Early Election Returns Provide a Glance

at the Future of Santa Cruz County

Election results will linger for the next month as our election officer and her staff continues to count ballots.  The early mail-in ballots and from election night tallies make me think about the famous Yogi Berra qoute,  “It ain’t over till it’s over.”   

What we see from these early results in Santa Cruz County is a voting trend that tells us the community is ready for change.  In this article, we will focus only on a few local county election results to underscore the significant wins by candidates and loses on ballot measures.  Here in Santa Cruz County, we are fortunate that two online media outlets have done an excellent job reporting the up-to-the-minute election coverage.  Santa Cruz Local — Santa Cruz Local Election coverage and Lookout Santa Cruz —https://lookout.co/santacruz/ have presented us with an easy access and a detailed overview of each election result. We know that early returns are only a first glance at the election night results and we must not judge these voting tallies as the final so we are very cautious to predict the final outcome in some races.

Let’s begin with the two Santa Cruz City ballot measure - Measures N and Measure O.  In early returns, it appears that both measures are going down to defeat.

Measure N — The Empty Home Tax is losing bynearly a two-to-one margin.  If the percentageholds, the idea of taxing a homeowner for a vacant property for 120 days or more does not happen. 

Yes — 2806 (37%)

No —  4778 (63%) 

Measure O - Downtown Library and Affordable Housing Project Measure where a Yes vote would result in ending a nearly seven year public process to build a library, affordable housing and adequate parking for the downtown residents and businesses.  A No vote says let’s move forward with the project. 

Yes — 3430 (42.24%)

No —  4691 (57.76 %) 

Santa Cruz City Council and Mayor vote.  The early results give Fred Keeley an unsurmountable lead of 3 to 1.  It will be nearly impossible for the vote tally to completely flip.  
 

Santa Cruz City Council, Mayor (vote for 1)

Santa Cruz City Council, District 4 (vote for 1)

Santa Cruz City Council, District 6 (vote for 1)

It appears the outcome of these two city council district races will give the next city council a solid support for more affordable housing development in the downtown based on their comments during the campaign.

Our two open seats on the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors pitted two Santa Cruz City Council members against each other in District 3. Both candidates have a strong presence in advocating for policies that can impact our county in the next several years.  The race is too close to call at this early stage, however, it appears that Shebreh Kalantari-Johnson leads by 8 points.

Santa Cruz County Supervisor, District 3 (vote for 1)

If either candidate wins it will be a first for Santa Cruz County to have a woman of color or a black man on the board. 

The Santa Cruz County Supervisor 4th District is also a close race with early results showing that Felipe Hernandez has nearly a 10 percentage point lead on Jimmy Dutra.  Thisis a flip from the primary election results where Dutra was the leading voter getter.  We’ll have to see if this vote margin holds.
 

In the Watsonville City Council races three, of the council district (District 3, 4 and 5) races did not have opponents;  Maria Orozco, Kristal Salcido and Casey Clark will be seated as council member in December.
 

The other city council race in District 7 is  too close to call with incumbent Ari Parker holding less than 2 percentlead and a 10 vote difference over Nancy Bilicich.  

Watsonville City Council, District 7 (vote for 1)

The Scotts Valley City Council race presented an intriguing match up between two incumbents,  longtime council member Jim Reed and Derek Timm and a newcomer to the political stage, Allan Timms (no relation to Derek), however the two Timm and Timms campaigned together.  The early returns show Derek Timm with 7 point lead over Allan Timms and 10 point lead over Jim Reed. 

Scotts Valley City Council (vote for 2)

The City of Capitola council race had a larger field with 5 candidates facing off for three seats on the council.  It appears from the early returns that incumbent Yvette Lopez Brooks (24.39%) leads second place candidate, Joe Clark (20.58%) by 4 points and the three other candidates Enrique Dolmo, Jr., Alexander Pedersen and Gerry Jensen tightly packed with 18% of the vote.  The margin between the candidates is too close to call.

Capitola City Council (vote for 3)

Two other races that the Santa Cruz County Chamber has been following is the Soquel Creek Water District race where three incumbents were leading the vote tally over two other candidates.  The second race — one that very few folks follow is the Santa Cruz Port District Commission where two long time incumbents appear to be in line to return to the commission.

Soquel Creek Water District (vote for 3)

Santa Cruz Port District Commissioner (vote for 2)

There are many other races of interest throughout Santa Cruz County and the Santa Cruz City High and Middle School Bond (K) and Elementary School Bond (L) both have a strong showing over the 55% threshold for passing. 

K: City of Santa Cruz High School and Middle School Bond - 55% to pass

L: City of Santa Cruz Elementary School Bond - 55% to pass

In other ballot measures the early results show the City of Santa Cruz Hotel tax (TOT) has garnered 77% of the vote. The City of Watsonville sales Tax has captured 64% of the vote. Also, the competing Urban Limit Line Ballot Measures  Q and S both are leading with Q at 67% and S with a narrow lead at 50.72% Yes and 49.28% No vote.

In the following eNews articles we’ll continue to follow other Santa Cruz County races for US House of Representatives, State Assembly races as well and update our readers on the local races and new vote tallies comingforward.