Lovenburg, Peterson cruise to wins in school board race

Incumbent Susan Lovenburg and newcomer Nancy Peterson won seats on the Davis Board of Education on Tuesday, defeating three other challengers.

Lovenburg collected 9,389 votes and Peterson was right behind with 8,656 votes.

The trend was established early in the evening, when the Yolo County Elections Office released the first batch of returns shortly after 8 p.m., showing Lovenburg running first and Peterson second, followed by Alan Fernandes, Jose Granda and Claire Sherman.

That trend held up throughout the evening. When the final results were posted at 3:53 a.m., Fernandes finished third with 6,963 votes, followed by Granda with 4,869 votes and Sherman with 4,593 votes.

For Lovenburg, the only incumbent in the race, the results largely mirrored her 2007 school board campaign, when she didn’t raise as much money as at least one of the other candidates, but received the most votes. This year, the Peterson and Fernandes campaigns outspent the Lovenburg campaign — though by only a few thousand dollars — but Lovenburg again was the top vote-getter.

“Campaigning is teamwork, and the campaign with the best team wins,” she said. “I had an outstanding team of people helping me. I’m blessed by their support and the community is strengthened by their activism.”

Lovenburg also extended her personal thanks to her daughters, “for their patience, humor and resilience through it all.”

“I’m privlieged and honored to serve the students of the Davis Joint Unified School District” for four more years, Lovenburg said.

Peterson, a first-time candidate, raised the biggest campaign war chest and finished within about 700 votes of Lovenburg.

“I”m thankful to all my supporters,” she said, adding that she had enjoyed “the discussion of issues, the candidate forums and the booth at the Farmers Market” during the campaign.

Peterson added that she is “very proud of my campaign team, including campaign manager Heidy Kellison.”

She also was “thankful that the exit polls early on Tuesday evening show that Proposition 30 is achieving a majority.” Passage of Prop. 30 — which ultimately was approved by California voters — means that the Davis school district will not have to face an immediate $3.7 million midyear budget cut.

The election returns reflected a degree of neighborhood support for both victorious candidates. Lovenburg, who lives near Willett Elementary School in West Davis, finished first in several precincts in the western half of town. Peterson, who lives in the Montgomery Elementary attendance area, finished first in South Davis precincts.

Third-place finisher Fernandes, who lives in Wildhorse, won several precincts there and in Mace Ranch, but ran more than a thousand votes behind Peterson overall.

Lovenburg and Peterson will be formally sworn in at a school board meeting in December.

At campaign parties on Tuesday night, there was also some discussion of 2014, when current two-term school board incumbents Tim Taylor, Gina Daleiden and Sheila Allen each will have served a total of nine years on the Davis school board. While there is no formal term limit on school board trustees, it has been a long time since a school board trustee has sought a third consecutive term.

— Reach Jeff Hudson at jhudson@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8055.