West Hollywood councilmembers-elect Sepi Shyne and John Erickson continue to gather votes and remain the top vote getters in the Nov. 3 City Council election, according to the latest figures from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s office.
With the release of updated numbers on Tuesday, Shyne now has a total of 8,084 votes, up 43 votes since WEHOville last updated the results. Shyne amassed 23.55% of the vote.
Erickson now has a total of 7,339 votes, up 40 votes since the last update. He gathered 21.38% of the vote.
There is now a difference of 745 votes between Shyne in first place and Erickson in second place.
In third place, incumbent John Heilman now has a total of 6,228 votes, up 34 votes since the previous update. Heilman earned 18.14% of the vote.
Heilman is now 1,111 votes behind Erickson.
Further down the tally, challenger Larry Block remains in fourth place with a total of 3,485 votes, an increase of 21 votes since the last update. He earned 10.15% of the vote.
In fifth place is incumbent John Duran with 3,361 votes, an increase of 15 votes since the last update. He earned 9.79% of the vote.
Block is now 124 votes ahead of his longtime rival Duran.
Heilman and Duran’s last official City Council meeting is the Dec. 7 meeting, where the city will pay tribute to them and they will offer their goodbye speeches. After certifying the vote results – their last official act as councilmembers – they will leave and new councilmembers Sepi Shyne and John Erickson will be sworn into office.
Their transition of power will all be done virtually on the Zoom platform this year thanks to pandemic social distancing requirements and the ban on large gatherings. In years past, the swearing in of new councilmembers has been big celebration in the city, attracting a large crowd at the Council Chamber.
As for the rest of the updated election results, the other challengers all saw slight increases in their numbers. Noemi Torres now has 1,661votes for sixth place, while Mark Yusupov has 1,451 votes for seventh place.
Marco Colantonio holds onto eighth place with 990 votes, while Jerome Cleary has 617 votes for ninth place.
The other two candidates on the ballot withdrew from the race before election day, but their names still appeared on the ballot. Tom Demille has 588 votes while Christopher McDonald has 530 votes.
The LA County Registrar-Recorder is scheduled to finalize the election results on Nov. 30.
Thank you citizens of WeHo for changing the guard!! With respect to the long time service of the out-going city council members, government terms should *never* be 35 years long. They were simply kings – nothing less. As benevolent as they may have been, long term service creates the shape and form of a kingdom that quickly deviates from the population’s opinion. And democracy fades into something darker. Nothing new – this is how it goes. Nothing special – this is societal politics 101. Powerful people form relationships with those that make the rules, and they “help” them make the… Read more »
I like to think of myself as a top vote giver
Tom DeMille dropped out of the race some time prior to Election Day. Yet he still received 588 votes – representing 1.7% of the votes cast.
If we’re going to abandon “silly small-town” politicking and functioning, as suggested by Ham Shipey and Tom Smart, we have to ask why residents (a) don’t know a candidate dropped out, and/or (b) why, knowing a candidate dropped out, they chose to throw their vote away.
To paraphrase a classic line from a movie that debuted some 40 years ago, “dumb and stupid is no way to run a city”.
On the edge of my seat.
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
Such a silly small town. People that have not accomplished a thing in life…..are elected to waste our tax dollars.
BH has doctors and serious professionals serving on their city council….and things work there.
You’re welcome to move to Beverly Hills. It’s just a short jaunt to the West.
Yeah, a doctor would solve all of our problems.
Ridiculous that it’s taken nearly a month to certify such a small city vote.
Right? I could have counted them all by myself in a weekend.
Guess they spent too much money on that “thank you video” for Heilman and Duran.
It was a statewide election.
WeHo is not counting the ballots. LA County, with a population of approximately 10.3 million, is counting all of our votes.