Velazquez maintains lead for District 5 supervisor seat

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Former county supervisor Ignacio Velazquez, who was recalled from the San Benito County Board of Supervisors in the June primary, increased his lead over two other candidates in his quest to finish his original term, according to the latest election results update released late on Nov. 5.

Velazquez now leads District 5 candidates with 609 votes for a 67-vote lead over second-place Rodney Bianchi with 542 and John Williams with 455.

Meanwhile, in other races, Hollister City Council District 3 challenger Bill Avera has taken his first lead while mayoral candidate Tim Burns and District 2 candidate Brian Chavez increase their leads.

Avera, a former Hollister city manager, leads incumbent Dolores Morales by six votes, with a total of 723.

The race has been tightly contested with Morales having taken an early 12-vote lead in the first batch of ballots released.

Burns and Chavez both have led their race from the start. Burns’ initial 127-vote lead over candidate Tina Garza was slashed to 22 in a subsequent release of results. That lead, however, has more recently increased to 34 votes in the battle to replace Roxanne Stephens who did not run for reelection.

Chavez’s lead, which now stands at 45 votes, has increased as more ballots are counted. He initially had a five-vote lead over Frida Benjamin and increased it to 39 votes in the subsequent counts. They are vying to replace Rolan Resendiz, who also chose not to run again.

In the San Juan Bautista City Council race, newcomers Eduardo Guaracha and Elise Brentnall are leading the pack with 275 and 231 votes, respectively, while incumbent Jackie Morris-Lopez is in third place with 219 votes. Mayor Leslie Jordan is in a distant fourth with 114 votes and is looking at an uphill battle to secure reelection.

For the two available seats on the San Benito Health Care District board, Dr. Nazhat Parveen Sharma has a comfortable 447-vote lead over incumbent Devon Pack for Zone 2, while Dr. Marni Friedman leads by 208 votes over Paul Breen, her closest opponent in a four-candidate field for Zone 4.

According to the San Benito County elections office, there are still 13,173 ballots of unprocessed ballots to be tallied. Of those, 287 are damaged, unreadable or challenged, which includes ballots with signatures that don’t match the DMV system or lack a signature entirely.

“The number of outstanding vote by mail ballots will increase as the Elections Department continues to accept ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and received through Tuesday, November 10,” the elections office said in a news release.

According to release, the next expected results update is Nov. 6 by 7 p.m.

The complete list of results can be found here.

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