ELISA ACKER & ANNA WEBBER
Staff Writers
Despite a large group of supporters for the incumbents’ party, the atmosphere was tense Tuesday night at Taverna Tony’s.
Councilmember Sharon Barovsky was anxious that challenger John Mazza might win her seat on the Council. With libations flowing, Barovsky was restless after the arrival of the first count. The absentee ballots revealed that Stern was in the lead, and Barovsky and Mazza’s numbers would be running close together. For her, it was too close for comfort. She was voicing opinions right and left, like, “I’m in the hole” and “I think Mazza’s going to take my seat” just after the absentee and provisional ballots had been counted.
When asked how she felt about the election, Barovsky took a heavy drag of her cigarette and replied, “I don’t care.” Susan Shaw, a consultant for the city, told Barovsky that she didn’t think it was a good idea to talk to reporters, so Barovsky ran off a ready-made, emotionless response: “I feel that I can’t lose because I get to spend time with my family and go to Spain.”
In contrast, Stern did not feel worried. He was feeling good to be in the lead, but said, “We’ll see how I feel in an hour” after all the precinct’s votes have been counted.
“I ran an honest campaign. I’m sorry they chose not to go on the record for who ran their campaign,” Stern said. He said they were trying to smear his campaign with the use of negative hit pieces.
At the final Candidate Forum (April 1, 2006), Barovksy had also mentioned the negative campaigning, saying that she chose to ignore it and refused to respond in kind.
However, she recently told The Malibu Times that she thought her lack of response cost her a lot of votes. She said that “from here on out, I give you my word, when I hear a lie, I’m going to say ‘You’re a liar.’”
At the incumbents’ party Councilmember Jeff Jennings said, “It’s very nerve racking. Obviously it’s pretty close, so it’s going to be a long evening. I have a lot of sympathy for all of the candidates.”
Jennings also said that he thought the race was “typical because there was a lot more misinformation than information” in regards to the challengers. He said there was less of the dramatic, over the top mudslinging that usually occurs with these elections.
Even though it might appear tame when compared with past elections, the events leading up to the Council’s 2006 election were all but boring.
The Candidate Forum at Webster Elementary (18 March, 2006) was buzzing with the conspicuous absence of the two incumbents. While the two may have truly “failed to receive the e-mail” invitation, the fact that neither of them attended seemed to be a statement.
Later at the Paradise Cove Homeowners forum, the locals were up in arms about the lack of a proper septic system, an un-resolved problem for about six years. One of the residents interrupted, raising his voice, when Mazza spoke about the issue, even though he was neither directly responsible for the septic situation nor a current member of the Council.
Challenger Embree said that the absentee votes for every election he had seen in Malibu were generally “skewed” and not representative of the overall vote. However, for this election, they were surprisingly telling of the final count.
At first count, Stern was in the lead with 686, Barovsky was in second with 661, Mazza was close behind at 550, and Embree and Gillespie trailed a bit with 307 and 161 respectively.
After Wednesday’s final vote count determined the results, incumbents Mayor Stern and Councilmember Barovsky were confirmed as the winners of the City Council election.
Similar to the initial absentee count, Mazza was the challenger who followed the incumbents the closest, only 70 votes behind Barovsky.
The final count showed Stern at 1,443 votes, Barovsky at 1,353, Mazza at 1,283.
The other two challengers fell off the charts after the first precincts were counted. Embree received 850 votes, Gillespie trailing behind at 363.
Measure U, the ordinance that would extend the amount of four-year terms a councilmember can have from two to three, crushingly failed to pass. The final count showed 1,911 votes against the measure and 739 votes in its favor. Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich, the only incumbent who will be eligible to run in the next 2008 election, ran the Measure U campaign.
Although the incumbents were re-elected, Measure U was a flop.
04-20-2006