Aug. 17 was the deadline for those who wanted to register to be placed on the Nov. 8 ballot for local school and water district boards and other elected positions.
There are seven candidates for the San Benito County High School District: Patty Nehme (teacher), Jennifer Coile (grant writer/project manager), F.R. Muro (retired teacher), John W. Corrigan, III (agriculture manager), Mary Encinias (retired teacher), Ray Rodriguez (incumbent governing board member), and Ellen Miller (office manager).
Two candidates are running for Cienega Union School District: Nancy N. Wirz (retired government worker) and incumbent Anne C. Bay-Ramyon.
Hollister School District has three candidates vying for positions: Elizabeth Martinez (incumbent governing board member), Robert E. Bernosky (chief financial officer), and appointed incumbent Mike Baldwin.
Jefferson School District’s two incumbents are on the ballot: Joy Alford and JoAnne Falsey.
North County Joint School District has three candidates to choose from. All three are incumbents: Renee “Nene” Faught, Stan Pura, and Frank O’Connell.
Panoche School District has a single candidate, governing board member, Margarida Rodrigues.
Two candidates are running for Tres Pinos School District: the incumbent, Jeannie Cezar and Jason Noble (real estate broker).
Shannon Renz, governing board member, is running unopposed for the Willow Grove School District.
For the Mayor’s office Mayor Ignacio Velazquez will be running against Keith Snow (retired foreman engineer). Councilman Raymond Friend is running unopposed for a third term for District 1. And running for city council District 4 (Victor Gomez announced he is not running for a third term) are Tim Burns (no ballot designation) and Roy F. Sims II (Technology director).
For the complete list of candidates go to: http://goo.gl/XcSifB.
The list indicates offices are either off (in red) or on (green) the ballot. Eight offices have been contested and will be on the ballot. The reason for this, explained Angela Curro, assistant registrar of voters, is due to the number of candidate officers to be elected to a specific district.
“For example, if it is a vote for two and we have two qualified candidates, then they do not appear on the ballot,” she said. “The candidates are appointed as if elected. This, however, is not true for city races. They must appear on the ballot by law regardless of the number of candidates that file.”
Also on the ballot are a number of measures: Measure R ($39 million bond for Coalinga-Huron School District), Measure S (a bond for Aromas Tri-County Fire District), Measure T ($167 million bond for Hartnell Community College District), Measure U (maximum bond of up to $60 million for San Benito High School, which, if passed, would assess a property’s tax not to exceed $30 per year per $100,000 valuation of taxable property), Measure V ($36 million bond for Hollister High School District), and Measure W (Hollister one-cent sales tax extension for 20 years).
According to Curro, the county is expecting a higher than normal turnout and voters need to be aware of a number of district changes that will affect where they go to cast their ballots. She said eight offices uncontested because no one ran for them.
“When no one files for an office, we notify the jurisdiction and they appoint someone, in lieu of an election,” she said. “This person will hold the office for two or four years, depending on the office. Then they would be the ‘appointed incumbent’ for the next election cycle.”
The majority of the positions are not salaried, but there may be a small stipend, depending on the by-laws of the jurisdictions.
Curro said for the June election there was an overall turnout of 53.17 percent.
“We’re preparing for a turnout equivalent to the 2008 presidential election,” Curro said. “If we go back to that general election, we had an overall turnout of 78.81 percent.”
Curro said during the 2008 presidential election there were 25,355 registered voters in the county; today, it’s around 26,000. She said 19,982 ballots were cast and 78.81 percent turned out. She said that was a significant turnout and she is anticipating a turnout equal to that or possibly greater.
Getting ready for the November presidential election, Curro said some jurisdictions have changed.
“We had the healthcare district redistrict, so now instead of being ‘at-large,’ it’s a by-district area, she said. “Gavilan changed from being voted ‘at-large’ (everybody who lives in the district gets to vote on all members of a board who are running at that time) to being voted by ‘trustee area,’ meaning people in each of the new districts votes for a representative of that area.”
This has caused a lot of precinct changes in the county.
“What we’re doing is determining where and what polling place locations we’re going to be able to have, based on these new district boundaries,” Curro said. “When you’re voting at a polling place, you’re voting only for the contest within that neighborhood. Now that these lines have been redrawn, we have to look at the whole county all over again and try to figure out where we can have over 250 required registered voters to have a polling place.”
Curro said the elections department is also developing a contingency plan in case the turnout is very high. They’re ordering additional supplies, and under the direction of the secretary of the state’s office — which has informed all counties that they need to be prepared to have enough ballots — making sure there are enough polling places.
“We’re starting the layout process of the official ballot,” she said. “Right now, we’re looking at somewhere between 25 and 30 different ballot types. That makes it a little more challenging than we were prepared for. It just takes a little more time with that many ballot types.”
Curro said it’s important for the public to be involved in the process. She said because of the increase in ballot types and redistricting, voters are being encouraged to volunteer to work on Election Day. She said everyone will be trained and they’ll receive a stipend for serving.
Once election officials are ready to go, they will start sending out press releases, making announcements before the county board of supervisors and the Hollister and San Juan Bautista city councils to explain to people that there are a lot of changes and their polling places may not be the same.
“If they have questions they can always call our office,” she said. “We’re going to include inside the sample ballot a page that explains what’s been happening. We’re also on Twitter (@sbcvote), and we’re going to be Tweeting issues and topics like this. We would like to get more of the community following us because then they would be notified instantly when we were sending out press releases and anything that’s new in the election world.”