Many of us might not have been ready for another election, but here it was.

There was a lot at stake and this election seemed too near the previous that almost anything could happen.

I went through a lot of ups and down the last few weeks and hopefully the time has come for my sleep patterns to return to normal.

Here are a few musings on the results:

 

– Obviously, the big news is that Measure S didn’t just lose, but it got an amazing beat down. Hillel Aron had the tweet of the night:

Measure N, which had no campaign and was abandoned by its own sponsors, is doing better than Measure S.

— Hillel Aron (@hillelaron) March 8, 2017

While this was quite a walloping, I was still very nervous when I heard No only had a four point lead a few weeks ago.

Then the L.A. Times and Daily News got involved as did the Mayor and other elected officials.

My sabermetric mind told me that No’s lead should increase, but since voter turnout was low and Hilary Clinton had a solid lead going in, anything could happen.

I spent a lot of my free time these past few weeks calling and emailing friends.

And when I exhausted those, I asked, “Where do your parents live?” and I’d give them a call too.

The great part about it all was that I was able to talk with friends I haven’t connected in a long time so thank you Michael Weinstein?

Through the course of my phone calls, there was less explaining needed as election day neared.

People either started to get it or just telling them to read the L.A. Times Editorial was enough. I started to get suspect over the weekend when I didn’t get any new flyers.

Were you sick of these type of flyers?    

 

The same for Monday and Tuesday. Maybe someone already knew something and was throwing in the towel, but who?

Seeing the first 4% of results and the No’s having a 60% lead made me feel good, but I knew that was a small sample size.

As more tallies came in, the lead kept increasing and by 11pm last night, I felt safe enough to go bed with 25% reporting.

And yes, I did sleep well.      

 

– Measure H seemed to have reached it’s 2/3rds minimum to pass, but it was a narrow margin.

When I started following results it lingered around 60% with slight gains the closer I got to bedtime. I definitely tried getting people to vote yes on this, but not as vigorously as S because who was the opposition?

Even the Yes on S campaign endorsed it, so I thought this was a layup.

I know. I know.

Never pull a DeSean Jackson before reaching the end zone.        

 

 

– The most eyed upon race cyclists were following was Josef Bray-Ali versus Road Kill Gil Cedillo.

It was a good thing I was asleep for this one as the results fluctuated from Gil having a solid lead to Josef pulling within single digits to Cedillo narrowly getting above the 50% threshold to avoid a runoff (is it enough for a recount?).

This was a remarkable campaign run by Bray-Ali as it was the very definition of grassroots.

It’s really hard to overcome a well funded incumbent, especially when you don’t have the same resources.

The volunteers behind Josef were keyed into his energy and made a lot of inroads as the campaign neared.

If you told me a year ago that someone with no political experience would gain an L.A. Times endorsement for City Council, I would have asked, “Who died?”

I know there’s no moral victories as people’s lives will continue to be endangered in CD1, but let’s hope Josef’s impact will give us something to build on.

Still, seeing those dark tinted glasses for another 5 1/2 years is going to make me cringe.      

 

– Most everything else went as expected.

The Mayor won. We love weed.

The one race that got completely overlooked is in the Northeast Valley in CD7.

Would you guess this city council race had the most money contributed to it?

Probably not.   

There were a potpourri of candidates running for this open seat and not a lot of coverage.

I identified three candidate as being the front runners who all each winned, placed and showed.

But this is a primary and only two could move on.

Monica Rodriguez, the Eric Garcetti backed candidate finished first, about 11% ahead of the next challenger, Karo Torossian.

Bike the Vote did give Rodriguez an endorsement, but Torossian submitted his questionnaire late which is actually commendable considering most didn’t reply.

From following Karo here in CD2, I would give Karo my backing as he understands how to make communities more liveable with his planning background.

See you May 16th!

 

– On the night before the election, Council Member Joe Buscaino stopped by Operation Firefly to help hand out lights in San Pedro.

Just like always, he was all smiles and full of energy on the eve of the polls opening.

He stayed for a little bit, but had somewhere else he had to head off to.

Where do you think he had to go?

Hob knobbing with high level donors?

No, just going to fulfill a LAPD reserve commitment.

Pretty cool.

 

– There was some good that came out of Measure S.

It did scare City Council into updating Community Plans every six years and not allowing developers to choose who writes their environmental impact reports.

These are big moves that should have appeased the Yes supporters, but it pretty much fell on deaf ears as this campaign turned to meritless attacks the last few weeks.

And out of it all, there was one more good thing: people realized even further how evil the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is.

They spent an incredible amount of money on this campaign (around $6 million) which calls out their function as a healthcare nonprofit.

Seeing how they were the biggest spender in the November California election, this is probably not the last time we see AHF’s tentacles reach into business they should have no part of.

There are a number of other AIDS organizations you can support. Please help those.