Castaic Water Board Critic Appears Poised to Upset Incumbent

By less than 1%, Ed Dunn appears to be the only challenger to have upset a four-candidate incumbent faction in the Castaic Lake Water Agency board race, according to the latest results Wednesday from the county registrar-recorder.

In the remaining three seats up for election, two incumbents and a candidate they backed each had at least a 23 percentage-point lead.

But water-board critic Dunn had a slim 83-vote lead over Division 1 incumbent Randall Pfiester. Dunn had 50.42% and Pfiester 49.58% of nearly 10,000 votes.

Dunn’s lead is still somewhat tenuous since 225,000 absentee and provisional ballots in the county need to be counted, said registrar-recorder spokeswoman Grace Chavez. Election officials did not have figures on how many ballots remain in the water agency race.

“It’s not over by any stretch of the imagination. There’s always hope,” Pfiester said. “Obviously, I’m disappointed it has come to this and I certainly expected to do a lot better.”

Pfiester, fellow incumbents Richard Balcerzak and Donald Froelich and newcomer Peter Kavounas campaigned together, saying it is necessary to purchase water now so that Santa Clarita can be prepared for growth, possibly including the planned 22,000-home Newhall Ranch project.

Four candidates, including Dunn and three members of Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE)--Cam Noltemeyer, Lynne Plambeck and Michael Kotch--campaigned together against the incumbents.

They criticized a proposed purchase of 41,000 acre-feet of water from a Kern County source for an estimated $41 million, saying it would only benefit Santa Clarita developers and was fiscally irresponsible.

Except for the race in Division 1, which includes Canyon Country and parts of Saugus, the electorate overwhelmingly sided with the incumbents.

The At-Large Division, including the 195-square-mile Castaic Lake service area, was the only race to have more than two candidates, with Brian Roney, a former county parks employee; Bob Lathrop, a retired mechanical engineer, Balcerzak and Noltemeyer.

With more than 32,000 votes tallied, Balcerzak had captured 67.17% of the electorate to Lathrop’s 17.97%, Noltemeyer’s 8% and Roney’s 6.86%.

In Division 2, which includes Newhall and parts of Valencia, with slightly more than 10,000 votes cast, Kavounas had 63.52% to Plambeck’s 36.48%.

In Division 3, which includes Castaic, Stevenson Ranch and parts of Saugus and Valencia, with about 12,750 votes cast, Froelich had 61.75% to Kotch’s 38.25%.