Sawyer and Gorin top Supes race; Sonoma sale tax pass
The next representative of the Sonoma County 1st District, which covers all of the Sonoma Valley, will come from Santa Rosa.
John Sawyer and Susan Gorin, both members of the Santa Rosa City Council, were the top finishers in Tuesday’s primary. They will face off in November in the race to replace Valerie Brown. Each finished with about 23 percent of the vote.
The result bucks a long history of the seat being held by a Valley resident. Gina Cuclis paced the four other candidates, who do live in the area, with 17 percent. Joanne Sanders was fourth with 16 percent. Mark Bramfitt, who received Brown’s endorsement, received 14 percent of the vote followed by Michael McClure with six percent.
Sanders, by way of Twitter, offered “congratulations to Councilwoman Gorin and Vice Mayor Sawyer. No time to bask in the sun, a new race to run!”
County Supervisor 1st District
John Sawyer 5,266 votes 23.5%
Susan Gorin 5,180 23.2%
Gina Cuclis 3,834 17.1%
Joanne Sanders 3,619 16.2%
Mark Bramfitt 3,190 14.3%
Michael McClure 1,280 5.7%
In other races:
Measure J, approved by 66 percent of Sonoma voters, boosts the city’s sales tax by half a percentage point, to 8.5 percent. The change takes effect
Jared Huffman (37%) and Daniel Roberts (15%) will vie in November for the Congressional District 2 seat. Norman Solomon finished third in Tuesday’s voting with a 14% tally.
Longtime Congressman Mike Thompson, now running in the newly drawn U.S. District 5, took 72% of the vote. He will face Randy Loftin (17%) in November.
Michael Allen (30%) and Marc Levine (24%) will vie for the 10th Assembly District seat. Peter Mancus (21%) finished third in the seven-candidate race.
The measure to expand the Schell-Vista Fire Protection District passed with 62% of the vote. Elected to the two new seats were Ernie Loveless (39%) and Robert Krujac (27%).
All six county school bond measures passed convincingly, including those for districts in Petaluma, Cotati-Rohnert Park, Sebastopol and Healdsburg.
