John Hamon, Jim Reed win council seats in final count
Jim Reed, who won a city council seat, speaks to the Rotary Club of Paso Robles.
Updated Nov. 19, at 6:50 p.m.: Incumbent John Hamon and challenger Jim Reed won Paso Robles City Council seats in this month’s elections according to the certified final official election results from the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorders office. Mayor Duane Picanco, who ran for one of two open city council seats, trailed in third place by 14 votes. Pamela Avila followed in fourth by another six votes. See the final tally below.
Incumbent John Hamon wins solid victory.
Hamon will head back to the council for his third term with newly-elected Reed, current Councilman Fred Strong, newly-elected mayor and current councilman Steve Martin. The fifth seat, soon to be vacated by Martin, is expected to filled by council appointment, sources say. Councilman Ed Steinbeck did not run for re-election and will be leaving the council.
Reed ran as an anti-establishment candidate and has promised to bring a new and critical voice to the council. He said he favors replacing city manager Jim App.
Paso Robles City Council election results – updated Nov. 19
- John Hamon Jr, 2,881 votes, 22.03 percent – elected
- Jim Reed, 2,606 votes, 19.93 percent – too close to call
- Duane Picanco, 2,592 votes, 19.82 percent – too close to call
- Pamela Avila, 2,586 votes, 19.77 percent – too close to call
- Steve Gregory, 2,374 votes, 18.15 percent
Updated Nov. 12 at 5:45 p.m.: The San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorders office worked through the day Wednesday counting the remaining ballots from the Nov. 4 election. There were 568 ballots from Paso Robles this morning and all but 38 are now tallied.
The results for the two open Paso Robles City Council seats place incumbent John Hamon firmly in the lead with 2,881 votes. Jim Reed appears to have clinched the second available seat with 2,606 votes. Duane Picanco trails just 14 votes behind. But Reed’s lead has grown slightly. Pamela Avila trails farther behind by 22 votes.
Updated Nov. 11 at 5 a.m.: The San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorders office is still counting ballots from the Nov. 4 election. As of this morning, there were 568 ballots still to count from Paso Robles. The county plans to resume counting ballots on Wednesday.
The current tally (see updated table below) places John Hamon in first and Jim Reed in second, with third place just 10 votes away. Duane Picanco and Pamela Avila are tier for third.
Updated Nov. 6 at 6:18 p.m.: Voters in Paso Robles have given city council incumbent John Hamon his seat back, based on a new ballot tally late this afternoon. His lead grew to more than 220 votes over his nearest competitor as the remaining ballots were being counted. The winner of the the second city council seat to be filled by this election remains in question.
Two challengers, Jim Reed and Pamela Avila pulled ahead of city council incumbent and current Paso Robles Mayor Duane Picanco, but the three candidates are with in a margin of just 13 votes.
This race is not over. There are still 1,018 mail-in ballots, 258 provisional ballots, and 84 ballots not processed on election night to be counted, according to the San Luis Obispo County Clerk-Recorder’s office.
On Wednesday morning, there were “20,000 absentee ballots county-wide left to count,” according to Julie Rodewald, the San Luis Obispo County clerk-recorder. Rodewald said it will probably take ’till Friday to finish counting the bulk of them, because the signature of each voter needs to be checked against county records.
“With preliminary vote counts so close, we will not know the final outcome for city council for up to two weeks,” said Paso Robles City Manager Jim App on the Wednesday after the election in an email to local media. He attached an Oct. 31 letter from Rodewald explaining how the additional mail-in ballots will be counted.
Five candidates are running for two open seats: Hamon, owner of Hamon Overhead Door Co.; Picanco, a retired businessman and current mayor of Paso Robles; Reed, a local architect; Avila, economic development director with the Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce; and Steve Gregory, a planning commissioner.
“I’m thankful for the re-election,” said Hamon on Wednesday morning.. “I’m looking forward to another four years. We’ve got a lot of work to get done to put the city back on its feet and where it needs to be. We need to rebuild town and put funds back into buildings, roads, weed abatement and not just city employee wages.” Regarding the pool at Centennial Park, Hamon said “My goal is to have it ready for swim season next year. It saved $11,000 per month when it was closed and we needed to save money. But now that we are doing better we should open it. There are a lot of kids that would like to use that.”
City Councilman Steve Martin was elected mayor of Paso Robles in an uncontested race. His soon to be vacant city council seat is expected to be filled by appointment. During the election campaign, some of the candidates pledged to appoint the third highest vote getter.
Could there be a recount?
If the election results are still very close after all absentee and provisional votes are counted, candidates have the option of requesting a recount. The county will not do one automatically, according to the county clerk-recorder. If a candidate requests a recount and the results don’t change, that candidate is responsible for the costs of the recount. If the outcome changes, the county pays for the recount. The county clerk-recorder could not say at this time what the costs would be.
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