UPDATE, 12:47 a.m.: HIGGINS PULLS AHEAD IN ELECTION NIGHT FINAL! DALE CRUISES TO VICTORY
Mamma mia, what a finale! Almost worth waiting up to near 1 a.m. for! Fifth Division incumbent Pat Higgins crushed the precinct results to barely overcome an absentee deficit, and leads challenger Susan Rotwein by a scant 12 votes at election night’s end:
FIFTH DIVISION HARBOR DISTRICT
- PATRICK HIGGINS: 1,829 votes, 49.89%
- SUSAN ROTWEIN: 1,817 votes, 49.56%
Remember, or look below: There are more votes to count in the Fifth Division, but past history shows us that votes uncounted at the end of election night sway left. (The famous Sims Theorem.) Higgins is feeling pretty good right now if he is still awake, but it’ll be a long time before this race is finalized and it really could go either way.
Second Division incumbent Greg Dale convincingly defeats challenger Nick Angeloff.
SECOND DIVISION HARBOR DISTRICT
- GREG DALE: 1,935 votes, 63.65%
- NICK ANGELOFF: 1,079 votes, 35.49%
Full election night final results here.
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UPDATE, 11:15 p.m.: LONG-DELAYED SECOND REPORT CHANGES NOTHING!
Three precincts have been counted in the Second Division Harbor District race (out of 23). The needle moves very slightly toward Nick Angeloff, but not near enough.
The single precinct that has been counted from the Fifth Division (out of 22) went 29-17 for Higgins.
SECOND DIVISION HARBOR DISTRICT
- GREG DALE: 1,579 votes, 63.08%
- NICK ANGELOFF: 900 votes, 35.96%
FIFTH DIVISION HARBOR DISTRICT
- PATRICK HIGGINS: 1,079 votes, 46.01%
- SUSAN ROTWEIN: 1,253 votes, 53.43%
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UPDATE, 10:52 p.m.: NO UPDATE
We’re closing in on four hours after the first report, and there is still no second one. When your Lost Coast Outpost called the elections office like an hour ago, we were told that not enough precinct machines had been tallied to justify a second report.
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UPDATE, 9:47 p.m.: STILL NO SECOND REPORT SO WHAT SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT!?!
How about this — there were no races in the Harbor District’s Second and Fifth Divisions four years ago — both seats were unopposed — but how many people voted in those races eight years ago, in 2007?
- SECOND DIVISION: 4,917
- FIFTH DIVISION: 5,461
If these numbers hold true for 2015, about 40 percent of the vote is in. But this election was so dead that it’s actually probably more than that.
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UPDATE, 9:13 p.m.: MANILA CSD
Former Friends of the Dunes executive director Carol Vander Meer leads the pack in the six-way race for three seats on the Manila Community Services District. Vander Meer, Leopardo and Bramlett are way out in front:
MANILA COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT (VOTE FOR 3)
- CAROL VANDER MEER: 51 votes, 25.37%
- CARLA LEOPARDO: 44 votes, 21.89%
- JAN BRAMLETT: 45 votes, 22.39%
- BEVERLY PROSSER: 26 votes, 12.94%
- DANIEL E. O’LEARY: 15 votes, 7.46%
- SUSAN OPALACH: 19 votes, 9.45%
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UPDATE, 9:07 p.m.: ARCATA FIRE TAX
Grim news so far for the Arcata Fire District’s Measure A, a property tax assessment that would allow the district to hire new full-time firefighters:
MEASURE A
- YES: 1,368 votes, 44.74%
- NO: 1,690 votes, 55.26%
But better news for Ferndale’s Measure C, a boost in the city’s hotel (transient occupancy) tax:
MEASURE C
- YES: 159 votes, 73.61%
- NO: 57 votes, 26.39%
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UPDATE, 8:25 p.m.: DALE COMMANDS SECOND, ROTWEIN LEADS FIFTH
First report is in! Commanding — insurmountable, in all likelihood — lead for incumbent Greg Dale in the Second Division. Up in the Fifth, Higgins is down but still has a chance if — as historically is the pattern — precinct votes pull to the left.
HUMBOLDT BAY HARBOR, RECREATION & CONSERVATION, DIV 2
- GREG DALE: 1,470 votes, 64.19%
- NICK ANGELOFF: 796 votes, 34.76%
HUMBOLDT BAY HARBOR, RECREATION & CONSERVATION, DIV 5
- PATRICK HIGGINS: 1,050 votes, 45.67%
- SUSAN ROTWEIN: 1,236 votes 53.76%
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It may have been a (relatively) slow election, but that doesn’t mean your Lost Coast Outpost won’t stay up until the wee hours live-blogging this sucker, at least until the results are either
- clear, or
- hopelessly muddled for the next several weeks
The big battles this time around, of course, are for the Second and Fifth Division of the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, with the balance on that board up for grabs.
Perhaps the starkest contrast is in the Second Division — Fortuna, SoHum — with incumbent Greg Dale, a local manager for Coast Seafoods, challenged by Rio Dell man Nick Angeloff. Angeloff unashamedly favors a return to the old days of the Harbor District, when it staked just about everything (and very nearly went bust) on the dream of attracting the international shipping trade to Humboldt Bay’s remote shores. Dale, like the rest of the incumbents on the board, has championed a far more diversified approach to economic development on the bay.
Up in the Fifth Division, incumbent Pat Higgins, a scientist, is being challenged by Susan Rotwein, who has charged that the district has forsaken the needs of the local fishing fleet while betting on risky prospects, such as the purchase of the Samoa Pulp Mill and its subsequent, district-led transformation into something like a marine-dependent industrial park.
Unless these races — and others around the county — are very, very close, there is a strong chance that we will, in fact, know the results before the night is over. County Clerk-Recorder Kelly Sanders tells the Outpost that there are only perhaps 850 absentee and vote-by-mail ballots that will be left uncounted in the office’s first report, which she says should be out by 8:30 p.m. Add a few provisional ballots here and there, and there just aren’t all that many votes that won’t be counted before the night is out. Let’s call it 1,000. By contrast, Sanders said that upwards of 8,000 ballots will be released in the first dump of absentees. Several thousand more — votes cast at the precincts today — will be coming later in the evening.
OK, let’s go! Election time! Check back here for updates!
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