Mayor’s race divides city

Measure Q failed in every precinct citywide|

Petaluma has 23 voting precincts, comprising over 30,500 eligible voters. Almost 16,000 of those voters are registered Democrats, while slightly more then 6,000 are Republicans. Another 8,000 are either members of the smaller political parties, or are registered as declined-to-state.

Sixty-two percent of those voters cast ballots last November, and the results were striking in that they defied conventional wisdom.

A mayor identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic party defeated one of the few elected Republicans in Sonoma by linking his campaign to the anti-tax mood of this year’s electorate.

Voters rejected both the tax and the Republican candidate who championed the tax.

For Democratic Mayor David Glass his 84-vote margin of victory vindicate the way he campaigned and the way he said he spoke to the people of the city.

“I spoke directly to the voters, going door-to-door and asking for their votes,” said Glass. “I was outspent by opposition that was well funded and well organized .”

The city divide is a study in geographic division with voters northeast of Highway 101 and McDowell Boulevard supporting Councilman Mike Harris, while voters southwest largely living in the historic downtown area gave strong support to Glass.

In some precincts within the theater district of Petaluma - specifically precinct number 2504, which takes in the neighborhoods surrounding Aqus Café, Luma Restaurant, Apple Box Café and La Dolce Vita Wine Bar - Glass won by several hundred votes.

Harris carried more precincts than Glass, but the mayor’ vote totals in the precincts he won were substantially bigger then Harris’ margins of victory in the precincts he carried.

“They knew both of us. Both of us ran good campaigns. I have no regrets,” said Harris.

Harris points to the lower voter turnout this past election, versus the election four years earlier in 2010 as a possible reason for his narrow setback. Voter turnout in 2010 was at 77 percent, compared with 62 percent in 2014.

Harris believes if more people had come to the polls, he might have won. He discounts his support for Measure Q as the reason he lost.

“Measure Q had nothing to do with this,” said Harris.

Measure Q was the most identifiable disagreement the candidates had with each other and the one thing that seems to have united an otherwise split electorate was the universal opposition of Petaluma voters to Measure Q. Of Petaluma’s 23 precincts, Citywide, Measure Q was defeated by almost 57 percent of Petaluma voters. Glass campaigned on two consistent criticisms of the tax.

First that it had no time frame and was, as he often called it, “a forever tax.” The second was that the measure was a general tax and how it was used was up to the discretion of the city.

(Contact E. A. Barrera at ernesto.barrera@arguscou rier.com)

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