38.0% to 33.4%, and less spirited challenges from Roberto Baeza (18.6%) and Eleazar Elizondo (10.0%).
Fullerton Union HSD: Incumbents Robert Hathaway (20.2%), and Robert A Singer (18.4%) and Marilyn Buchi (17.0%) fended off a more spirited challenge than they may have expected, primarily from OJB-endorsed Joanne Fawley (14.6%) and MJ Noor (14.3%), with Zina Gleason at 8.9% and Ho Jeong Lim at 6.6%. The incumbents will now have been there forever plus four years.
Huntington Beach Union HSD: Bonnie Castrey and Kathleen Iverson both got around 22%, appointed incumbent Duane Dishno got about 20%, and Cathey Ryder, Janis Mantini, and Matthew Westwell finished in that order.
Elementary School Boards:
Anaheim City SD: Incumbent Jeffrey Cole won reelection with 22.5% of the vote. Ryan Ruelas came in second with 20.3%; D.R. Heywood received 19.6%. All three had the DPOC endorsement. Baezista Esther Castillo got 14.2%, Cecilia Lopez (favored by Dr. Moreno) got 13.8%, and Carlos Llanos brought up the rear. This election is interesting because Ruelas is from what we’ll call the Dr. Moreno wing of the Democratic Party and Heywood is from the Brandman wing — in fact, I’ve heard him described as “Jordan, but with more brains and scruples” — meaning that he favored Kris Murray this year. This may not be the last time the two run for multiple slots in an election.
Centralia SD: This district is the one where a Republican incumbent, Lisa Jordan, pulled out of the race late in the game (reportedly in favor of Jordan Brandman protege Connor Traut, whom I call “Simon the Likeable”), and another Republican incumbent, Irv Trinkle, entered the race at the last minute, and a third incumbent, Kevin Sequeira, was removed from the Board shortly before the election but then ran for reelection anyway. Into the mix add Henry Charoen, who was chased out of the race against Young Kim, and old liberal union lion Art Montez. Let’s just cut to the chase: the entirely inexperienced Traut finished first with 25.3% of the vote, then Charoen with 20.9%, then Montez with 19.6%. Sequeira, with 18.9%, is down only 112 votes and presumably still has a chance — but this is a pretty small district so that number may be larger than it seems. Trinkle received 15.3%.
Cypress SD: For three open seats, incumbent Steve Blount won with a little over 25%, just ahead of challenger Lydia Sondhi. As for the other half of the vote: challenger Sandra Lee got almost 33% and Valeri Peters Wagner, lost out with only 17%. There’s probably an interesting story behind that result if someone who isn’t me wants to pursue it.
Fountain Valley SD: For three seats, incumbent Sandra Crandall got 31.5% and Lisa Schultz got 26.0%. The third seat may go into overtime. Jim Cunneen has 21.4% of the vote compared to 21.1% for Gary Stine. That’s a 96-vote margin and, obviously, it’s favorable but not secure.
Fullerton SD: The three incumbents were supposed to face Daniel Halkyard, but the race does not show up so I guess he didn’t qualify.
Huntington Beach City SD: Three seats to fill. Challenger Paul Morrow took the gold in this race with 27.1%. Incumbents Rosemary Saylor (23.1%) and Shari Kowalke (20.2%) won the other two seats. Rob Fishel and Brian Donahue finished in that order with just above and below a respectable 15%.
La Habra SD: Lots of sturm und drang in our comments about this race for three seats. Longtime teacher Ida MacMurray did not want to run on a slate with Ida MacMurray fellow Democrats Ofelia Corona Hanson and Cynthia Aguirre, due to what I expect were “go paddle your own canoe” reasons. Kevin Jacobson and Suzette Ornelas-Medina filed at the last minute. They finished in the order in which they are listed above. Aguirre is 142 votes ahead of Jacobson, but that ordering seems unlikely to change.
