Incumbent City Councilwoman Tonia Reyes-Uranga (above, far right) will face challenger James Johnson (pictured below) in a run-off election in June.

Only 34,976 of Long Beach’s 238,294 bothered to vote in the city’s primary nominating election on Tuesday, April 13. Of those who voted, 15,269 went to the polls and 19,707 mailed in their ballots. The two groups combined totaled 14.7 percent voter participation. That small minority of voters picked most of the people who will be leading the city during the next four years.
The city’s top elected official, Mayor Bob Foster, as expected, was reelected to a second term by a landslide. As of press time, the unofficial election results, posted on the city’s web page, showed Foster with 26,175 votes to his opponent Stevie Danielle Merino with 5,057 votes.
City Auditor Laura Doud, who ran unopposed, received 29,070 votes.
In another citywide race, incumbent City Attorney Bob Shannon was reelected to a fourth four-year term in office. As of Wednesday morning, Shannon had received 17,734 votes, or 57.7 percent of the votes cast. His opponent, Tom Reeves, who has been Long Beach city prosecutor for the last 12 years, received 13,002 votes, or 42.3 percent of the votes cast.
According to Rick Taylor, Shannon’s election campaign consultant, early Wednesday morning, Shannon told his supporters that he was proud that the voters of Long Beach recognized the hard work that he and his staff had put in during the past 12 years and he looks forward to serving the community for the next four years. “He was honored to have earned their support once again and he looks forward to going back to work today, which he has done,” Taylor said.
The Signal Tribune was not able to reach Reeves.
In the fourth citywide race, Doug Haubert was elected as Reeves’s replacement and will be sworn in as city prosecutor in a few weeks. As of Wednesday morning, Haubert had received 16,629 votes, or 54.4 percent of the votes cast. His opponent, Assistant City Prosecutor Timothy O’Reilly had received 13,927 votes, or 45.6 percent of the votes cast.
“I want to thank those who supported my campaign and showed that they want a change,” Haubert said after winning the election. “Long Beach is a great city, but working together, we can make it better. He stressed that his focus will be on making neighborhoods safer and protecting the quality of life for all residents. “I’m ready to get to work, and there is a lot of work to do,” he added.
There was no clear winner in the 7th City Council District race, but James Johnson and incumbent City Councilwoman Tonia Reyes-Uranga were the two top vote-getters, which means they will square off in the upcoming June election. As of Wednesday morning, Johnson had received 2,121 votes, or 45 percent of the votes cast. Reyes-Uranga, waging a write-in campaign because she is seeking a third term in office, had received 1,445 votes or 30.7 percent of the votes cast. The results of the other contenders’ campaigns were as follows: Jill Hill received 845 votes, Jack Smith received 281 votes and Fernando Bernabe, who also conducted a write-in campaign, received 20 votes.
None of the 7th District candidates were available for comment on Wednesday morning and, as of press time, none of them had returned phone messages left by the Signal Tribune.
In the 9th District City Council race, Steve Neal was the clear winner. He received 1,440 votes, or 52.3 percent of the votes cast. Incumbent Val Lerch, also conducting a write-in campaign because he was seeking a third term in office, received 717 votes or 26.1 percent of the votes cast. The third contender in the race, Brad Shore, received 431 votes. The fourth contender, Dan Pressberg, received 163 votes despite the fact that he had withdrawn from the race more than a month before the election.
On Wednesday morning, neither Lerch nor Shore was available for comment, but Neal put his comments in a press release. “Thank you, Long Beach,” he said. “Thank you to the residents of Long Beach who came out to support my candidacy. I am looking forward to representing you in City Hall and bringing real change to the 9th District. This is just the beginning.”
In other city council district races, incumbent 1st District Councilman Robert Garcia, incumbent 3rd District Councilman Gary DeLong, and incumbent 5th District Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske were all reelected.
