Burbank went to the polls and spoke once again, saying hello to a familiar face with two other candidates battling for the second available Council seat as of the latest numbers.
Current Councilmember Konstantine Anthony started out in the lead with the first ballot release and continued to build his lead during each update. It is still too early to call the second seat with both Judie Wilke and Chris Rizzotti battling at this point. Wilks started out the night in second place and quickly dropped to third as Rizzotti picked up momentum, increasing his lead over Wilke with each ballot release by the Los Angeles County Recorder.
With the school board deciding to break the seats up into districts, current board president Emily Wesiberg ran unopposed in her district, and by county election rules, she did not appear on the ballot and won back her seat.
In Trustee Area 1, Laurette Cano leads Thomas Crowther by over a thousand votes and in Trustee Area 5, incumbent Armond Aghakhanian also has about a 1,000 vote lead over Annie Markarian. Both frontrunners have been projected to win by myBurbank.
Measure ABC, the only local measure on the ballot, is currently winning, with 55% of the vote needed for approval. It has constantly been sitting around 61% yes votes and is now respected to pass.
Other local races of note include Burbank’s Assembly Member, Laura Friedman, who defeated Republican challenger Alex Balekian by a near two-to-one margin. Current Burbank Mayor Nick Schultz, whose Burbank City Council tera was coming to an end in December, has easily defeated his Republican opponent Tony Rodriguez by also a two-to-one margin as he won Friedman’s Assembly seat.
Burbank’s longtime Congressman, Adam Schiff, easily defeated former Los Angeles Dodger first baseman Steve Garvey for both the closing term and the next six-year term as California’s second Senator, joining Alex Padilla, who also has local ties to the Burbank area.
Another local election of note is the defeat of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon by Nathan Hochman. All of Burbank felony cases are prosecuted by the L.A. County DA, who also sets the guidelines for who can be held and who must be cited by police and released.
We will continue to update results as they are released on our YouTube Channel