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The race to represent District 1 on the San Ramon City Council still remains too close to call one week after Election Night, however incumbent Councilman Scott Perkins has taken a 75-vote lead against his lone opponent, public health professional Luz Gómez.
After trailing by 55 votes as of Friday, according to the most recent election results released by the Contra Costa County Clerk-Recorder’s Office as of Tuesday evening Perkins has earned 4,594 votes (50.41%) against Gómez who has collected 4,519 votes (49.59%).
The two have been neck and neck since Election Night, with Gómez walking away with a 41-vote lead after the polls closed on Nov. 3 and then growing that lead to 51 on Friday before falling behind in the most recent count.
County officials have also documented an 85.59% voter turnout in District 1 — which primarily encompasses in San Ramon’s northwestern region, roughly located west of Alcosta Boulevard and north of Montevideo School Park — with 10,666 ballots being collected from 12,462 registered voters in the region.
If Perkins survives with his razor thin advantage, he will have earned a fifth term on the San Ramon City Council.
“I’m really pleased to see the 125 vote swing in my favor,” Perkins said Wednesday morning. “I’m not too surprised considering DanvilleSanRamon.com and the East Bay Times gave me their endorsements. Those were fairly late in the electoral process so early voters didn’t have the opportunity to read those editorials and later voters did.”
“I’m really grateful that participation was so high and that people were engaged in the process, even under these very difficult circumstances,” he added.
Campaigning heavily on experience and a pro-continuity platform, Perkins said his main priorities throughout the election process were to keep the council “conscientious, fiscally responsible, collaborative and engaged.”
Should results hold, Perkins said that there are a number of challenges facing the city that he is looking forward to tacking including handling the coronavirus crisis and balancing the city’s budget. He is also particularly focused on the state’s upcoming Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle, which may mandate San Ramon build thousands more homes.
“Every eight years we have to do RHNA numbers and this year that is going to be very difficult because we’re hearing that the state is going to give us a big boost in the number of housing opportunity sites we need to provide and that’s going to be a big challenge,” he said.
With councilman Dave Hudson poised to become San Ramon’s next mayor, one of the next council’s first decision will be to decide how to fill Hudson’s soon-to-be vacant District 2 council seat. Perkins said he is leaning toward having the council appoint another council member over opening it up to a public vote due to the prohibitive cost of special elections.
Saying that “experience matters,” Perkins said that he would like to appoint a member of the community to serve on the council who has previous experience working on a city commission or other local government agency.
“People that haven’t served on committees or commissions, they have a higher hurdle,” he said. “They’re going to have to show us that they have something that the others don’t have. Maybe they served with the school board or fire district, but we would like to see somebody who has served in the community before.”
A strong proponent for fiscal responsibility, since joining the council in 2003 he has been on the vitally important Council Finance Committee and Infrastructure Committee, assignments he said he requested due to his passionate commitment to keeping the city fiscally sound.
Lending his civic expertise to a number of agencies throughout the city, Perkins also currently serves as the council advisor on the Innovation and Technology, Arts, Economic Development and Open Space advisory committees.
Additionally, Perkins serves on the chairperson for the Tri-Valley Transportation Council, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the East Bay Regional Communications System Authority.
Addressing his opponent, Perkins was complimentary saying: “This was the most challenging (Election I’ve been through). Luz and her team ran a very good campaign I was really impressed by the quality… It never got down and dirty with nasty things being sent.”
As of Tuesday night Gómez had not yet conceded the race, saying that while it is a nail-biter she is holding on until the remaining votes in the district come through.
“I was just having conversations with my team about what it means and there’s actually still a chance my understanding is but it’s just going to be a nail-biter and we’re just going to wait for more votes to be counted. There are still some outstanding votes to be counted,” she told DanvilleSanRamon.com on Tuesday evening.
“I think that regardless of the outcome this was a really great race and I want to congratulate the people of San Ramon because we’ve had an amazing turnout of people participating in the democratic process,” she added.
Contra Costa County officials have stated that countywide voter turnout rests at 82.17% and estimate that there are approximately 10,000 ballots left to be processed — an estimated 5,000 of which are estimated to be from vote-by-mail and polls, while the remaining 5,000 to be provisional and conditional voter ballots.
Residents should be advised that election figures will likely change in the coming days as final vote-by-mail ballots, provisional ballots and other qualifying ballots are processed, according to the California Secretary of State.