Magnolia SD: Another incumbent loses, another story someone else can pursue! Barbara Quintana led the pack with 27.4% followed by Esther Wallace with 23.1%, but Gary Shields slipped past Clifford E Breeden Jr by about 250 votes, 19.6% to 17.6%. Forrest Turpen ended up about 5% further back.
Ocean View SD: And here, two incumbents lose, landing in positions 2, 4, and 6 for three seats. Jack Souders came in first with 22.2%; followed by John Briscoe with 18.9% and Joseph Gaglione with 17.4%. Incumbent Tracy Pellman trailed with 16.7%; followed by Norm Westwell and John Ortiz.
Savanna SD: Someone — the Register, the Weekly, the Voice — held out this school district as one where the incumbents hadn’t even been challenged for decaes. So, John Novak challenged Linda Weinstock, Edward Erdtsieck, and John Shook. He lost, but did pretty well, with 20.5% of the vote to Shook’s 22.7% — 138 votes. Weinstock led with 32%.
Westminster SD: Incumbents Penny Loomer and Mary Mangold won easily, and will be jpined by late filer Khanh Nguyen, who had 20.9% of the vote. Bao Anh “Samantha” Nguyen finished out of the money with 13.9%, followed by incumbent David Bridgewaters and Justin Weiler.
And that’s it for education!
Special Districts
Water Boards
It was not a good year for reform candidates for Water Board — although we did learn how much powerful special interests would spend to keep their people in power, and one of the reform candidates played a significant role in determining the victor in a multi-candidate race. Let’s start with the Big Two:
Municipal Water District of Orange County (which wholesales water to county agencies):
In Seat 1, your intrepid Orange Juice Blog Managing Editor took on otherwise-to-be-unopposed incumbent Brett Barbre. All told, I believe that I’ll have spent about $2300. My ballot statement, which cost about $2100 of that, apparently went out to 154,422 voters, of whom 61,908 voted — about 40.1%. They read 200 words of my platform attacking Poseidon and fracking, and favoring transparency and keeping lobbyists out of government. (I did not mention Barbre by name, because I couldn’t, but I did point out his flaws elsewhere.) No slate mailers, nothing else except the spot I was entitled to as an endorsed Democratic Party candidate. Let’s just count how much it cost me to reach the people who voted — about 3.4 cents apiece. And people largely would have READ those candidate statements with interests. For a political activist, where else can you get that good of a deal? Some people like making fun of me for losing elections — and more so for not even campaigning much — but as an act of political activism this feels pretty damn good to me! Brett Barbre currently has 66.9% of the vote; I expect to be back up to 33.4% before this is over. I’ll take spending $2300 to get over 20,000 votes while getting people to read a persuasive message any day. More people should run for office for the platform it provides — all you really have to be is unafraid of losing. (And one of these times I’m going to raise money and take winning seriously, and that will be even more fun than being a sacrificial lamb.)
Seat 5 was a four-person race that ended with each candidate receiving between 28.7% and 20.4%. My guy — my friend (and now I can say “client,” Ron Varasteh — had the 20.4%. He was the only Democrat running and the only candidate to oppose Poseidon — but also the only one without the word “water” in his ballot designation, which dragged him down. The 28.7% belonged to Satoru Tamaribuchi, whom we sued because he was claiming to be a transparency advocate while completely hiding his continuing association with the Irvine Company, of which he is a former Vice-President. We both sort of like Tamaribuchi, although he’s awfully thin-skinned about getting sued and came after us for attorney fees and costs of his suit. (We won that contest.) The reason that Ron got into the race was to try to block Execrable Dave Ellis from taking power. We were able to get his ballot designation changed from “Businessman/Water Consultant” (which we argued suggested some sort of technical engineering expertise), but the Judge still let him keep “Water District Consultant.” He bragged on Facebook that that was an even better designation than what he has chosen; I doubt it, but if so it means that he really should have lost by more than he did. He ended up with 26.6% — and Ron’s attacks on him in mailers were probably worth quite a few votes. So: you’re welcome, Orange County! The fourth candidate, El Toro Water District Board Member Jose Vergara, seemed like a nice guy — but not one inclined to bludgeon Ellis himself. Some things you just have to leave to the activists, I guess. Vergara got 24.3%.
