Features

More Election Results: Area Incumbents Cruise to Victory

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Thursday November 06, 2008 - 09:59:00 AM

Three area races saw incumbents easily beating off challengers. 

 

AC Transit Board 

AC Transit At-Large Board member Chris Peeples beat challenger Joyce Roy 64.1 percent (196,506) to 35 percent (107,341) in a race that Roy made a referendum on the district’s controversial Van Hool buses.  

Ward 2 AC Transit board member Greg Harper had an even easier time against perennial candidate James Muhammad, beating Muhammad 73.23 percent (50,316) to 25.63 percent (17,611). 

Losing to Harper is probably the least of Muhammad’s troubles, however. The Oakland Tribune reported late last month that the Alameda County District Attorney’s office has filed three perjury and three election code violation charges against Muhammad, based on their determination that the candidate lives in Richmond, outside the Emeryville-Oakland-Piedmont boundaries that he said he lived in to qualify to run for the Ward 2 seat.  

That revelation is even odder given that Muhammad had the option to run against incumbent Joe Wallace for AC Transit’s Ward One seat, which includes Richmond. Wallace was unopposed for re-election. 

 

Peralta District, East Bay Regional Park District 

In the only opposed Peralta Community College District Trustee seat, Area 2, incumbent Marcie Hodge beat Marlon McWilson 61.08 percent (10,352) to 37.91 percent (6,426). 

In the race to succeed newly elected District 14 Assemblymember Nancy Skinner for her East Bay Regional Park District Ward One seat, Norman La Force beat Whitney Dotson 50.32 percent to 48.82 percent in Alameda County, but Doston won the two-county race with large support (63.53 percent) in Contra Costa County.