Mendocino County Clerk-Recorder-Assessor-Registrar of Voters Katrina Bartolomie told the Supervisors on Tuesday that she had finished the certification of the November 5 election and overall, the turnout was down by a few percentage points from previous presidential elections.
Ms. Bartolomie didn’t offer any guesses as to why the turnout was down, but we suspect that it has something to do with the less than inspirational national Harris-Walz campaign that didn’t distinguish itself from Biden in any significant way, especially including the terrible War on Gaza, thus producing a lower than average overall turnout of Democrats, even the ardent ones that make up so much of the Mendo electorate.
There were no big surprises in the final local results except in the Willits City Council race where third place switched from a narrow victory for Robin Leier to a narrow victory for Willits High math teacher Matt Alaniz. it remains to be seen if Alaniz’s election will affect the controversies swirling around the City of Willits these days and whether Alaniz will support whatever the other newly elected Willits Councilpersons, including former Sheriff Tom Allman, propose to do.
In all the other local elections the outcomes didn’t change.
Ukiah City Council incumbent Doug Crane was re-elected along with newcomer and County Health staffer Heather Criss to the Ukiah City Council. Former 2nd District Supervisor candidate Jacob Brown, who was also running for the Ukiah City council, came in last in that relatively close six-person race.
In Fort Bragg, incumbent Lindy Peters was re-elected by a comfortable margin and newcomer Scott Hockett came in second for the two seats that were up for election.
Neither of the local fire service tax measures — in Albion and in the Ukiah Valley — got the two-thirds majorities they needed to pass.
We are so blessed to have a fantastic Clerk Recorder Assessor like Ms. Bartolomie.
Hi Mark,
While I appreciate your commitment to writing about our local elections, I would appreciate it if you could please give me attribution since I am the photographer that made this photo. I am a reporter for The Mendocino Voice and Bay City News, and we need an email or some sort of request before you can use these photos. At least having my name or our newspaper’s name would have been more conscientious.
Thank you and let me know if you have questions. sydney@baycitynews.com
Sydney