Progressives holding on in board races
San Francisco Examiner
November 14, 2008
by Joshua Sabatini
SAN FRANCISCO – The progressives held their own in the Board of Supervisors race after moderates attempted to gain a more powerful presence, according to preliminary results released late Thursday.
The next step: electing a board president.
As a result of the Nov. 4 election, the board’s number of progressive seats and moderate seats will remain as they were, preserving the existing progressive stronghold — which has been at odds with Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Progressives David Chiu, John Avalos, David Campos and Eric Mar will fill the seats of termed out supervisors Aaron Peskin, Gerardo Sandoval, Tom Ammiano and Jake McGoldrick, respectively. Mar faced the closest contest, against moderate candidate
Sue Lee.
The margin of victory became closest in District 1, boiling down to less than 300 votes.
Incumbent supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu and Ross Mirkarimi prevailed by wide
margins.
On Jan. 8, the newly elected will undergo a swearing-in ceremony. Then, the 11-member board will vote for who will serve the two-year term as president.
Any one of the 11 members can be nominated. It takes six votes for a nominee to win.
The influential board president seat has been held during the past four years by Peskin. The president’s power includes setting the tone of board meetings and deciding which supervisors sit on the various board committees.
The board began voting on a board president every two years beginning in 2001. Previously, when supervisors were elected at large and not in individual districts, the top vote getter in an election would be the president.
While there is talk of the position going to a veteran supervisor, such as Sophie Maxwell or Ross Mirkarimi, there remains the possibility that a newly elected member could wind up in the post.
Department of Elections head John Arntz said in District 1, the closest race, there remain “a few hundred” votes left to count, but “the numbers you see here probably aren’t going to change very much with what we have left.”
Arntz said there are about 9,800 provisional ballots left to count citywide and about 5,500 ballots. The results must be certified with the state by Dec. 2.
Among issues the next board president will have to tackle is The City’s budget deficit.
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