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OC Supervisor Katrina Foley wins District 5 seat, cements board’s first Democrat majority in decades [1]
['Alicia Robinson', 'Alicia Robinson Covers Cities', 'Local Government For The Orange County Register. She Has Also Reported At The Press-Enterprise In Riverside', 'The Daily Pilot In Costa Mesa', 'At Small Daily', 'Weekly Papers In The Midwest', 'Before She Became An Honorary Californian Based On Hours Spent In Traffic. Besides Government', 'Policy', "She'S Interested In Animals Both Wild", 'Domestic']
Date: 2022-11-18
With state Sen. Pat Bates officially conceding the race for the Orange County Board of Supervisors District 5 seat on Friday, the board will have its first Democratic majority in decades.
Bates, a Republican, had hoped to defeat Supervisor Katrina Foley (who was elected to the District 2 seat last year, before the board approved new boundary lines shifting it inland) to represent the coastal and south county district. But with Foley’s lead at more than 5,000 votes as of Thursday night, Bates put out a statement Friday to announce she had congratulated Foley and was proud to have run “a positive campaign and fought hard for every vote.”
About 23,000 ballots countywide remained to counted as of Friday evening, but District 4 Supervisor Doug Chaffee appeared to have clinched his reelection with a 14,000-vote lead over Buena Park Mayor Sunny Park (both are Democrats).
In District 2, another Dem-on-Dem race, Santa Ana Mayor Vicente Sarmiento maintained a firm lead over Garden Grove Councilmember Kim Bernice Nguyen. The newly created district is the county’s first Latino-majority district.
“We’re still cautiously optimistic, but we can’t claim a victory until every vote is counted,” Sarmiento said Friday. “We have trust in the integrity of the process, but it has been excruciatingly slow and painful.”
Voters that supported him “were looking for experience – proven experience – leadership and hope, and a new vision for residents of central county” who have lacked strong representation, he said.
The last time Democrats held a board majority was 1976, so “this is huge,” said Democratic Party of Orange County Executive Director Ajay Mohan. “In 2018, we knew Orange County had changed a whole lot, and that’s just a culmination of years of work – now we know that change is coming from the bottom up.”
In an interview earlier this week, Foley attributed the election outcome to her “coalition of unlikely allies,” which included organizations representing the county’s deputy sheriffs and public defenders, representatives of business and environmental groups, and health care workers’ unions as well as hospital administrators.
She’ll continue to focus on issues including community safety, homelessness, supporting small businesses and climate action, she said.
What the Board of Supervisors deals with “doesn’t always have a D or an R behind it in terms of the issue or the approach,” Foley said. “What I hope this election showed is that the voters are really interested in people who care about compromise and people who are going to work for everyone regardless of party affiliation.”
In her statement, Bates thanked her supporters and volunteers for their hard work and added, “Having spent the last 30 years working to preserve and protect the way of life we enjoy in this special part of California, holding government accountable and protecting taxpayers, I have no intention of stopping now. I fully intend to continue that quest as a private citizen.”
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[1] Url:
https://www.ocregister.com/2022/11/18/oc-supervisor-katrina-foley-wins-district-5-seat-cements-boards-first-democrat-majority-in-decades/
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