Walker, Eich on top in City Council race with Gunter in narrow lead over Pieroni
The race for three open seats on the La Cañada Flintridge City Council seems to have ended in victory for incumbent candidate Terry Walker, who earned nearly 33% of the vote, and challenger Keith Eich, who followed with 27%.
With numbers still being tabulated by the county Wednesday morning, candidate Rick Gunter placed third earning nearly 21% of votes cast, just 101 votes ahead of incumbent Mayor Len Pieroni, who suspended campaigning in January after suffering a health setback.
Preliminary figures released by the county Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk showed Walker leading the race with 2,665 ballots cast and Eich following closely with 2,220 votes. As of Wednesday morning, Gunter had earned 1,693 votes to Pieroni’s 1,592.
Canvassing will continue this week in advance of an April 2 certification deadline.
Walker and Gunter co-hosted an election night celebration at Gunter’s home to thank supporters and donors. While early figures placed Walker well ahead of her challengers, the councilwoman was tentative until Wednesday’s figures confirmed her lead.
She said her campaign strategy had been to get out and meet as many new people as possible and hear them out on what’s working, and what’s not, at the city.
“It was a fun exchange, and I think it will make me a better council person,” Walker said Wednesday morning. “But we don’t want to get complacent — we have a lot of work to do, and I’m looking forward to it.”
Eich, who celebrated with friends and supporters at Flintridge Proper, said he was pleased more than 2,000 voters supported his campaign. After running an unsuccessful campaign for council in 2016 against incumbents Jon Curtis and the late Dave Spence, Eich said he did a lot of retooling this time around.
“My campaign strategy was definitely different — there was an actual strategy this time,” he said. “I developed a budget and milestones. It’s a different feeling from the first time.”
If Wednesday’s figures hold steady, Walker, Eich and Gunter will be sworn into their new positions during an April 7 council reorganization meeting, as Pieroni marks the end of his mayoral year and five-year tenure on the panel.
Gunter said Wednesday he was cautiously optimistic about his first campaign for public office and was waiting for more final figures from the county.
“You don’t want to jump the gun or take anything for granted,” he said the morning after the election. “[But] this has been a fantastic experience — I’m exhausted and my heart’s full — I’d recommend it to anyone.”
Should ballots cast for Pieroni outpace Gunter’s once everything has been counted, the incumbent would have to decide whether to accept a seat on the council or vote to have city staff fill the position through other means, including another election or appointing a candidate.
Pieroni said he spent Super Tuesday writing thank-you notes to friends and well-wishers who supported him following his medical incident in late December. Still, he watched the votes come in and acknowledged the race is close.
While he didn’t commit to what he would do if he were to pull ahead of Gunter, Pieroni did say his mind was on his recovery.
“La Cañada’s a great place, and I have a lot of faith the new City Council, whoever it is, when they come in, they’re going to do what’s best for the community,” Pieroni said. “I’m just focusing on getting better.”
Long voter lines…
With about 3,500 of La Cañada’s 15,193 eligible voters having cast ballots in Tuesday’s presidential primary election, it’s unclear whether reportedly long lines at the city’s only voting center (La Cañada Unified School District’s Governing Board Room on Cornishon Avenue) may have played a role in the modest turnout.
Resident Susan Prager went with her husband to vote at around 2:30 p.m., thinking she’d arrive after the lunch rush but before the after-work crowd. Instead, she found a line outside the building.
“Parking was a nuisance — only available way down the block,” she said in an email Tuesday. “We had to stand in line in the hot sun for 40 minutes. In past elections we’ve always been in and out within 10 minutes. Today, the wait and the voting process took nearly an hour.”
When Prager drove by the LCUSD office later that night around 7:50 p.m., the line was three times longer. She wondered whether the slow check-in process and crowds turned voters away.
“How many people drove to the site, encountered difficult traffic and parking, saw that very long line and just gave up?” she said. “We’ll never know, but the new system seems designed to discourage participation.”
City Clerk Tania Moreno confirmed Wednesday her office had received numerous complaints about insufficient parking and long lines at the city’s only voting center. City Hall also fielded calls from several people who were unaware of the county’s new voting system and wanted to know where they were supposed to cast ballots.
…and campaign signs
One piece of good news from La Cañada’s questionable election day turnout came to the Valley Sun from multiple campaign members, who reported that students of YMCA of the Foothills’ Youth in Government program volunteered to remove all campaign yard signs from residential homes and return them to candidate Eich’s house for pick-up.
La Cañada High School junior Trevor Ware spearheaded the effort, reaching out to co-chairs of LCUSD’s Measure LC parcel tax campaign via email:
“I’m working with Youth in Government, as well as students from La Cañada High, and we’ve been looking for ways to engage in the upcoming election,” Ware said in the email. “One of the ways we want to participate is to help each campaign with a [yard sign] clean-up.”
At 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, participants began scouring 80 miles of city streets, retrieving signs before dropping them off and sorting them by campaign. Signs still unrecovered by Thursday may be subject to recycling.
“There were so many signs,” said Matt Weber, co-chair of the Measure LC campaign. “The fact that they did that was fantastic.”
