Cole leads YC Council race; sales tax measure running behind
Toni Cole held a 17 percentage point lead over John Buckland Wednesday with what was likely less than a third of the ballots counted in the race for a seat on the Yuba City Council.
The results, which are incomplete because ballot counting continues, are also not official.
Cole led Buckland 1,483 votes to 1,041 after the 11:16 p.m. Tuesday night release of election results from the Sutter County Elections Office.
A third candidate in the race for the District 5 seat, Vincenzo S. Corazza, had received 136 votes.
The Fifth District includes the Shanghai Bend and Bogue Road areas. There are 14,672 registered voters living in the district, according to Sutter County Registrar of Voters Donna Johnston.
Prior to 2024, City Council seats were elected at large, with every voter in the city limits able to vote for candidates to fill two or three seats at a time.
Responding to changes in federal and state law, Yuba City divided the city into five different districts after the 2020 census and before the 2022 Council election.
If turnout in the 2024 election matches turnout from 2020, there could be 10,000 or more ballots cast in the race.
Wade Kirchner ran unopposed for the District 4 seat representing southwestern Yuba City.
Elections officials are still verifying signatures on envelopes and counting ballots.
Election results will change throughout the ballot counting canvass period as vote-by-mail ballot, provisional ballots (including conditional voter registration provisional ballots), and other ballots are tallied.
In other Sutter County races:
Measure D, which would increase Yuba City's sales tax by one percent for general city services, was trailing by 4.3 percentage points, with 7,000 no votes to 6,429 yes votes, with 13,429 votes counted so far. Seventy nine percent of Sutter County's registered voters participated in the 2020 presidential election, including 28,000 of the 35,550 people registered to vote in Yuba City.
Thirty nine percent of 52,00 registered voters cast ballots in 2020. There are an additional 2,200 registered voters in Sutter County this year, according to the California Secretary of State's Office.
Sutter County Board of Education Trustee area two: Mike Reid had 1,495 votes to June McJunkin's 888.
Yuba Community College governing board area 3: Bill Cornelius, 51,162 votes and Rita Andrews, 3,423.
Yuba Community College governing board area 4: John Cassidy, 4,165 votes and Juan Delgado, 3,040.
Yuba Community College governing board area 6: Jose L. Garcia 212, and Deborah Bautista Zavala, 31.
Yuba Community College governing board area 7: Jeffrey Lee Dryden, 6 and Douglas M. Harris, 3.
Live Oak Unified School District Board of Trustees: with 3 seats up for election, Gabriella Alvarado, 916 votes, Simren Pamma, 869 votes, and Scott Davis, 843 votes, held advantages over Michele Curiel (663), Peter Hart (584), and Jessica Ramirez (422).
Measure C Sutter Union High School Bond: Needing 55 percent of the vote to succeed, Measure C was failing 1,062 votes to 1,043, 50.45 percent to 49.55 percent. The school is seeking permission to sell $13.8 million in bonds for improvements to the football stadium and other athletic facilities.
