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Orange County has WAY too many cities starting with the letter “L”…
Irvine
Mayor
Democrat Farrah Khan won with 56,300 votes (47.56%), beating Republican incumbent Christina Shea (42,735, 36.10%), Democrat Luis Huang (9,681, 8.18%), and Republican Katherine Daigle (9,653, 8.16%). Ryan supported Shea, Vern averted his eyes, and I supported Huang and Daigle as an alternative to the leaders of their respective parties. I’m made my feelings about Farrah well-known — treacherous liar, mostly, who put Republican Mike Carroll onto the City Council, was kicked off of DPOC for it, and then endorsed by them in this election (which tells you much of what you need to know about DPOC) — so I won’t elaborate further on them here … yet.
Council (3 seats — given Khan leaving Council)
Tammi Kim — whom I’ve been told is a Berniecrat, but I haven’t tried to verify that — led the race with 43,738 votes (14.81%), and will joined on the new Council by Republican Mike Carroll 38,613 votes (13.08%), and Democrat Emperor PalpAgrane (38,153, 12.92%), who narrowly beat Lauren Johnson-Norris (37,930, 12.84%) for the final seat. Republican John Park finished fifth (32,516. 11.01%), followed by nine others sharing the remaining 36%. OJB stood behind Johnson-Norris, with Greg also supporting Park (while ruling out Carroll, Agran, and Park), and Ryan wishing Agran on Irvine like some sort of malevolent curse. Combined with Anthony Kuo, the new Council seems like it will have an odd triple majority of Khan, Agran, and Carroll. (The drama will occur when Agran tries to take charge.)
Laguna Beach (2 open seats)
The incumbents went in diverging directions: Bob Whalen finished first among five with 6,441 votes (24.59%) while Steve Dicterow finished last with 3,540 (13.51%). The second winner was George Weiss with 5,665 (21.63%), nosing out Ruben Flores with 5,534 (21.13%), and Larry Nokes with 5,014 (19.14%). Dicterow was disfavored by OJB, Weiss was the Lavender Dems choice, while Greg leaned towards Whalen and either Nokes or and Flores; DPOC went with Weiss and Nokes, so we each get one win. DPOC, Lavender Dems, and Greg also supported Ann Marie McKay, won the City Clerk seat.
Laguna Hills
Incumbent Janine Hunt and former Sheriff’s candidate Bill Hunt each beat Nick Wood by about a 30% margin.
Laguna Niguel
Greg endorsed Shani Moslehi, Stephanie Oddo, and Sherry Astrella, in that order, for three open seats. That went badly: they finished 5th, 4th, and 6th — with Oddo getting 11,360 votes, a little below 14%. Sandy Rains picked up about 20.5%, Rischi Paul Sharma got 19%, and Kelly Jennings got 15,313 votes, or about 18.7%. Two others lagged. So that’s the latest from Nuevo Viejo.
Laguna Woods
As Greg advised, the incumbents were elected. The winners — Noel Hatch, Shari Horne, and Cynthia Conners — averaged about 19.5%; the two others got about 13.3%.
La Habra
OJB-endorsed incumbent Rose Espinoza won the first of three seats with 28.8%. Non-endorsed incumbent Tim Shaw got 23%. Non-endorsed Steve Simonian beat endorsed Peter Cruz for the final seat, 22.3% to 15%, while Michael Navarro got 10.9%.
Lake Forest
Seat 1
In the second-closest race in OC, musical Marine Douglas Cirbo got 1,976 votes, besting mathematical mentor Chris McDonald by 22 votes. That’s a margin of 0.26%. Three others trailed.
Seat 5
Robert Pequeño beat four competitors with 56.3%. OJB did not endorse in the race, but endorses him retroactively.
La Palma
Little La Palma had three seats open … and one of our most vigorous endorsement discussions. Vern strongly promoted Marshall Goodman, who finished first with almost 4,700 votes — almost 27%. Greg was convinced. Our other three possible favored hopefuls — April Kamilah Bagasao Bautista, Taylor H.W. Quan, and Emanual Aparicio — fared rather more poorly, succumbing to Debbie Baker and Mark Waldman, who straddled 20% while AKBB got just under 15%.
Los Alamitos
OC’s enhancement of Texas’s El Alamo instituted districts this year, with one great result.
District 1
One of OJB’s favorite local politicians, Tanya Doby, beat racist incumbent Dean Grose — which is why she’s now among our favorites.
District 2
Ron Bates lapped Greg-endorsed Kate Hallman with 2/3 of the vote.
District 3
Jordan B. Nefulda ran unopposed — and got 100% of the vote. Not everyone can do that!
Mission Viejo
Incumbents Trish Kelley and Brian Goodell respectively received almost 30% and 29% of the vote, with Cathy Schlict coming closest to them with 11% and five others trailing. Our picks did not fare well, but, you know — it’s Mission Viejo.
Newport Beach
District 2
Incumbent Brad Avery beat our endorsee Nancy Scarbrough with 60% of the vote.
District 5
OJB-endorsed Incumbent Jeff Herdman — the best of the lot on the Council — lost to challenger Noah Blom, who also got 60% of the vote. Watching our endorsed candidates lose in Newport solidifies our belief that we made the right choices!
District 7
Will O’Neill won unopposed, but will get to lose next year when he runs for Supervisor.
A couple of notes on Irvine:
Farrah Khan was not removed from.the DPOC, she resigned.
Tammy Kim is a Bernie supporter.
Point well taken — but she resigned in the face of imminent removal, like Nixon.
I know that you don’t speak for CAIR, but your comment reminds me that CAIR should be looking much more closely at her record of lies and cover-ups, never more evident than now. The Muslim leaders we’ve had in this county have been quite good — over the past decade have been — with the exception of Melahat, now Farrah’s at least part-time mentor — and when subject status becomes a shield against legitimate criticism and accountability, it does not help the group they use as their shield.