There are plenty of tight races across the nation awaiting final ballot counts, but it’s easy to call the winners for Santa Paula City Clerk and Santa Paula City Treasurer.
Judy Rice was elected to her second term as City Clerk and Sandra “Sandy” Easley is again the City Treasurer - her fourth term - after both again ran unopposed for the positions.
But that doesn’t mean the candidates were elected unanimously: the latest ballot update showed Rice had 4,743 votes, 97.83 percent and write-in votes were counted at 105, 2.17 percent of the total. Easley garnered 4,794 votes, 97.98 percent and 99 write-in votes were cast, 2.02 percent of the total. Each position serves for a four-year term and officeholders receive a $300 monthly stipend.
A longtime Santa Paula employee, Easley is also the city’s interim finance director.
Santa Paula voters were also asked to select two City Council members from four competing candidates. As of Friday, November 9, the latest released update, 9,842 total votes were cast for council candidates and write-ins.
If each voter did select two candidates or write-ins it would translate to 4,921 voters taking part in the council race. Voters are not required to vote for all candidate openings or any candidate for that matter, but if a voter chooses more candidates that there are openings it invalidates all their choices in the category.
There are still more than 40,000 mail-in and provisional ballots to be counted before the results of the November 6 Election can be finalized.
