Hinde widens lead in county school board race

After an election-day scare for Aaron Hinde, his lead has widened for the Area 1 seat on the Santa Cruz County Board of Education.
A Nov. 2 election night count showed Hinde, a Bonny Doon resident and Scotts Valley chiropractor, leading by 21 votes over challenger George Martinez, with more than 20,500 vote-by-mail ballots still to be tallied countywide.
On Friday, Nov. 12, an updated vote count including mail-in ballots was released, showing the incumbent in the lead by 180 votes. Hinde tallied 6,765 votes (50.26 percent) and Martinez, 6,585 votes (48.92 percent).
There are still more than 5,500 provisional ballots to be counted countywide, though only a portion of those are from trustee Area 1, for which Hinde and Martinez battled.
The race took a noticeably partisan turn for the nonpartisan school board office. The Santa Cruz County Democratic party backed Martinez, and Hinde garnered support from the Republican Party.
Meanwhile, the race for the second of two seats on the Ben Lomond Fire District Board of directors remained close this week. Morgan Scarborough won the first seat handily, garnering 888 votes. Dave Bingham narrowly led Tom Maxson, 655 to 634 votes, in the updated tally.
In the race for two seats on the Lompico County Water District board of directors, Sherwin Gott (222 votes) and Shannar Abraham (213 votes) led incumbent Rob Hansel (182 votes).
The final vote tally must be completed by Nov. 30, according to California regulations.