C Fails, Enander ousts Mordo, LASD borg wins again

It is not too soon to call the election results. “100% of precincts reporting.” Some ballots are still in the mail, but the margins do not seem close enough for outcomes to change. Measure C fails. In the Los Altos City Council race, Anita Enander ousts Jean Mordo, while Neysa Fligor outdistances all with her massive Democratic Party endorsements. Measure C fails narrowly, but not that narrowly. The Los Altos School District union-endorsed candidates prevail over strong challenger Ying Liu.

We present some election outcomes from some nearby areas – school districts and cities – because you probably know people who live and vote there…Mountain View, Cupertino, Palo Alto, Los Altos Hills.

All the tables below are grabbed from the Santa Clara election results website at around 9 am this morning., Wed., Nov. 7, 2018. (These reflect the most recent tally update that occurred at 6:30 am, Wed., Nov. 7). The next tally update is not until 5.30pm tonite.

City Council Election –
Fligor & Enander

Neysa Fligor outdistances with 36% while Anita Enander bumps Jean Mordo.

It is interesting that former Mayor of Los Altos Ron Packard’s endorsements – Neysa Fligor and Anita Enander — prevailed. Recall that his Friends of Los Altos (FOLA) organization did send a number of strongly-worded ‘oppose Mordo’ newsletters and paid for similar advertising including their opinion of Mordo’s temperament. Lalahpolitico: I just can’t figure out why FOLA endorsed ‘left-of-center’ Neysa Fligor. Perhaps because she was just inevitable? [UPDATE: Mr. Packard had told Lalahpolitico that FOLA believes Neysa is “independent” and will be unflappable when under pressure and when she does not get her way. FOLA value these traits highly.]

This City Council election result is that feared outcome where 3 ‘left-of-center’ candidates running for two seats split that left-of-center vote, allowing ‘right-of-center’ Anita Enander to prevail. Lalah thought it would be Mordo and Enander. Wrong. The Ron Packard negative campaigning about Mordo may have been more effective than I thought.

Los Altos School District –
same old story

Union-backed candidates prevailed in this election again as usual. I call this the School Borg.

Mr. Likeable Personality – incumbent Bryan Johnson – garnered 31.4% of the vote. Incumbent Ivanovic had a surprisingly good showing, only about 1000 votes behind Bryan, at 26.43%. Lalahpolitico did not anticipate that Ms. Optimism — Shali Sirkay — would trail Ivanovic by ~ 700 votes with 22.75% of the vote. In the final days of the election, Ivanovic and Sirkay participated in election fear-mongering, perhaps reducing their popularity among voters who yearn for less-divisiveness.

Bottom line: In the Los Altos School District, the CTA union-backed candidates prevail as usual. BCS parent, Ying Liu had a very respectable showing, in line with all the courageous folks who have in recent years run in this race against the School Borg. Thank you Swan, McClatchie, Aaronson, Raschke and now Liu.

Measure C –
Stop Public Improvements – FAILS

Measure C failed with 52.18% voting NO and 47.82% voting YES.

City of Los Altos Voters also approved raising the Hotel Tax to a ~14% tax rate. A majority of 57.92% of voters YES to raise it. A 42.08% minority voted NO to keep it the same. Lalahpolitico: Why vote No? Only tourists pay this…but perhaps the uninformed voter thinks what?

Included are the election vote outcomes of nearby cities which also were raising their city Hotel Tax. It looks that all those Measures passed and by a significantly wider margin than here in Los Altos. Perhaps those voters are better informed about what a hotel tax is? It produces city revenue. And the Los Altos hotel tax remains one of the lower ones.

And we can all breath a sigh of relief that the State Proposition 10 that would let cities impose any old kind of rent control they can think of — like on single family homes and condos – FAILED. It would have been a disaster for the production of new housing. And one wonders what our neighbor, the City of Mountain View, might have done if 10 had passed. Would it update its 2016 rent control ordinance in ways we might find disturbing?

NEXT STEPS – watchful waiting,
more counting, certification

Let me repeat that there are still some ballots in the mail. The only local Los Altos related election to watch — the close one — is City Council. Recall that in 2016, Neysa Fligor trailed Lynette Lee-Eng by a ~dozen votes, then down to 5 votes…..for weeks of counting, recounting and waiting. And the final vote and the outcome did not change.

This time with Mordo and Enander the margin is 70 votes. The Santa Clara ballot counting processes seem to have improved a great deal. It will be a surprise to me if the ballots that are in the mail – essentially mailed ON election day – make a difference to this outcome.