Sepi Shyne and John Erickson remain the apparent winners of the Nov. 3 West Hollywood City Council election, according to the latest figures released from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office.
The latest figures show Shyne has 7,927 votes and Erickson with 7,188 votes for first and second place finishes, which means they will take the two Council seats that were up for election. However, these results are still unofficial; the registrar will not certify the results until Nov. 30.
Those figures are up significantly for both candidates since results were last updated on Friday – 549 more votes for Shyne and 459 more votes for Erickson. In those Friday results, Shyne had 7,378 votes and Erickson had 6,729 votes.
Incumbent John Heilman still remains in third place with 6,108 votes, up 371 votes from his total of 5,737 on Friday. There are still ballots to be counted – mail in ballots, provisional ballots and same-day registration ballots – but it seems unlikely that Heilman can overtake Erickson’s lead to claim second place and thus remain on the Council. Heilman is currently 1,080 votes behind Erickson.
The fourth place finisher continues to be Larry Block who now has 3,405 votes, up 248 votes from his Friday total of 3,157.
Incumbent John Duran remains in fifth place, now having 3,290 votes, up 219 votes from his Friday total of 3,071.
The six other challengers on the ballot all saw slight increases in their totals as well. Noemi Torres is in sixth place 1,613 votes while Mark Yusupov is in seventh place with 1,412 votes.
Marco Colantonio is in eight place with 977 votes and Jerome Cleary is in ninth place with 605 votes.
The other two candidates on the ballot withdrew from the race before election day, but their names still appeared on the ballot. Tom Demille has 559 votes and Christopher McDonald has 505 votes.
The West Hollywood City Council is scheduled to certify its election results at its Dec. 7 meeting, the same meeting at which the new councilmembers will be sworn into office.
That Dec. 7 meeting will be the final meeting for Heilman and Duran, the two incumbents. They will only be a part of that Dec. 7 meeting briefly before swearing in of the two new councilmembers. Heilman has served on the Council for 36 years, first being elected in 1984, the same election in which residents voted on cityhood. Duran has been on the Council for 20 years, first elected in 2001.
Some residents have questioned whether Duran or Heilman can run again for office in 2022 or 2024, or are they termed out. Yes, they both eligible to run for office again. Neither is termed out. They both are allowed one more four-year term.
West Hollywood voters approved term limits for the councilmembers in 2013. Under those restrictions, councilmembers are allowed to serve three four-year terms in office (a partial term counts as a full term where term limits are concerned). However, term limits were not retroactive. The clock only started ticking with that 2013 passage of term limits.
Both Heilman and Duran have served two of the three four-year terms they are allowed and thus are both eligible to serve one more four-year term if the voters put them back in office.
Similarly, Councilmembers Lauren Meister, John D’Amico and Lindsey Horvath are all on their second four-year term and are eligible to serve one more four-year term if the voters elect them again.
