LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Tuesday’s presidential primary election saw three incumbent county supervisors returned to office, a field of four narrowed to a two-person runoff for a judicial seat and a decisive defeat of a marijuana cultivation ordinance.
Supervisors Jim Comstock of Middletown, Anthony Farrington of Lakeport and Rob Brown of Kelseyville each will return to the Board of Supervisors for new four-year terms representing Districts 1, 4 and 5, respectively.
Comstock’s race for the District 1 seat against Victoria Brandon of Lower Lake was the closest of the supervisorial contests in terms of final numbers.
Comstock – who won his second term in the primary – led Brandon from the time the first absentee ballot counts were posted through the final results reported early Wednesday morning.
He received a total of 1,137 votes, or 61.4 percent of the vote, compared to Brandon’s 715 votes, or 38.6 percent of the vote. There were no write-ins.
In District 4, Anthony Farrington led challenger Fred Langston of Lakeport early on, ending the night with 1,635 votes, or 70.5 percent, to Langston's 679 votes, or 29.3 percent. There were four write-in votes.
In another decisive race, incumbent District 5 Supervisor Rob Brown defeated Cobb resident Joan Moss with a 39.4-percent lead.
Brown had 1,631 votes, or 69.5 percent of the vote, to Moss' 707 votes, or 30.1 percent. There were eight write-in votes in that race.
Brown said he was glad the race was over.
“I’m glad we can finally get past the distractions of campaigns like this and we can get back down to the work that needs to be done,” he said, with top priorities including negotiations with Marymount College – which is proposing to locate a campus at the Lucerne Hotel – as well as seeing Konocti Harbor reopened and Clear Lake’s health improved.
“We’ve got some challenges ahead of us,” he said.
Among the four-person field for Lake County Superior Court's Department 1 judicial seat, Michael Lunas led throughout the night, ending with a total of 2,971 votes, or 31.1 percent.
He was followed by Judy Conard with 2,423 votes or 25.4 percent; Michael Friel, 2,226 votes or 23.3 percent; and Susan Krones, 1,910 votes or 20 percent. There were 26 write-ins.
Lunas and Conard now will take part in a runoff that will culminate in November.
In one of the primary race’s more heated campaigns, the marijuana cultivation initiative Measure D was defeated 66.2 percent to 33.8 percent.
“No” votes totaled 6,533, while “yes” votes totaled 3,341, according to voting returns.
The Lake County Citizens for Responsible Regulations and the Lake County Green Farmers put the measure forward after launching a referendum on a medical marijuana cultivation ordinance passed last fall by the Board of Supervisors.
But Measure D ultimately came up against heavy opposition from all corners of the community.
The Board of Supervisors, the city councils of Lakeport and Clearlake, the homeowners associations in the Clear Lake Riviera and Buckingham, the Lake County Farm Bureau, the Sierra Club Lake Group, California Women for Agriculture’s Lake County chapter, Lake County Deputy Sheriffs Association, Kelseyville Business Association, Lake County Chamber of Commerce and the Lake County Board of Education all came out in formal opposition to the measure.
Brown, who also was instrumental in the campaign against Measure D, said the two-to-one vote against the measure “sends a very clear message to our board on exactly what the mandate is” and what Lake County residents will tolerate.
He said he hopes the board soon will have a new policy for dealing with marijuana cultivation that reflects the election’s results.
The Registrar of Voters’ posting of the primary election noted that there was a 31.1 percent voter turnout. There are 33,553 registered voters in Lake County, with 10,427 ballots cast in the primary.
Absentee ballots continue to be the leading way of voting for county residents, with 16.8 percent, or 5,640 absentee ballots cast. The total precinct ballots cast totaled 4,787, or 14.3 percent.
Registrar of Voter Diane Fridley has 28 days to certify the election results before they become official. During that time, additional absentee and provisional ballots are likely to be added to the final counts posted early Wednesday.
Email Elizabeth Larson at