Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : ELECTIONS / SANTA CLARITA CITY COUNCIL : Smyth Edges Out Klajic by 16 Votes for 3rd Seat

In a City Council race with about 30,000 votes cast, a retired high school district superintendent has edged out an incumbent by 16 votes.

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H. Clyde Smyth was declared the winner over Jill Klajic on Thursday morning after 174 outstanding ballots were tallied.

The uncounted forms were absentee ballots and provisional votes--those cast by residents not listed on their precinct’s voting rolls but believed to be registered--turned in to Santa Clarita polling places Tuesday. Seventeen other ballots were submitted but declared invalid.

“Now the hard work begins,” Smyth, 62, said minutes after watching the vote count at Santa Clarita’s temporary city offices. “It was an awfully close race. I would’ve liked to have had a much larger turnout.”

Only 16% of Santa Clarita’s 65,287 registered voters came to the polls, the lowest turnout in the city’s six-year history. Each of the 10,426 residents could vote for three of the race’s 13 candidates.

Klajic, who did not attend the vote count Thursday, said she won’t request a recount.

“Let the chips fall where they may,” she said. “I don’t want to cause any more money (to be spent) or trouble.’

Smyth’s victory came 36 hours after incumbents Jo Anne Darcy and Carl Boyer were announced as the race’s top vote-getters.

Smyth’s election-night lead of eight votes was precarious, with 191 ballots needing to have signatures verified. Klajic and Smyth had traded their hold on the third seat throughout the evening, and the incumbent was leading in the absentee ballot count.

Neither candidate was predicting victory before the votes were counted Thursday.

“We thought if the trend held, we would still win but it would be close,” Smyth said. “Jill had done stronger than us on the absentee ballots.”

Klajic said she will stay active in Santa Clarita issues, including the fight against a proposed dump in Elsmere Canyon.

The only council member to support a growth-control measure two years ago and a regular advocate of environmental concerns over business ones, Klajic expressed concern that the new council will strongly support development.

Although labeled pro-development in contrast to Klajic, Smyth said he only supports balanced growth.

Darcy easily won her third term in office, earning 5,460 votes or 18.7% of the tally. More than half of the voters cast one of their votes for Darcy.

Boyer placed a solid second for his third term with 4,216 votes or 14.4% of those cast.