And the winners are...

The City Council election results have been certified by the Orange County Registrar of Voters. The final results are:

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA Member, City Council Number To Vote For: 3 Completed Precincts: 31 of 31 Vote Count Percentage JESSE PETRILLA 7,396 22.9% STEVEN BARIC 6,915 21.4% * GARY THOMPSON 6,843 21.2% * NEIL C. BLAIS 6,823 21.1% LAWRENCE (LARRY) MCCOOK 4,326 13.4% * Indicates Incumbent Candidate The new City Council will be sworn in at the next City Council meeting on Wednesday, December 8th. This is the first time since its incorporation that two new RSM council members will be seated at the same time. With the loss of incumbent Neil Blais by a slim margin of 20 votes, after ten years, the City Council will be down to only one member of the original council that was put in place upon the City's incorporation on January 1, 2000, Gary Thompson. This is a bigger loss for the City than for Neil, although it's unlikely that most residents recognize it. With the negative campaigning, and the backlash to the hits on Gary Thompson, Neil Blais basically got lost in the shuffle. He ran a clean campaign and played by the rules, as did Gary Thompson. However, Thompson spent only about a fourth as much as the other three candidates in the top four, and had to contend with additional campaign expenditures specifically attacking him. It seems that the residents felt the hits on Thompson were so distasteful that they came out to the polls specifically to send the message that they didn't believe the negative, false statements that were being made. Comments from the newly elected council members have included that this was a landslide victory, and a clear mandate for change. With 1.5% being the largest margin between any of the first four candidates, is this really a mandate? Further, isn't it a greater mandate for Thompson than the other two who spent four times as much and still ended up winning by relatively few votes? We will see very quickly what the new council members believe their mandate represents, and whether they will be as attuned to the original vision of RSM as past councils have always been.