First published in the June 25 print issue of the Glendale News-Press.
With Friday’s update on the June 7 election results, Glendale’s six local competitive races seem mostly wrapped up, with many candidates declaring victory this week.
For City Council, voters have picked Dan Brotman, Elen Asatryan and Ara Najarian among eight candidates.
Brotman, an incumbent who was elected in a 2020 special contest to finish two years on a vacated term, led the way Friday with 15,617 votes.
Community organizer Asatryan, a newcomer, had 13,160 votes in her first-ever contest. Najarian, an attorney, received 11,878 votes to send him to his fifth term in office.
First-term Councilman Vrej Agajanian lost his reelection bid, with 11,731 votes, to give him a close fourth-place finish behind Najarian.
Among the remaining council candidates, Anita Quiñonez Gabrielian had 9,850 votes, Karen Kwak had 8,798, Jordan Henry had 7,814 and Isabel Valencia-Tevanyan had 3,070.
Suzie Abajian, an educator who was elected twice to the South Pasadena School Board before relocating to her hometown, declared victory this week for the Glendale City Clerk race, with 16,447 votes, giving her a 52.7% lead.
Her opponent, five-term Glendale school board member Greg Krikorian, had 14,763 votes on Friday.
In the Glendale Unified School District race, educator Ingrid Gunnell retained a razor-thin 50.82% lead for the Trustee Area B seat, with 3,916 votes. Her opponent, local volunteer Lerna Amiryans, had 3,789 votes.
For the Trustee Area C seat, social worker Kathleen Cross held a 51.27% lead, with 4,315 votes, over two-term incumbent Armina Gharpetian, who had 4,101 votes. Neither of the candidates issued any statements this week.
This year’s election has seemingly showcased the future of elections for Los Angeles County, if not California, with many Election Day results being upended in the following weeks by the updated counts of mail-in ballots.
As a local example, Agajanian kicked off the initial round of results by leading the pack of council candidates before ultimately falling to fourth. Conversely, Asatryan somersaulted from fourth to second place by the end of the updated results.
Additionally, the races for City Clerk and the two school board seats all eventually swapped as mail-in votes were verified and tabulated.
The Los Angeles County Registrar reported Friday that 1,370,541 of its ballots in this election — a whopping 84.64% — were received by mail, a practice that became the norm in 2020 with the presidential election occurring in the pre-vaccine era of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The registrar expects a final update of the remaining several-thousand ballots on Tuesday, with results to be certified later next week.
