Frutos and Springer take lead in race for two seats on Burbank City Council
Incumbent Bob Frutos and challenger Sharon Springer appeared to win two vacant seats on the Burbank City Council Tuesday evening, with the first of 11,142 ballots tallied, although results will not be official until Friday.
The two candidates were challenged by 11-year incumbent David Gordon and challenger Juan Guillen.
Frutos, a retired police officer, was first elected to the council in 2013.
He ran to keep his seat to bring “workable solutions” to complex issues facing the city, he said earlier this year, describing himself as a critical thinker and listener.
Frutos received 6,096 votes, or roughly 55%.
Reached by phone Tuesday night, Frutos declined to comment on the results until they are official on Friday.
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This run-off election involved only vote-by-mail ballots, several of which were turned in at Burbank City Hall on Tuesday. Some late mail-in ballots, which were postmarked on Tuesday, will still need to be counted.
Incumbent Jess Talamantes won a council seat outright in a primary election in February, receiving more than 50% of the vote.
Springer, a nonprofit administrator, received 5,431 votes, or 49%, apparently beating out Gordon, an optometrist, who garnered 5,104 votes, about 46%, according to preliminary results.
Springer ran for a seat and lost in 2015 and opted to run again to tackle what she described earlier this year as “ineffective leadership” and “lack of collaboration” on the City Council.
Gordon ran this year “to ask the hard, undiluted questions and insist on receiving the clear, unambiguous answers” he thinks are required for government to operate with transparency.
Neither Springer nor Gordon returned calls for comment Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, Guillen, a chief financial officer, received 3,657 votes, or about 32%.
Guillen ran unsuccessful council bids in 2013 and again in 2015.
He said his third try was fueled by his love for the city, and his belief that the majority of council members are not proactive about residents’ concerns.
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
