Despite their differences, all the Sonoma Valley candidates had one thing in common Tuesday on election night.
They had to wait for the final results.
And wait. And wait. And wait some more.
Sonoma City Councilman Ken Brown called it a night at 10:30 p.m., when early returns showed him to be barely in third place for the three open seats on city council, trailing Steve Barbose and August Sebastiani and just a few votes ahead of Vickie Mulas, with Doug McKesson and Gary Edwards holding up the rear.
“I’m going to sleep. When I wake up in the morning, we’ll find out what’s going on,” Brown said as he left Murphy’s Irish Pub, one of several locations at which candidates gathered on an otherwise quiet Tuesday night.
It wasn’t until just after 2 a.m. that the final results for the city council race were listed on the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters’ Web site. Barbose, Sebastiani and Brown won, in that order.
The Sun refrained from making phone calls to any of the winners, or losers, at press time because it was just too late. But following are some election-night highlights.
Council race
Council candidates and their supporters were glued to their computer screens for much of the night, checking the Web over and over again to see if results had been updated.
“Hitting that refresh button, my mouse is on its last legs,” said Sebastiani, as he gathered with friends, family and supporters in his upstairs Plaza office of The Other Guys, a division of his family’s wine wholesaling business.
Sebastiani, 26, whose run for council was his first campaign for elected office, credited his success to a variety factors, including tips from his father, Don Sebastiani, who formerly represented Sonoma in the state legislature.
For example, when August went canvassing his father advised him — after knocking on a voter’s door — to “take a step back, take a deep breath, be quick – just little tidbits of knowledge,” August said.
Sebastiani also credited his supporters who knocked on doors on his behalf.
By contrast, Vickie Mulas opted against door-to-door canvassing.
“I don’t believe in it,” she said, during an 11 p.m. interview at the office of Broadway Realty where Mulas gathered with her family, friends and supporters.
Campaign spending may have helped the winners. Barbose, Brown and Sebastiani all said they came close to spending $10,000 on their campaigns.
Meanwhile, Mulas spent $5,117, Edwards spent $3,417 and incumbent mayor Doug McKesson spent $2,932, according to the most-recent campaign finance statements available from the Sonoma city clerk’s office.
All six candidates had pledged not to go over the $10,000 figure.
“I just hate to see what they’re going to do with the city budget,” Edwards said of the candidates who had spent the most.
At 10:30 p.m., Edwards – who was among the candidates who made an appearance at Murphy’s Irish Pub – hadn’t quite conceded defeat, but he was talking about applying for the seat on the city’s planning commission.
“I am going to run in two years (for council), for sure,” he said.
Barbose held the lead for the entire night, Mulas never wavered from fourth place, McKesson stayed firmly in fifth place and Edwards ranked well behind the pack in sixth place.
Hospital board
The five-candidate race for two open seats on the Sonoma Valley Health Care District Board, which oversees the Sonoma Valley Hospital, was right down to the wire.
Sometime around 1:30 a.m., Arnold Riebli pulled ahead of Mike Norton and held on to second place to a win a seat on the board.
Incumbent Richard Kirk held the lead throughout the night, while candidates Kathleen Barnett stayed firmly in fourth place and Lisa Hardy trailed far behind in fifth place.
Campaign finance reports that the Sun obtained last week from the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters Office showed that Norton reported spending the most, at $7,605, Richard Kirk reported $4,469 in spending, while Riebli’s campaign spent $2,088.
Contributors to Norton, who’s a pharmacist, included hospital CEO Bob Kowal, who donated $200. Kirk gave Norton $100 and Norton donated $100 to Kirk’s campaign.
Meanwhile, Riebli’s supporters included the Leveroni family. Riebli took the Leveroni family’s side during the controversial campaign for Measure C, the failed May 2 bond proposal to use eminent domain to build a new $148 million hospital on a Fifth Street West hayfield owned by the Leveroni family, an unwilling seller.
Junior college
Jeff Kunde beat incumbent Mike Smith for a seat on the Santa Rosa Junior College board by 10,325 votes to 9,208 votes; the election was open to voters in an area that’s larger than just the Sonoma Valley.
Campaign finance statements from the Sonoma County Registrar of Voters Office showed that Kunde had outspent incumbent Smith by more than four to one in the race between the two Sonoma Valley residents.
Kunde, a winery owner, reported total expenditures of $22,241. Smith, a retired nurse and union organizer, reported spending $3,899.
Campaign spending statements mentioned above in most cases – if not all – won’t be finalized until after the election.
Measures F & R
Sonoma County voters handily approved a quarter-cent sales tax to continue funding the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District. Voters approved the tax by a 75 percent to 25 percent margin.
Sonoma County voters also supported Measure R, the quarter-cent sales tax to fund the SMART train, a proposed commuter train from Cloverdale to Larkspur. Sonoma County voters backed SMART, with 69 percent in favor and 31 percent opposed. But Marin County voters rejected the measure, which required two-thirds support, by 57 percent to 43 percent, killing it.
Voter turnout was 59 percent in Sonoma County.
