Glendale general election off to a quiet start
On a day when Glendale voters are being asked to decide everything from City Council and school board races, to the future of the city treasurer position and how utility revenues are handled, traffic at polling booths on Tuesday was slow and steady as the afternoon wore on.
Voters this year are being asked to make more than a few decisions, with races for City Council, city clerk, treasurer and school board, as well as Measures A, B and C.
The incumbents for the Glendale Community College Board of Trustees are running unopposed.
At the Glendale Community Church of God on California Avenue, volunteer Perjuhi Ouzounian said about 40 residents had voted so far — a typical turnout for a city election.
Azniv and Aram Nadjarian, Glendale residents for 27 years, said they voted for City Council incumbent Ara Najarian and challengers Zareh Sinanyan and Chahe Keuroghelian because they trusted them to keep Glendale moving in a positive direction.
“I like their personalities, and I like what they had to say,” Azniv Nadjarian said.
FULL COVERAGE: Glendale general election
At R.D. White Elementary School on Doran Street, a slow trickle of voters came through to cast their ballots.
Measure A would for the first time make the city treasurer an appointed, not elected, position — a change that downtown resident Alek Bartrosouf, 27, said was necessary.
“I believe that is should be an appointed position, it’s a highly skilled position and whoever fills it needs to be vetted,” he said.
Bartrosouf, who works for the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition, said he was strongly supporting the candidacies of Sam Engel and incumbent Laura Friedman.
“I’m mostly interested in environmental and transportation issues, and [Friedman] is strong on those,” he said.
As for the election as a whole, Bartrosouf said he was disappointed that Glendale wasn’t able to drum up more interest from residents in choosing who would lead their city.
“In general, I’m kind of disappointed in the low voter turnout,” he said. “As a city, we need to a do a better job getting people engaged.”
Polling place volunteer Lilia Blkhoyan said around 40 voters had come through at around 11 a.m.
Outside, voter Suzy Mullen said she was disappointed in the slate of City Council candidates for the three available seats.
“It was making the best of sad choices,” she said.
City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian — who is running for re-election but must oversee the entire Election Night operation — said in an email that as of 2 p.m., he had not seen a large uptick in voter participation, but that things might change in the lead up to the 8 p.m. closing time.
He also noted that because of fewer precincts — from 57 to 39 — more residents who haven’t remembered the change may end up voting provisionally.
As with the last citywide election, voting results will be released via an interactive online tracker for precinct-by-precinct updates on GlendaleVotes.org. The system is part of the ongoing collaboration with the Claremont McKenna College’s Rose Institute of State and Local Government.
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-- Daniel Siegal, daniel.siegal@latimes.com
Follow on Google+ and on Twitter: @Daniel_Siegal.