The Castaic Area Town Council election Saturday saw two incumbents unseated despite a typically low turnout for the advisory board’s vote.
“I was surprised by some of the results of this election, and the means by which they were obtained,” said Flo Lawrence, president of the Castaic Area Town Council, declining to elaborate further. “It has been an honor to serve with two great leaders in Castaic in Marty Kreisler and Dean Paradise.”
The main issue for most of the voters in Saturday’s election was thought to be a controversial landfill expansion proposal currently in front of Los Angeles County officials.
One resident shared a posting Saturday on Nextdoor, a social media network creating virtual neighborhoods online for residents of a certain area. The posting decried candidates who supported an agreement the CATC recently made with operators of a Val Verde landfill, including Kreisler, Paradise and Dawn Faulconer. Faulconer won re-election.
All three were among those who voted in favor of creating the Chiquita Canyon – Castaic Community Benefit Fund, money to support community activities in exchange for support of the landfill’s proposed expansion.
Jessica Roussel Chambers earned the right to represent Region 1. She garnered 64 votes, while Kreisler, the incumbent, received 38 votes. Region 1 includes the neighborhoods of Live Oak, North Bluffs and Hillcrest Park.
Bonnie Nikolai ran unopposed to represent Region 2, which includes the Val Verde area.
Lloyd Carder defeated Dean Paradise, the incumbent, by a margin of 75-39.
James Idleman ran unopposed in Region 4, which includes Meadowwood, Bravo, Encore and the Castaic area east of Interstate 5 and south of Lake Hughes Road.
Dawn Faulconer won in Region 5, receiving 30 votes. Torrie Anderson received nine votes and Jinghong Li received four votes.
The Region 5 area includes, Double C Ranch, Hidden Lake, Stonegate, Northlake and the Castaic area east of I-5 and north of Lake Hughes Road.
The results will be certified and announced at the next regular meeting of the Castaic Area Town Council on 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday.
In January, the new officials are expected to be sworn in to office.
The Castaic area has about 19,000 residents, according to the most recent Census data available.
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8 Comments
“I was surprised by some of the results of this election, and the means by which they were obtained,” said Flo Lawrence, president of the Castaic Area Town Council, declining to elaborate further.
So he is surprised that this vote didn’t turn out the way he wanted?
Castaic proper residents had no idea of the vote for the CATC nor are they aware of the landfill expanding in their direction. All those expensive signs for certain candidates did nothing for them. I wonder who exactly paid for those wonderful expensive banners that were placed all over Castaic proper for incumbents that lost on such a small percentage of voters.
I actually sat and watched the voting for CATC reps for about three hours. The process amazed me. Two young people were paid by a CATC member to sit and do the intake of the voters, mark them off the register and hand them their individual ballots for their area. They had no experience in verifying actual residents versus those who claim to live in the area. They only had printed lists of registered voters for the three areas that had more than one candidate. I could have said I was a friend of mine who lives in Castaic and voted. I didn’t see anyone asking for verification or proof of who you are.
There were only three boxes to place your votes. There were four openings on the board. I was turned away and not allowed to vote simply because my rep was running unopposed. I wanted to show my support and vote for me rep no matter what, but they wouldn’t let me. I heard from a few of my neighbors they were denied their voting rights based on the same reason.
There were CATC reps watching the boxes and a hired county employee to watch also. Not sure who paid the county employee.
Granted this was not a vote for the Governor or the President, but it seemed to me to be run a little loose, leaving the opening for various illegal voting activities.
Reply
Just wait till Mr Lawrences term is up. I will do everything in power to make sure he is not re-elected.
Susie, I can only comment on the time I was there to help (3:15 to 5, then counting the votes). I hope these answers are helpful.
The Chairman of the Election Committee is Matt Gill, who was not paid (he’s the man in charge of the Castaic Library). I don’t think that Matt would do anything wrong and I think he did a great job with the election. The other two helpers were paid by the CATC. They helped check addresses and names + hand out ballots. The list was provided by LA County, so it’s the best list available. ID’s were shown by some of the residents, others were known by the people at the tables and some were unknown and you are correct that someone could’ve been posing for someone else, but I don’t think it happened on Saturday. The take-away is that we should require a state picture ID in the future.
None of the races were close, so I don’t think it would’ve made a difference. Also, I didn’t see anyone do any sort of coaching to voters. This is good!
The candidates were required to write a brief description of why they are running and to submit an application fee. Once the application process was closed, no new candidates were allowed – no write in’s allowed. Region 2 and 4 had only one candidate run, so they were automatically elected. I understand how you feel about voting and I think it’s great that you want to support your candidate. There is another side to this. I watched our helpers struggle with the list. One gentleman was there for 15-20 minutes. The lists are by precinct, then by street, so it’s very tedious to find the person. When we can streamline the polling, by not having ballots for unopposed candidates, it’s a great help to us. And yes, if all 5 regions had two candidates of more, we would have to have had five ballots with five ballot boxes and more helpers.
I was impressed by how the votes were tallied. Each box was sealed before it left the poll. When it arrived at the counting location, it was unsealed, the votes were counted (two people counted and verified the other). If there was a discrepancy, a third person counted. Votes were tallied, provision votes were checked (as needed) and a final tally was taken. We did this one box at a time and when we were done with one, we’d put all the material back in and open the next box. I know Sandia and Matt wouldn’t do anything unethical and I would say they went out of their way to insure that the votes were properly counted. In fact, Sandia had Matt and I count Region 3, because she lives in the region and didn’t want it to be an sort of conflict of interest.
I can’t answer for the rest of the polling day, but my gut feeling tells me that the election was done properly and I feel that the candidates who won, did so by a proper legal vote.
Yeah, I would not be so surprised if I voted against the interest of the people I represent. I would expect them to vote me out of office. Now the question is will they still push through their plan to extend the two four year terms to three four year terms. Or will they still push through simple majority instead of a two thirds vote. They are no longer holding the majority.
Thanks Greg….I only spoke about what I saw and the answers to the questions I asked. Never actually sat around and watched a voting poll before. I vote and leave. I must have passed you on the road!
I want to apologize to the county employee. I stand corrected, he was there on his day off without pay. Thank you Mr. Gill for your help with the election!
Thanks Susie. You’re a strong supporter of the community and I appreciate all of your hard work. I want to give credit to the people who ran this election. In my eyes, they did a great job. When things don’t go well or there’s a lot of controversy, somebody needs to take responsibility and correct the problem. If the election were flawed, I definitely would have put in my two cents.
Thank you Greg.