Paso Robles, Pismo Beach races too close to call

November 6, 2014

Several candidates are bunched closely together in the Paso Robles and Pismo Beach city council races, leaving the elections in both cities too close to call at the conclusion of Tuesday night’s vote count. The San Luis Obispo County Clerk Recorder’s office plans to have the final results by Friday at 5 p.m.

A mere 30 votes separate the second and fourth place candidates in the race for Paso Robles City Council seats, and all five participants in the campaign are bunched within 3.5 percent of one another. In a four-way Pismo Beach race, two candidates are currently tied for second place, and the other two are within 3 percent of each other.

Two council seats are up for grabs in both cities, and elections officials still have absentee and provisional ballots to count. Pismo Beach’s mayoral race also remains undecided. Just 15 votes separate incumbent Shelley Higginbotham and challenger Kevin Kreowski.

Incumbent John Hamon is leading the Paso Robles race and has likely secured another term on the council. Hamon’s name appeared on 21.91 percent of ballots counted so far.

Current mayor Duance Picanco is in second place, but he holds only a seven-vote lead over challenger Jim Reed and a 30-vote lead over challenger Pamela Avila.

The fifth candidate in the race, Steve Gregory, is 136 votes behind Picanco.

The Pismo Beach race consists of incumbents, Mary Ann Reiss and Kris Vardas, and challengers, Sheila Blake and Marcia Guthrie, both of whom are vocal opponents of a proposed Price Canyon development.

Blake leads the race, with nearly 100 votes separating her from Reiss and Guthrie, who are tied. Vardas is currently in last place, but he trails Reis and Guthrie by only 31 votes.

There are 24,948 ballots yet to be counted. Pismo Beach has 855 and Paso Robles has 2,265.