The official election results are in, and Santa Barbara boasted a 49.5 percent voter turnout in its first mail-only election.
The city’s 23,163 votes included 187 provisional ballots.
Mayor-elect Helene Schneider won with a 2,759-vote lead over City Councilman Dale Francisco, bringing in a total of 10,422 votes.
City Council incumbent Grant House won the top amount of votes — and the largest office, if past policies hold true — of City Council candidates with 8,946 and was followed by Harwood “Bendy” White, Frank Hotchkiss and Michael Self. Self, coming in fourth, will get the two-year term left by Schneider.
The building-height limit initiative, Measure B, failed to pass, while the other three measures on the ballot passed with wide margins.
Much of the campaign season’s attention — and spending — focused on the controversial Measure B, which proposed lowering building-height limits to 40 feet in the downtown El Pueblo Viejo area and 45 feet elsewhere in the city. It received 12,199 no votes and 10,437 yes votes.
Administrative Services Director Marcelo Lopez and city staff worked until about 2 a.m. on Election Night to finish counting the ballots in the Council Chambers.
The results came in later than expected, but staff stressed that accuracy, not speed, was the most important issue. The staff expects to look into the process to see how it can be improved.
— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com.