Orange County Water District (a retailer for most of the county, except South of Irvine)
Seat 1: Termed out Garden Grove Councilwoman Dina Nguyen won this seat with 45.8% of the vote to Zack Barrett’s 42.1%. Our gal Robin Peace Marcario got 12.1%, though I believe that that was without a ballot statement.
Seat 5: This seat has been represented by Stephen “Son of Lou” Sheldon, a big supporter of Poseidon. He was challenged by Newport Beach City Councilwoman Leslie Daigle. Some powerful interests spent a few thousand or more to beat her. Sheldon got 57.3% of the vote; Daigle got 28.0%. Two other women, Allise Phillips and Dorothy Malsack were late entries into the race, and we at OJB Central HQ believe that they were recruited into the race to dilute the anti-Sheldon women’s vote. They got a combined 14.7%. We’ll cover the expenditures in the race once they become clear after they are reported — presuming that they are reported.
Seat 7: This seat covers Costa Mesa and parts of Fountain Valley, Newport Beach, and Irvine. Incumbent Shawn Dewane faced termed-out, good-government-supporting, Costa Mesa Councilwoman Wendy Leece. Dewane beat her with 63.4% of the vote — but again someone had to spend some serious money to do it. Not the $3000 we know that they spent on Sheldon — try $21,000 that we know of! Wendy Leece is scary! And Shawn Dewane is obviously pretty valuable to whoever put in that money. And we think we know who that was.
California Water Districts
OC has four of these: the El Toro, Irvine Ranch, Moulton Niguel, and Santa Margarita Water Districts, covering most of the land in South OC that wasn’t incorporated before 1970.
El Toro WD had no election.
Irvine Ranch WD is reelected incumbents Douglas Reinhart, Steven LaMar, and Peer Swan, who scored in the mid-to-high-20s. Challengers Boyd Schultz and Shane Jagow got about 14% and a little under 10%. The incumbents all endorsed Tamaribuchi, which was probably among the best tools that he had against Ellis.
Moulton Niguel WD Seat 4 saw incumbent Laurence Lizotte get 58.6% over Cal Olson and Julie Dean Larsen.
Santa Margarita WD incumbents Saundra Frances Jacobs and Justin McCusker both scored in the low 40%s against Stanislaw Dziecielski. It’s really hard to defeat an incumbent water board member.
County Water Districts
Then we have six County water districts: the East Orange County, Mesa Consolidated, South Coast, Trabuco Canyon, and Yorba Linda Water Districts, and the Rossmoor/Los Alamitos Area Sewer District.
East OC WD elects three at-large directors. It was quite close — and arguably the finally winner could still change. Incumbents Richard Bell, and John Dulebohn got 27.9% and 24.6%; appointed incumbent Sy Everett got 24.2% to challenger Douglas Chapman’s 23.3%. That’s about a 250-vote margin — but it’s probably bulletproof because fewer people vote for Water Board.
Mesa Consolidated WD; In Division 4, incumbent James Atkinson beat Ron Amburgey with 57.3%.
South Coast WD has two open seats. Bill Green and Dennis Erdman tallied 36.4% and 21.1% to beat an incumbent, Bob Moore, who got 15.6%. Richard Gardner and Norm Denton followed close behind.
The other boards did not have competitive races this year.
Other Special Districts
We’ll add information on the other Special Districts soon. For now, let’s look at the Ballot measures.
County and City Ballot Measures
County Measures
The County had two ballot measures. Measure E, a fake reform asking the FPPC to take over County Ethics enforcement, passed with 56.4%. Measure G, designed to ensure that no Democrats sneak onto the Board of Supervisors if someone splits early, passed with 70.8%.
