Costa Mesa Sanitary and Mesa Water district incumbents cruise to reelection

By Luke MoneyStaff Writer

Nov. 7, 2018 12:05 PM PT

Five incumbents in the Costa Mesa Sanitary and Mesa Water districts cruised to reelection Tuesday with convincing wins.

Sanitary district board members Bob Ooten, Arlene Schafer and Mike Scheafer secured new four-year terms, significantly outpacing the one non-incumbent in the race, David Snyder.

The story was much the same for Mesa Water board members Marice DePasquale and Shawn Dewane, who finished well ahead of their respective opponents, Ryan James Ferryman and Anna Vrska.

With all precincts reporting, Schafer led the sanitary district field with 30.4% of the vote. Scheafer followed with 29.5% and Ooten notched 27.1%. Snyder collected 13%.

Ooten has been a board member since 2006. Schafer rejoined the board in 2013 after a stint from 1995 to 2010, and Scheafer has served since 2010, though he previously was on the board from 1993 to 1994, according to the sanitary district.

In this election, sanitary district board members were elected at large, meaning residents could vote for any candidate. That will change in 2020, however, when the agency moves to voting districts, in which each member will be chosen by voters who live in the particular area that member represents.

That system already is in place at Mesa Water.

DePasquale easily won reelection to her first full Mesa Water board term, defeating Ferryman by a 67.9% to 32.1% margin in the district’s Division 3, which covers northern Costa Mesa, including the Halecrest neighborhood and South Coast Metro.

She was appointed to that seat in September 2017 after the resignation of board member Ethan Temianka.

In the race for Division 5, which includes lower Eastside Costa Mesa and portions of the city’s downtown and Westside, Dewane outpaced Vrska, 65.3% to 34.7%.

Dewane, who has served on the board since 2005, and DePasquale will serve four-year terms. The same is true of current board President Jim Atkinson, who didn’t draw an election challenger this year.

Atkinson represents Division 4, which includes Costa Mesa’s College Park, Mesa del Mar and Monticello communities.

Mesa Water provides service to about 110,000 people in Costa Mesa, parts of Newport Beach and sections of unincorporated Orange County, while the sanitary district provides sewer and curbside trash collection services to roughly 116,700 ratepayers in a similar area.