Page One

Kate Harrison has big lead in Berkeley's District 4 election

Jeff Shuttleworth (BCN)
Wednesday March 08, 2017 - 02:41:00 PM

Berkeley's city government could be moving even further to the left with the likely victory of veteran activist Kate Harrison in a special vote-by-mail election in City Council District 4.

In results that were released on Tuesday night, Harrison has an overwhelming lead of 63.7 percent to 36.3 percent over University of California at Berkeley graduate student Ben Gould, or 1,278 votes to 728 votes.

The special election was needed because incumbent Councilman Jesse Arreguin was elected to be Berkeley's new mayor in November and took office in December, leaving the District 4 seat open. The district is in downtown Berkeley.

The vacancy means that currently there are only eight votes on the Council instead of the usual nine, and that fact has resulted in at least one deadlock.

Voting by mail began on Feb. 6 and ended on Tuesday. Ballots received by Friday will still be counted and the Alameda County Registrar of Voters will provide updated results late Friday afternoon. 

Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis couldn't immediately be reached for comment today on how many ballots remain to be counted. 

Harrison, 58, who works as an international justice advisor, said today that if she maintains her lead and is formally declared the victor, it will be "an extension of what happened in November in Berkeley," which she described as "a sea change" in favor of a progressive city government. 

Harrison was endorsed by Arreguin, who said when he was sworn in as mayor in December that Berkeley is moving to the left even as the country is moving to the right. 

Harrison said if she wins, six of the nine Berkeley City Council members will be progressives. 

Gould, 25, who finished fourth in the mayoral election in November with only 2.93 percent of the vote, was considered to be somewhat more moderate than Harrison and was endorsed by councilmembers Lori Droste and Susan Wengraf. 

Harrison said the progressive majority on the City Council won't stop development in Berkeley but instead will seek to have developers include more community benefits in their projects. 

"We need a balance," Harrison said. 

Gould, who is finishing up master's degrees in public policy and environmental engineering and also works as a policy analyst and previously worked as an environmental engineer, couldn't immediately be reached for comment today. 

Gould said in his ballot statement that, "With my experience as an environmental engineer and as a policy analyst I bring a rational, non-ideological approach to addressing Berkeley's challenges."