Dispatch: Week of November 9
Early election results, Altadena lottery winner, and the dogs hate Standard Time
Hello from California’s high desert. I hope your roofs and fences are still standing after yesterday’s storm, but be sure to keep that extra firewood handy as we’re forecast to remain chilly through the end of the week.
Now, on to this week’s news:
In local news:
Here is a quick round-up of local election results, with the caveat that votes are still being tallied and just a handful of local races have been officially called as of Wednesday morning:
Unofficial voter turnout county-wide was just over 18%. That represents mail-in votes, in-person votes, and absentees.
Representative Jay Obernolte is currently ahead of challenger Derek Marshall with 33% of precincts reporting. He leads with just over 60% of the current vote.
Christy Holstege is currently leading with 54% of the vote in the new Assembly District 47, which covers about half of the Morongo Basin.
Tom Lackey is currently leading Thurston Smith in the new Assembly District 34.
All local and state judges up for election are currently being retained.
Christoper Curtis Claire is currently leading the race for Morongo Unified School District member.
Challenger Stacy Doolittle leads the race for Joshua Basin Water District with 64.6% of the vote.
Octavius Scott is currently leading the race for Twentynine Palms City Council representative.
Measure EE (county secession) is currently leading with a 51% yes vote.
The proposed new San Bernardino County charter (Measure U) is narrowly failing in early returns with 50.11% voting “no.”
The county measure that would limit county board of supervisors members to one four-year term and cap their salaries at $5,000 a month is passing with 67.6% of the vote.
The effort to repeal the FP5 fire tax is narrowly failing with 51% voting “no.”
Yucca Valley Measure K (short-term rentals tax) is currently passing with more than 71% of the vote.
San Bernardino County still had 364,000 ballots to process after releasing early results Tuesday night. The Secretary of State noted it will take weeks for all ballots to be counted, per the Hi-Desert Star.
Members of the Twentynine Palms High School Interact Club are looking for a new sponsor to help them buy hundreds of turkeys for their annual family Thanksgiving food giveaway after their long-time donor bowed out.
In state news:
Gavin Newsom won re-election as governor of the state over challenger Brian Dahle.
Proposition 1, which codifies a person’s right to abortion in the state constitution, looks poised to win state-wide and county-wide.
Propositions 26 and 27 (both about sports gambling) look poised to fail at both the county and state levels.
The winning Powerball ticket — complete with a $2 billion prize — was sold at a gas station in Altadena. The winner has not yet come forward.
In other news:
A large segment of technology companies conducted mass layoffs this week. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, laid off 11,000 employees Wednesday. Twitter laid off 3,700 employees Friday and then asked some engineers that had been let go to come back on Monday. Redfin laid off roughy 13% of its workforce Wednesday and closed its home-flipping business.
Voters in Missouri and Maryland approved legislation Tuesday that legalized recreational marijuana use in both states.
A previous edition of The Dispatch previously stated Chad Mayes was leading in the State Assembly election race instead of Christy Holstege. The Dispatch regrets the error.
Pupdate of the week: Alice is thoroughly enjoying the cold temperatures and refuses to come inside most of the day. Both dogs are not fans of the end of Daylight Savings Time and would like to log some complaints about how late their meals have been this week.
Trail tip of the week: Apparently camping is not recommended when night-time temperatures are below 40 degrees unless you have specially rated equipment for cold nights. I am abandoning plans to hike the California Hiking and Riding Trail this weekend because of this, and hoping for slightly warmer low’s soon!
Show of the week: The second season of White Lotus is out on HBO Max and follows a similar cast of wealthy characters at a high-end resort in Italy. Jennifer Coolidge is back and better than ever, and show creator Mike White continues to work his magic in making even the most mundane scenes feel nerve-wracking and climactic. New episodes air on Sunday evenings.
That’s it for this week! I hope you have a great weekend and get a chance to get outside.
- Megan