Bond Measures
Four school bonds were presented this year — and two of them are among the closest races in the county. And few seem to realize that!
You see, a school bond doesn’t require a simple majority to pass, but a supermajority of 55%. And that figure seems to have been well-designed to wrack school bond proponents in OC. Take a look.
Measure H, the School Bond for the Anaheim Union High School District, passed with 57.8% of the vote.
Measure I, the School Bond for the Fullerton Joint Union High School District, passed with 58.3% of the vote.
Measure J, the School Bond for North Orange County Community College District, is currently FAILING with 54.4% of the vote. Of its current 133,028 vote total, it would need 73,166 votes to pass — but it has only 72,353. If there are 140,000 votes in all, the number needed to pass would be 77,000 — meaning that it would need 4,647 of the next 6,972 votes. That’s about 66.7% — not likely. If there are 150,000 votes in all, it would need 82,500 to pass, meaning getting 10,147 out of the next 16,982 votes. That’s 59.7% — much more doable. But it won’t likely matter because there aren’t likely 16,000 more votes coming in this race. They have to hope that there are lots of provisionals and that the voters casting them just overwhelmingly just love love love school bonds.
Measure K is the School Bond for the Orange Unified School District. This one is currently FAILING with 54.2% of the vote. (Makes you wonder how they came up with 55% as the threshold, doesn’t it?) This race currently has 43,501 votes cast, so they’d need 23,926 to pass and they only have 23,563. (Orange is, unsurprisingly, smaller than NOCCCD.) If they had another 1499 votes (for a total of 45,000), they’d need 24,740. I’ll leave the rest of the math as an exercise for the reader, but it doesn’t look like it will pass.
Anaheim Measures
Measure L, the districting measure, has 68.4% of the vote. I don’t know what the best hopes of Eric Altman were — he’s the former OCCORD Director who managed the “L&M” campaign — but they can’t have been much higher than that.
Measure M, the increase in the size of the City Council to 6 + 1 Mayor, is leading with 53.4% of the vote, which looks quite safe for now.
Measure N, the Utility Tax ripoff that Denis Fitzgerald opposed and our Ryan Cantor recently took apart, is losing with 49.2% of the vote. That translates to a margin of 585 votes. It will probably lose … but not necessarily. It depends on how the provisionals break. It’s a close race to watch.
Costa Mesa Measures
Measure O, the Righeimer Charter v.2.0, is getting righteously hammered, receiving only 36.4% of the vote.
Measure P is passing with about 54%, but who cares? It’s so badly worded that no one knows what it means.
Selected Other Measures
We’re only going to cover the ones that have gotten press. For the full list, check … somewhere else.
Measure T, “Safe and Sane” Fireworks for Huntington Beach, is passing with 61% of the vote. Well, if it burns down some of that new development….
Everyone supported Irvine’s Meansure V on Fiscal Transparency — and it’s getting 88.9% of the vote.
Not everyone supported Irvine’s Measure W, establishing term limits — so it’s getting only 74.5% of the vote.
RSM’s Measure Z is going down with 45.1% of the vote. Perhaps this has something to do with Petrilla’s loss.
Santa Ana’s Measure AA, which Occupy Santa Ana finally figured out is a ripoff, is passing with 76.2%.
Both of Santa Ana’s medical marijuana measures are passing, but the City’s Measure BB is outpolling the dispensaries Measure CC. It’s almost 4,000 votes ahead. I know that it’s disappointing to Measure CC proponents, because this means that only BB will go into effect, but better both pass than neither.
Stanton’s new tax, Measure GG, is passing with 54.8% of the vote. Now we’ll see how good of a prophet Kevin Carr is.
Through Measure II, Villa Park also passed fireworks with 56.0%. We’ll see how that works, folks!
And with that — we’re done!
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