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City Council, School Board Too Close to Call

First published in the Nov. 12 print issue of the Burbank Leader.

The race for three City Council seats is too close to call with just a 161-vote gap between environmental advocate Tamala Takahashi in third place and incumbent Sharon Springer who currently holds fourth place. In a historic first, women will outnumber men on the panel by a ratio of 3-2.
Nikki Perez and Zizette Mullins currently lead with 10,730 votes and 9,462 votes respectively at the time of the Leader’s publishing deadline at 5 p.m. on Nov. 11. Behind them are Tamala Takahashi with 9,283 votes and Incumbent Sharon Springer with 9,122 votes. Carmenita Helligar currently has 6,037 votes.
Three of these five candidates will take seats on the council joining Vice Mayor Konstantine Anthony and Councilman Nick Schultz.
The race for two BUSD School Board seats is also neck in neck. Incumbent Board President Char Tabet holds the lead with 6,475 votes. She is trailed by Abby Pontzer Kamkar with 6,313 votes, Larry Applebaum with 5,798 votes, and Brian Smith with 5,461 votes. Candidates Harutyun Ketikyan, James Morrison and Michael Morgan share less than 22% of the total vote collectively.
Burbank voters were more decisive in the race for City Clerk. Kimberly Clark currently leads opponents Viviana Garzon and Jamal El-Amin by about 20%.

Image courtesy of lavote.gov

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat, will not be unseated this election cycle. He currently leads his opponent Maebe A. Girl by about 45%. Burbank’s Assemblywoman Laura Friedman leads her race by about 37%.
“There’s lots of theories about how remaining votes will break, but I think it’s really tough to predict that outstanding ballots will swing in any particular or outstanding way. There are too many variable dynamics that differ from race to race,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin in a tweet.
Los Angeles County plans to release result updates every Tuesday and Friday until Dec. 2. It is possible the outcome of many races will not be clear until each vote is tallied. Countywide, 5,627,796 Angelenos were registered to vote at the beginning of the election cycle. Ballots cast early in vote-by-mail precincts were counted in the first bulletin, and officials are still tabulating ballots cast on election day.
Preliminary nationwide midterm election results spell a close battle for House and Senate majorities. In Los Angeles, the much-publicized contest between developer Rick Caruso and U.S. Rep. Karen Bass for mayor was also a close race with the prior pulling ahead Wednesday. Bass so far has 50.38% of the vote and Caruso trails with 49.62%.
In the race for L.A. County Sheriff, Robert Luna has a significant early lead over incumbent Alex Villanueva with 58.38% of votes.
Though many votes are left to be counted in the midterms, the Associated Press called the governor’s race early, with Gavin Newsom the clear winner of a second term Tuesday night.
Another early victory was for Alex Padilla, who became the first Latino to be elected to U.S. Senate, after being appointed by Newsom to the seat to replace former Sen. Kamala Harris, who was elected vice president two years ago.
California voters also approved Proposition 1, a measure that guarantees abortion rights in the state’s constitution.
For more information and updates about the election, visit lavote.gov.

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