Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/david-benavides/)
The real estate consultant and former city planning commissioner was leading former city planner Manny Escamilla by 150 votes in Tuesday’s update, and there appeared to be too few left in play to change Bacerra’s winning position.
Manny Escamilla narrowed his gap behind Phil Bacerra from 6 percentage points on election night 1.1 points Friday. Vote counting continues Tuesday.
Phil Bacerra, a real estate consultant and former city planning commissioner, held on to his lead for a City Council seat in the third day of election results Thursday, as former city planner Manny Escamilla closed in slightly, from 2.4 percentage points to 2.0 points behind Bacerra.
Vote counting will continue through at least Friday.
It’s still early; in last year’s primary election, almost half of all ballots in Orange County were not yet counted at of the end of election night.
Voters are deciding on a council member who will potentially impact key decisions on local issues like the ongoing homelessness crisis and complaints about slow 9-1-1 response times.
Santa Ana City Attorney Sonia Carvalho adjourned Tuesday’s city council meeting in the middle of public comment while people were still waiting — some for four hours — to address a half-empty dais.
City officials say they need the extra $63 million to maintain existing service levels and fix aging infrastructure. Most of the increase apparently would go toward maintaining existing services and the pension cost increases for the existing workforce and retirees.
Most of the council moved toward placing a sales tax increase on the November ballot, but didn’t explain what the tens of millions of extra dollars would be used for.
The suit seeks to ban the city from holding any more at-large elections for City Council members, and require the city to adopt “fairly constituted districts” that don’t dilute Asian American voting power.