San Joaquin County gave birth to its eighth city during Tuesday’s balloting.
Even with only 14.1 percent of the votes countywide counted as of 11 p.m. Tuesday, 92.16 percent of the 1,160 votes cast in the community northwest of Tracy near the Alameda County line favored incorporation.
The 1,069 yes votes against 91 no votes is an insurmountable margin.
Ripon Republican Heath Flora was cruising to another term in the California Assembly with 70.29 percent of the vote.
In the 13th District that includes Lathrop, Adam Gray had 54.31 percent (1,423 votes) and John Durate 45.69 percent (1,197 votes). It is still to early to call, but given there are only candidates either Gray or Duarte will be going to Congress next January based on Tuesday’s vote.
Other races weren’t as clear cut in determining a final winner.
Congressman Josh Harder is definitely headed for a Nov. 5 runoff to return to Congress where he represents almost all of San Joaquin County except Lathrop and rural areas south of Tracy and Manteca.
Harder, though, may end up winning re-election outright when Tuesday’s vote tally is completed in the coming weeks.
Harder had 55.58 percent (26,516) votes. His next closest challenger, former Stockton Mayor Kevin Lincoln, was at 26.92 percent (12,843 votes).
A candidate that wins 50 percent plus one of votes cast in the primary is elected outright.
The race for State Senate District 5 had Clements businessman Jim Shoemaker with 42.12 percent followed by Congressman Jerry McNerney with 32.95 percent, and former county supervisors Carlos Villapudua with 24.93 percent.
In the Assembly District 13 race, Rhodesia Ransom has 41.64 percent, Denise Aguilar Mendez 34.49 percent, and Edith Villapudua 23.87 percent.
Lathrop Mayor Sonny Dhaliwal is leading the race for the District 3 San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors race with 46.64 percent followed by former Manteca mayor Steve DeBrum at 31.13 percent and Stockton business owner Angel Sepulveda at 15.64 percent.
The Board of Supervisors District 5 race is led by incumbent Robert Rickman with 52.99 percent, Tracy Mayor Nancy Young with 31.3 percent, and retired teacher Wes Huffman with 15.87 percent.
Why the vote count can
take weeks to complete
The final results may not be known for weeks.
The reason the “final” unofficial tally tasks so long is due to the number of voters either mailing back their ballots in the final few days or dropping them off at polling places.
In the last election, 135,000 of the 175,000 mail-in ballots cast were received on the final Monday and Tuesday.
The mail-in ballots dropped off at the polling places on election on Election Day and received in the mail after Friday and are postmarked no later than March 5 are being processed next.
It takes three scans to do so.
The first is to retrieve the signature.
The second is to compare it with all signatures of that voter on file.
The third is by precinct to tally the vote.
It is the main reason why — along with various provisional ballots where information of the voters connected with ballots cast needs to be verified — it can take several weeks for the “final” unofficial tally to be announced.
The state deadline to issue certified results — after various “recount samples” are done to verify the accuracy of the count — is April 12.
Mountain House cityhood
Mountain House, based on Tuesday’s vote, will become San Joaquin County’s eighth city on July 1, 2024.
The community that didn’t even have one resident 20 years ago, now has 28,000 residents.
It will instantly become the county’s fifth largest city — after Stockton, Tracy, Manteca, Lodi, and Lathrop — and roughly the 250th largest among what would then be California’s 483 cities.
Mountain House — if it were a city today— would have been right up with Manteca, Tracy, and Lathrop as being among the state’s 10 fastest growing jurisdictions in recent years.
The last city to incorporate in the Golden State was Jurupa Valley in Riverside County in 2011. That Southern California city currently has a population of 106,941.
Lathrop was the last city in San Joaquin County to incorporate. That was in 1989 when it had 7,006 people. Today it has 35,080 residents.
Currently, Mountain House is a free-standing community services district formed under the auspices of San Joaquin County.
Steve Pinkerton — a former Manteca city manager — has served as general manager of the Mountain House CSD since 2019.
Mountain House voters elect CSD board members.
As a general law city, though, the governing council would have full autonomy from San Joaquin County.
A $70,000 study analyzed the financial ability of Mountain House and determined it could stand alone as a city.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
