First published in the June 11 print issue of the Glendale News Press.
Vote margins narrowed on Friday for the two competitive school board seats in the Glendale Unified School District, although the leading candidates maintained their leads going into the weekend.
For the open seat in Area B, longtime PTA volunteer Lerna Amiryans had received 2,822 votes as of Friday’s ballot update, giving her a 53.69% lead over educator Ingrid Gunnell, who had 2,434 votes. In Area C, incumbent Armina Gharpetian, a dentist, had received 3,035 votes, leaving her with a 52.26% lead over challenger Kathleen Cross, a social worker, and her 2,773 votes.
The update on Friday narrowed both contests, which were initially separated by around 10 percentage points each on election night.
With hundreds of votes separating the candidates, none had declared victory on Friday. The Los Angeles County Registrar had processed nearly 992,000 as of deadline and plans to process all mail-in ballots received by Tuesday, as long as they were postmarked by election day.
The victor for Area B will take the place of Greg Krikorian, who did not seek reelection this year after a record-tying five terms on the GUSD Board of Education. He is currently the leading candidate for Glendale City Clerk.
If she maintains her lead, Gharpetian will have won her third term on the school board. She has said she will count her two completed terms toward the three-term limit that voters overwhelmingly approved this week, effectively labeling this as her final term even though she is not legally required to.
Shant Sahakian, the first-term board member for Area D, cruised to reelection unopposed on Tuesday. He still had 3,432 cast votes for him.
