A record-setting election final ended this week, as Santa Cruz County Clerk Gail Pellerin certified the results of the election held nearly one month earlier.
A record number of votes were cast: 132,165.
A record number of vote-by-mail ballots were recorded: 83,021, which also represented a record percentage of the ballots, nearly 63 percent.
The election of local, state and national leaders also featured the second highest turnout percentage – 84 percent – a little lower than the record 88 percent turnout in the 2008 presidential election.
The number of individuals registered to vote, 157,204. came within less than 1,500 potential voters of the 2012 record.
The results resolved two Scotts Valley races that had considered too close to call, as the mailed and provisional ballots were counted and checked by hand after Nov. 8.
Scotts Valley Unified School District Trustee Corey Warner’s final victory margin over Stephanie Espinola was 28 votes for a two-year seat. He and two other new board members will be sworn in next Tuesday, Dec. 13.
Alan Smith outlasted Arthur Smith (no relation) in Scotts Valley Fire Protection District balloting, as his margin slipped to 72 votes in the final days.
Scotts Valley school officials rolled the dice last week, and sent Warner with the other board members to a three-day California School Boards Association annual meeting in San Francisco, betting that he would be the victorious in the final count.
Espinola is a school district employee and would have had to quit her job in order to be sworn in, if she had been victorious.
December will be swearing-in time for local governments, school boards and fire and water districts. The December – in some cases the January – meeting also will elect the board officers, which in Scotts Valley’s case means the mayor.
The reelection of Vice Mayor Randy Johnson to a sixth four-term on the Scotts Valley City Council virtually assures his election as mayor by the council, which will have one new face, former city finance director Jack Dilles.
A majority of the board of trustees for Scotts Valley schools will be newcomers, with Sue Rains, Roger Snyder and Warner joining veteran Michael Shulman and Kim Shultz, elected to his first full term.
Shulman is the odds-on favorite to continue as board president.
