As of Friday, Nov. 18, 27,940 mail-in-ballots left to be processed

The Paso Robles Press / Atascadero News Editorial Board

NORTH COUNTY — The San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder Office last updated their unofficial General Election results on Wednesday, Nov. 16.

SLO County Clerk-Recorder Elaina Cano released an update on Friday, Nov. 18, which stated there is 27,940 mail-in-ballots left to be processed out of the 60,000 mail in ballots received the day before, the day of and the days following election day. 

Prior to Election Day, there were 51,200 vote-by-mail ballots received out of 182,291 registered voters in the county. On Election Day, the county clerk-recorder reported 6,896 voters at the polls and approximately 800 voters that voted provisionally at the polling place on Election Day. 

Please see the article, ‘County Clerk Cano on the Official Canvas Period’ on page A4 for Cano’s full post-election report.

Below are election results from the Nov. 16 count, which was available at the time of print.

PASO ROBLES

The Paso Robles Joint Unified School District had 10 people vying for three trustee area seats and one at-large seat. In Trustee Area 2, Joel Peterson ran unopposed and was not on the ballot.

As of Wednesday, Nov. 16 in Trustee Area 1, results are Jim Cogan with 48.44 percent, Chris Arend with 27.73 percent, and Peter Byrne with 23.83 percent.

In Trustee Area 4, results are Sondra Williams leading with 44.30 percent, Frank Triggs with 34.96 percent, and Catherine Reimer with 20.74 percent.

Finally, the at-large seat shows Adelita Hiteshew leading with 38.16 percent. Close behind is Laurene D. McCoy with 36.49 percent and Jim Irving with 25.35 percent.

Current District 1 Paso Robles City Councilmember John Hamon came in with 100 percent of the votes, running unopposed. District 2 Paso Robles City Councilmember Chris Bausch, also running unopposed, came in with 100 percent of the vote.

Paso Robles City Mayor candidates Michael Rivera currently has 42.55 percent of the vote, and current City Mayor Steve Martin is looking to win his re-election with 57.45 percent.

As for Measure E-22, Appointive City Treasurer failed with 60.04 percent. And Measure F-22, Paso Robles Quality of Life/Community Safety Measure, passed with 61.20 percent.

ATASCADERO

The City of Atascadero had two open at-large seats on their council and mayor up for election.

As of Wednesday, Nov. 16, current City of Atascadero Councilmembers Heather Newsom, with 43.44 percent, and Susan Funk, with 43.15 percent, look like they will both win their re-election for the two open seats on the council. Bret Heinemann is following behind with 13.41 percent of the vote.

City of Atascadero Mayor candidate Heather Moreno, running unopposed for re-election, has 100 percent of the vote.

City of Atascadero Treasurer candidate Gere Sibbach, also running unopposed for re-election, has 100 percent of the vote.

The Atascadero Unified School District had nine candidates running for four spots on the trustee board. The top four results are Tracy Ellis-Weit with 15.30 percent, Vy Pierce with 14.63 percent, Rebekah Koznek with 12.39 percent, and Denise McGrew Kane with 12.01 percent of the vote. 

Other trustee candidate results are Tami Gunther (running for re-election) with 10.91 percent, Dan Hathaway with 10.73 percent, George Shoemaker (running for re-election) has 9.61 percent, Scott Staton with 8.23 percent, and Chris Collins with 5.17 percent of the vote.

TEMPLETON 

Templeton Unified School District had two open seats on its board. As of Wednesday, taking the seats are Janel Armet, with 27.30 percent, Matt Allison pulling ahead with 25.54 percent, and Jennifer Grinager now 25.21 percent. Jason Tesarz follows behind with 9.70 percent.

OTHER NOTABLE NORTH COUNTY RACES

  • District 2 SLO County Supervisor — Current District 2 Supervisor Bruce Gibson leads the race with 52.08 percent. His competitor Bruce Jones follows behind with 47.92 percent.
  • State Governor — Current State Governor Gavin Newsom leads the race with 53.46 percent against Republican Brian Dahle with 46.54 percent. 
  • State Senator — Democrat Alex Padilla leads with a 55.54 percent against Republican Mark Meuser with 44.46 percent.
  • State Representative, 19th District — Republican Jeff Gorman leads with 52.49 percent against Democrat Jimmy Panetta with 47.51 percent.
  • State Representative, 24th District — Democrat Salud Carbajal leads with 61.43 percent against Republican Brad Allen with 38.57 percent.
  • State Assembly, 30th District — Democrat Dawn Addis leads with 54.19 percent against Vicki Nohrden with 45.81 percent.
  • State Assembly, 37th District — Republican Mike Stoker leads with 52.74 percent, followed by Democrat Gregg Hart with 47.26 percent.

The County Clerk-Recorder estimates her office will finalize counting all the ballots by Dec. 8.

To see the full results for local and national, visit pasoroblespress.com and atascaderonews.com or slovote.com.

Publisher’s Note: On Thursday, Nov. 10, The Paso Robles Press / The Atascadero News published an article titled “Preliminary Winning Candidates Announced” on A1 with the headshots of the potential candidates who are expected to win their perspective seats. The article included a note “With just over 30 percent of ballots counted, it is still too soon to call the races, but here is what we have so far for our North County races.” However, we understand that adding the headshots of the potential winners could be seen as confusing or as us calling the race before all is counted. Going forward, we will be sure to hold off on adding images prior to the final count.