It’s official: incumbent supervisor Valerie Brown will face challenger Will Pier in November’s runoff for Sonoma County’s First District.
The final results, released this afternoon, show Brown with 11,399 votes (44.1 percent) and Pier with 6,005 votes (23.2 percent). The initial June 4 count had Brown leading with 9,422 votes (44.2 percent) and Pier at 4,796 votes (22.5 percent).
“I surely expected such,” Brown said this afternoon. “I’m looking forward to the next race, and in the meantime, I continue to do the job for which I was hired.”
For his part, Pier sounded both relieved and pleased.
“It’s great. I’m really happy, and we’ve been just continuing on with the campaign, and so I’m glad that we did,” Pier said this afternoon. “I’m thrilled, and thank everyone for their support.”
Fellow First District hopeful David Reber placed third with 5,137 votes (19.9 percent). “I’m not surprised, and my congrats to Will,” Reber said. “I am sure that he will run a fair campaign.”
Brown failed on June 3 to gain the electoral 50 percent she needed to retain her Board of Supervisors seat, meaning the race would go to the top two vote-getters.
The two-week delay between election and final tally was partly due to counting and recounting the five-seat, seven-candidate race for the Second District’s Republican Central Committee. Five votes separated the fourth- and fifth-place winners.
But precinct workers also waded through almost 20,000 absentee or provisional ballots in the days immediately following June 3. Of these, 14,700 ballots were collected at the polls and another 5,000 arrived by mail. Since the ballots can be dropped off at any polling place – not just in a voter’s residential precinct or supervisorial district – election staff opened each envelope, matched the ballot to its native precinct and checked the signature to make sure no one voted twice.
The results will not affect the complaint filed June 11 with the state Fair Political Practices Commission by Reber, Pier and Lawrence Wiesner, alleging that a prescription discount card sent by Brown just before the election violated two sections of California’s 1974 Political Reform Act. An FPPC spokesman said Thursday that the commission was reviewing the complaint but had not yet issued a ruling.
News reporter Bonnie Durrance contributed to this report.
Mobilehome association dissolves board
Bonnie Durrance – Sonoma Valley Sun
It’s come to this. Now that the City’s Mobile Home Ordinance is drafted and approaching a final vote before the Sonoma City Council, and after intense efforts at mediation by an ad hoc committee, and with Rancho de Sonoma homeowners’ association president Mike Warner continuing to defy park owner Preston Cooke’s proposals, a group of residents met on Monday to throw him and the board out of office.
“He refused to negotiate with Preston Cooke,” said resident, Earle Ahern, “and now Preston Cooke is refusing to negotiate with Mike Warner. In effect, they don’t recognize each other.”
Ahern said a group of residents who wish to get on with their lives and accept Cooke’s offer gathered on Monday to terminate the board. “Our intent is: a) start a separate and different homeowners’ association that will negotiate; or b) dissolve the homeowners association by a vote of the residents.” He will circulate a ballot which will offer the voters six or seven choices for new board members. Mr. Warner’s name will be nowhere in sight.
For his part, Warner said their move is “illegal.”
“They took our by-laws, sent out notices Friday that they were going to have an impeachment on Monday. We had four board members present (we’d sent out notices not to come), they had 18. We said, ‘Can we speak on Michael’s behalf?’ They said, ‘No discussion, we’ll just have the vote,’” Ahern said. “So the 18 voted against the seven and said they’re moving ahead and will re-elect a new board next week.”
Warner said he will conduct his own election next week, and will send a ballot to every homeowner offering them an “up or down” choice: “Do you support your current board, or do you wish to replace it with this new group?”
Ahern’s group wants to accept Cooke’s deal. “He wants to make this park the best park in Sonoma,” said Ahern. “He expects this to be a long, on-going process and he’s setting it up so that even if he’s gone, over the next 20-30 years, the park will be improved and modernized, and be a desirable place to live, and still relatively low cost.” Low cost is more than they would currently sell for, but far less than the typical Sonoma dwelling. “If the new units sell for $350,000, in Sonoma that’s a bargain,” said Ahern.
Warner’s issue is his equity. “The only money I have to leave my daughter is [the value of the coach].If I died the day after the park is converted, my daughter would have to try to sell the place.” However, the “coach,” which cost him $30,000, and which is now paid off, would be worthless because no one would buy an expensive lot with a used mobile home on it. Multiply his equity loss by others in the park, he estimates that, “He’ll [Cooke] make $20 million and we’ll lose $3 million.
Cooke maintains his position is fair. “I’ve gone over the top in offering a very fair deal,” he said. “My attorney said what I am doing should be an example of how to convert parks to condominiums.”
The council will vote on the ordinance at its next meeting, July 2.
