Race for 2nd Healdsburg council seat too close to call

Brigette Mansell went to bed on election night thinking she had lost her bid for a seat on the Healdsburg City Council by coming in third in the race for two open seats.

“I thought I was out of the running for sure,” she said.

But by Wednesday morning, as more results came in, the gap between Mansell and Jeff Civian closed to within 10 votes, making the outcome of the race far from certain and likely to take weeks to determine a winner.

An unknown number of mail-in and provisional ballots remain uncounted in the race. They won’t be tallied until the end of this month.

“With any of the races that close there is no way to (immediately) tell who the winner is going to be,” said Gloria Colter, Sonoma County’s chief deputy registrar of voters.

There were contests too close to call Wednesday in Sonoma County, but none as tight as the 10-vote gap between Mansell and Civian in Healdsburg.

Civian garnered 1,381 votes, or 24.9 percent, and Mansell received 1,371 votes, or 24.7 percent, including all precincts and most mail-in ballots.

First place was no mystery, with Eric Ziedrich receiving a decisive 1,864 votes or 33.6 percent.

Tim Meinken trailed the field with 16.8 percent.

“Every vote counts, people say,” Civian said Wednesday. “This is an example. It could go either way.”

A civil engineer and chairman of the Healdsburg Planning Commission, Civian said he was just “thrilled to be in the hunt.”

Mansell, a high school English teacher making her first foray into politics, thought she was done in the race, based on the early absentee ballot totals, difficulty in accessing updates on the county website, and news accounts that kept repeating her third-place position.

“I congratulated him this morning in a text,” she said. But it was premature. Civian replied back telling her not to concede because of the mail-in ballots yet to be counted.

“We’re done, but we’re not finished,” Civian said. “We’ll find out soon.”

Colter said her office hopes to have all the votes counted and certified by Thanksgiving but has until Dec. 2.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @clarkmas.