In other races, Jeffrey Kellogg, Mark Bowen and Tom Clark were all reelected to the Long Beach City College Governing Board of Trustees, and Mary Stanton was reelected to the Board of Education of the Long Beach Unified School District. For updated election information, go to longbeach.gov/cityclerk/default.asp.

Roberto Uranga is no longer seeking to be elected as Long Beach City Councilman for the 7th District. On Thursday morning, his wife, incumbent 7th District Councilwoman Tonia Reyes-Uranga, announced that she will seek reelection as a write-in candidate.
Uranga, who is a member of the Long Beach Community College District Board of Trustees, announced his withdrawal from the council race about two weeks ago. His decision to pull out came after his election as vice chair of the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT), a national organization that lobbies for federal legislation that will benefit community colleges. “I became a member of the board of directors (of ACCT) in 2007,” he said. “A vacancy was created this past summer when the vice chair did not get reappointed to her position as a local trustee.” (Only trustees of community colleges are allowed membership in ACCT.)
When the woman, who lives in Mississippi, had to resign as ACCT’s vice chair, other board members asked Uranga to run for that position. He did, and he won.
As vice chair of ACCT, Uranga is now next in line to be chair of that organization, and he could rise to the position in 2011.
“It is important to me to be in the leadership of the national association because I want to help take it to a higher level,” he said. “We have initiatives to get involved with colleges in other countries, and we want to make a college education more affordable to students from low-income households right here in the United States.”
Uranga also noted that one of the things ACCT is currently supporting is a proposed immigration-reform law that would allow foreigners to pay in-state college tuition fees and offer them the chance to apply for citizenship after graduation. “It’s a pathway to citizenship through education,” he said.
Uranga added that, while pushing for federal legislation that is beneficial to college students is his primary motivation for remaining with ACCT, he has another reason as well. “As chair, I would be the first Hispanic to head a mainstream organization of that nature,” he said. “When I got elected vice chair, there were a lot of wet eyes because it was a historic occasion.”
Reyes-Uranga said even before her husband told her, she knew he would be dropping out of the 7th District race. “When he was elected as vice chair of the national college trustee association, I could see that was where his passion was,” she said. “He was very excited about it.”
After he told her he would be withdrawing from the council race, Reyes-Uranga began contemplating another bid for the 7th District seat. “I had not thought about running for reelection, because I had assumed that Roberto was going to run,” she said. “But, soon after he made his announcement that he was no longer running, people in the community began asking me to run for reelection.”
Reyes-Uranga was first elected in 2002 and reelected to her second four-year term on the city council in 2006. Her current term will expire next spring. The city’s term-limits law prohibits her name from being placed on the ballot for a third term, but she is allowed to run as a write-in candidate.
“I am passionate about serving on the city council and there are a few things I want to see completed,” she said. The proposed sports park in the vicinity of Orange Avenue and Spring Street is high on her list of projects she would like to bring to fruition. Converting the oil operators’ property on the city’s west side into parkland is also a top priority. “These are two huge patches of land in my district that are extremely complex, and we have gotten so close to doing something productive with them,” she said. “I think that now, with the federal stimulus dollars, some plans under our belt and the support of the community, these are two undertakings that I would love to see completed.”
Reyes-Uranga, noted, however, that strong support from her constituents was the deciding factor in her decision to run again. “I have been getting input from community leaders ever since Roberto announced his change of plans, and it has been extremely positive,” she said.
In the history of Long Beach, no council member has ever won a reelection through a write-in campaign. “The only one who ever tried it was Jackie Kell, and she came pretty darn close,” Reyes-Uranga said. “Of course, former Mayor Beverly O’Neill proved that it could be done.” (O’Neill ran as a write-in candidate and was elected to her third term as mayor of Long Beach in 2002.)
Uranga said he hopes his wife is reelected. “She has a passion for service to her community,” he said. “There is much more that she can do, and there is no one that knows the district’s needs better than she does.”
Currently there are three other candidates running for the 7th District seat: Jill Hill, James Johnson and Jack Smith.