New, returning faces elected to Crescenta Valley Town Council
Residents of the La Crescenta-Montrose community elected new and returning representatives Friday and Saturday to fill six open seats on the Crescenta Valley Town Council.
Harry Leon, Aram Ordubegian and Brandon Lee received enough votes to secure regular seats on the council, which each have three-year terms. Residents Kyle Studebaker and Jo Ann Stupakis tied for the fourth and fifth alternate seats, with Charles Beatty voted in to fill the remaining sixth seat. Each alternative seat has a one-year term.
Kerry Lewin and Joshua Wade did not meet the voter threshold to make it on council.
A total of 279 votes were counted during the two-day voting period where residents could choose up to three candidates.
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Leon, current council vice president, ran for a third term and earned the largest percentage of votes at 28%. Leon campaigned on pushing for additional council transparency and advocating for the younger residents of the La Crescenta-Montrose area.
“It’s all a matter of helping my community,” Leon said. “I’m also very glad that we have new blood [on the council], and I’m looking forward to working with them and to make our community better.”
Garnering 19.2% of the vote, Ordubegian will transition from his previous role as a council alternate into a regular position. He is the current president of the Crescenta Valley Chamber of Commerce and ran on attracting more businesses to the neighborhood.
Ordubegian said he also hopes to continue to help the council resolve the dispute over 365 acres of land known as the Sagebrush territory, which is in the Glendale Unified School District currently but there is a push to switch it into the La Cañada Unified district.
“The alternate position was a good position for me to learn, sort of like on-the-job training,” Ordubegian said. “[The regular seat] allows me to calendar the long-term priorities of the community a little easier.”
The newest and youngest face of the council will be English teacher and recent college graduate Brandon Lee. Just 1.25% of the vote separated Lee from an alternate seat on the council, but at 11.5%, his efforts to secure scholarship opportunities for youth and address mental health issues in the community will get at least three years of attention.
After the initial feeling of what Lee referred to as “shell shock,” the results eventually settled in. Lee said that he is ready for the responsibility and will follow the leadership example of current, nonreturning council member Dr. Young Suh, an anesthesiologist.
“I’m going to be a representative of this community’s increasingly aware and racially-diverse populace,” Lee said. “I intend to reach out to neighboring councils to find lucrative opportunities for our community.”
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Jeff Landa, jeff.landa@latimes.com
Twitter: @JeffLanda
