After months of consternation in Arroyo Grande, local voters finally delivered a referendum on their opinion of the city government—and it was a mixed bag.
The city’s most heated race was for the mayoral seat, and despite a spirited effort from write-in candidate Jim Hill and his supporters, longtime Mayor Tony Ferrara appears to have retained his position.
As of press time on Nov. 5, Ferrara had captured 54.47 percent of the vote (2,353 votes), with “write-in votes” tallying 45.53 percent (1,967 votes).
For the city’s two open City Council seats, newcomer Barbara Harmon drew 37.44 percent of the vote (2,681), incumbent Tim Brown came in at 32.26 percent (2,310), and incumbent Joe Costello appears to be on the outside looking in at 29.29 percent (2,097).
The most decisive vote of the evening was on Arroyo Grande’s Measure C—which sought to make the city a “charter city.” As of Nov. 5, 63.82 percent (3,066 votes) were in the “no” camp, with 36.18 percent (1,738) in the “yes” camp.
Additional mail-in and provisional ballots—more than 2,000 of them in Arroyo Grande alone—are still yet to be counted, so the results weren’t official as of Nov. 5 and will be finalized in coming days and weeks.
This article appears in Nov 6-13, 2014.