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With one 9th district precinct left to count, plus whatever else is left over, the solar and jobs measure trails by 1,322 votes. If that holds up, it's a stunning rebuke of Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council. Activist Ron Kaye, the most vocal opponent of Measure B, calls it a "miracle" and a victory for his fledgling organization:
The election results are a repudiation of City Hall's failure, proof positive that the people are waking up and demanding full participation, complete transparency and honesty, an end to machine politics that tramples on their interests and destroys their quality of lives....The question is whether the mayor who got just 55 percent of the vote has learned anything, whether he's prepared to start respecting the people of the city and providing the leadership they want instead of pandering to special interests and putting his politics ahead of public policy.
This is the end of the political machine he was trying to build, a warning to the City Council to do what's right, a demand that they put special interests like IBEW union boss Brian D'Arcy in their place instead of taking orders from them.
Nah, none of that changes. But Villaraigosa finishes with just 55.6% of the vote and Walter Moore with a talk-radio fueled 26.2%, more than five times what he received the last time. Voter rejection of the Zuma Dogg (3.3%), David Hernandez (1.9%) and Craig Rubin (1.5%) ilk could not be more stark, but perennial candidates don't run to win, or necessarily for rational reasons, so we may not have heard the last of them.
The other races stand as we left them at 1 a.m., with Councilman Wendy Greuel elected as Controller with 65.2%, Kathleen Evans coming in second with 18.6% and friends of Nick Patsaouras wondering is that all there is? The former commissioner and candidate for mayor finished third with 16.2%.
Jack Weiss got 36.5% to lead the way into the City Attorney runoff with Carmen Trutanich (26.9%), and in the 5th district David Vahedi (21.7%) gets bragging rights heading into the runoff by edging just ahead of Paul Koretz (21.5%).
In the contested school board districts, voters elected Nury Martinez and Steve Zimmer. In the end, L.A. city turnout was right around 15% with 239,374 votes cast, or less than half the percentage of turnout the year Riordan was reelected in 1997. Four years ago in the primary, turnout was 28.5%.
* Fired too soon: DWP chief David Nahai issued a press release last night making plans to spend the Measure B money and crowing, "Today Angelenos have made a bold choice for the environment and the future of Los Angeles."