Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Friday, March 8 @ 5:04 p.m. / Elections
Wilson Poised To Avoid Runoff And Starkey's Lead Over Drown Widens, According To 'Final Unofficial Election Results'
Incumbents Dean Wilson and Valerie Starkey are poised to keep their seats on the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors.
Previously:
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Dean Wilson appears poised to keep his District 5 seat on the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors, according to the final unofficial election results released Friday.
Valerie Starkey’s lead over Rivers Drown also widened, according to the results. The District 2 incumbent thanked her supporters and said she hopes that more women vie for any elected positions that are available over the next four years.
“I’m just really committed to the next four-and-a-half years on the Board and what we can get accomplished,” she told the Outpost. “I want to work hard, especially for District 2, but for the entire county.”
County Clerk-Recorder Alissia Northrup said she was still counting provisional ballots as well as ballots from those who submitted conditional voter registration forms, or same-day voter registration.
The Elections Office is also required to take any ballot that comes through the mail through Tuesday. Northrup’s office must allow people up to two days before election certification to cure their ballots if their signature didn’t match or they didn’t sign their ballot. But her office has processed the bulk of the ballots, she told the Outpost.
Overall voter turnout in Del Norte County was 41.07 percent, Northrup said.
Wilson, who spent election night preparing for a Spring Break trip to Ireland, was confident on Tuesday that he his win sealed up.
As he enters into his first four-year term, Wilson said he looks forward to Del Norte County developing its first strategic plan. Another priority for him is economic development.
“Government doesn’t create business,” he said, mentioning the Congressionally Designated Spending funding request for improvements to South Beach county staff submitted to U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler roughly two weeks ago. “But we can create the environment to make it more likely to thrive.”
According to the election results released Friday, Wilson received 52.12 percent of the vote — he needed a 50 percent-plus-one majority to avoid a run-off election against his challenger Heather Polen.
Polen received 30.57 percent of the vote. Wilson’s second challenger, Linda Sutter, rounded things out with 17.31 percent of the vote, according to the numbers.
As for the District 2 race, Starkey received 62.8 percent of the vote to Drown’s 37.2 percent, according to the results on Friday.
District 1 Supervisor Darrin Short ran unopposed.
In the judicial race, Karen Olson prevailed over Keith Morris with 55.92 percent of the vote to Morris’s 44.08 percent.
At the state level, Del Norte County Unified School District Michael Greer is currently No. 1 out of seven candidates vying for California’s Assembly District 2 seat with 28.3 percent of the vote. He will likely advance to the November general election.
As of Friday, Greer, who was the only Republican, will face Santa Rosa City Councilman Chris Rogers, who received 20.6 percent of the vote. However, Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, is following closely in third with 18.4 percent of the vote, according to the California Secretary of State website.
On Tuesday, Greer credited his knocking on doors across District 2 as one reason he did so well in California’s primary.
“I spent a lot of money on radio ads in Sonoma [County] because that’s where the votes are and a lot of people are out walking,” he said. “My goal is to hit on 85 percent of all the doors in the district [by] November.”
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