By Robert Airoldi
With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Mayor Mark Turner appears to have retained his seat and two newcomers are leading in their respective races, replacing two outgoing council members. However, there are about 280,000 ballots countywide that remain to be counted, according to Michael Borga, assistant communication officer with the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters.
Incumbent Turner has garnered 8,215 votes (60.78 percent) compared to challenger and current city councilmember representing District B Yvonne Martinez Beltran with 5,300 votes (39.22 percent).
Turner said he is grateful to the residents of Morgan Hill for the overwhelming victory and allowing him to continue serving as their mayor.
“It was a long campaign season and I focused on communicating my vision for the city including public safety, funding for public art, youth sports and recreation tourism, healthy Morgan Hill, and job creation,” he said in an email Wednesday afternoon. “Going forward I will continue to be present and available for our community. I will continue meeting with residents, business owners, community leaders as well as non-profit leaders looking for ways to improve the quality of life for our residents.”
In the Morgan Hill race for District A replacing the outgoing Rene Spring who decided not to run for reelection, Miriam Vega has 1,630 votes (54.22 percent) compared to Dave Dindak’s 1,376 votes (45.78 percent).
In the council race for District C replacing the outgoing Gino Borgioli who also chose not to run for reelection, Soraida Iwanaga has 1,455 votes (54.09 percent) compared to Michael Orosco’s 1,235 votes (45.91 percent).
Cindy Rogers Murphy was the sole candidate running for City Treasurer. She garnered all 10,919 votes.
In the race for three school board seats, Jennifer Marquez (Trustee Area 5), Rebecca Munson (Trustee Area 6), and Veronica Andrade (Trustee Area 7) are the new school board trustees.
Replacing the outgoing Ivan Rosales Montes, Marques garnered 1,275 votes (52.49 percent) compared to Tyler Smith’s 1,154 votes (47.51 percent).
Challenger Munson ousted incumbent Mary Patterson with 1,392 votes (58.86 votes) compared to 973 votes (41.14 percent).
In the race for Trustee Area 7 replacing the outgoing Adam Escoto, Andrade collected 1,137 votes (63.24 percent) compared to Tom Pocus who garnered 661 votes (36.76 percent).
Measure A, which would amend the Morgan Hill Municipal Code to establish a 12-consecutive year limit on combined mayoral, city council, and treasurer terms overwhelmingly passed with 10,455 votes (78.51 percent) to 2,862 (21.49 percent).
Measure B, which would increase the term of office for the directly elected mayor to four years rather than the current two years, is also trending toward passage with 7,439 votes (55.14 percent) to 6,051 votes (44.86 percent).
For updates on election results, visit https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/CA/Santa_Clara/122582/web.345435/#/summary?category=C_3
