Tuesday, March 13th, 2007...9:49 pm
Election Results from Marana, South Tucson
It looks like the “open government” slate failed to win in South Tucson, with long time South Tucson Councilmember John Garcia capturing 18.1% of the vote, Mayor Jennifer Eckstrom and Mary Soltero (wife of Senator Victor Soltero and mother of current Councilmember Román Soltero) each getting 17.2% and Councilmember Miguel Rojas recieving 15.2%. None of the “open government” candidates managed more than 11%.
Turn-out was a lot higher than in the 2005 primary. Herman Lopez, the last place candidate, managed to get more votes in this primary than the total cast in the last one. Dan Eckstrom and his allies put a big effort forward for mail-in ballots, and the effort appears to have worked. Jennifer Eckstrom’s total on mail-in ballots, for example, dwarfed the total vote (mail-in and day of) of any of the opposition slate.
Over in Marana, we have another interesting result. Russell Clanagan appears to have won a seat on the town council, and may have done so with a big enough margin to avoid a run-off. Clanagan is originally from Pennsylvania, where he was a police official. He moved out here to run the police department for the Tohono O’Odham Nation. If my vast storehouse of political trivia serves me correctly, Clanagan would be the first African American to serve on that town council.
There is actually a strong history of African Americans in that area. Near Marana is an enclave called Rillito, which is a majority African American community. Rillito is not incorporated, and has resisted efforts to be annexed by Marana.
So, given my mistakes before, I need to ask. Is the David Morales that was crushed nearly 2-1 in the race for Marana mayor the same one that served on the town council in the 80’s and 90’s that ran several kamikaze races for legislature? Just curious.
Leave a Reply