The 'Poll Watcher' blog will document every turn of the screw of the June 2012 elections. We're watching the Merced County Board of Supervisors races as well as the race for California State Assembly District 21.
Squeeze in, folks. It's going to be a crowded election. Eight people have already lined up to run in the Merced County Board of Supervisors election on June 5. There's been no indication that John Pedrozo, Hub Walsh and Deidre Kelsey are getting nervous, but with a month left in the filing period, the three races are already promising to provide a tough fight for the incumbents.
More...How much does it cost to run a Merced City Council campaign? If you're Noah Lor or Mike Murphy, a lot. As of Sept. 24, Lor has far outpaced the other seven council candidates, collecting a total of $28,026 in campaign contributions. Nearly all of his campaigns money -- $25,000 of it -- was collected in the spring and came from individual donations of less than $300 made by people living up and down the Central Valley. Murphy, meanwhile, has $16,095 in contributions. His biggest donors inclu...
More...Is Carl Pollard really running for Merced City Council? It's a question we've been asking ourselves in the Sun-Star newsroom almost since the day he pulled his candidacy papers. After all, Pollard, a former city councilman, has no campaign signs around town, isn't running any kind of advertising and he's been very hard for reporters to reach. Not normal behaviors for a candidate in such a competitive race.
More...If Secretary of State Debra Bowen was playing Scrabble, she'd have a heckuva time trying to form a word from the first seven letters selected in the state's randomized alphabet drawing. The drawing for this election cycle, held back in August, selected the letters F, Q, Y, K, O, C, and H. (A Scrabble cheats website says the longest word you can form from those letters is "Choky," for 16 points.) But it was good news for Merced candidates Stanley Thurston and John Carlisle. "T" was selected ...
More...Merced's business community is supporting four newcomers for Merced City Council in November's elections. The Greater Merced Chamber of Commerce announced Wednesday it is supporting Bill Blake for mayor, and Mike Murphy, Tony Dossetti and Richard Cervantes for city council. Blake is on the council, but he's running for mayor against incumbent Bill Spriggs. Murphy, Dossetti and Cervantes are political newcomers. The chamber's government review committee interviewed all candidates with the ...
More...
Tony Dossetti has an early lead on other candidates for Merced City Council -- at least in the campaign finance race.
More...Now that the candidacy filing period is over, prospects for Merced City Council are busy raising money for their campaigns. Council candidate Mike Murphy said Monday he raised nearly $2,000 for his campaign during a kick-off party fundraiser held Friday at the East Merced home of Marvin Mackin, owner of the Taco Bell on Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Read Murphy's press release here . Mayoral candidate Stanley Thurston is holding a $20-per-ticket campaign dinner Friday, Aug. 26, at the Mer...
More...
Richard Cervantes filed made his campaign for Merced City Council official on Thursday, filing his candidacy papers with the Merced County Registrar of Voters. He joins Charles Bolin, Tony Dossetti, Mike Murphy, Noah Lor and Carl Pollard as an official candidates for council. John Carlisle, Alex Gallardo, Jr. and Monica Kay Villa haven't yet turned in their paperwork. Friday is the deadline to do so. Cervantes sent the following press release to the Sun-Star: Richard Cervantes F...
More...
It's official: John Carlisle's running for Merced City Council.
More...
Ken Riggleman is a familiar face at Merced City Council meetings, but you may know him better as the man with a working model railroad surrounding his house. Riggleman, 69, built a train track -- complete with miniature villages, airplanes and tunnels -- around his Alexander Drive home in 2007. Unlike his trains, however, Riggleman says the city of Merced has gone off its tracks.
More... Will he or won't he? Nobody seems to know whether Merced City Councilman John Carlisle will run for re-election -- maybe not even Carlisle himself, according to Councilman Bill Blake.
More...
Monica Villa is putting the "camp" in campaign. She's probably the only candidate for Merced City Council running her campaign from the inside of a tent and it's clear that she intends homeless issues are going to be a big part of her agenda.
More...
Despite a constituent base that's half Hispanic, there's a whole lot of white on the Merced City Council. Six of the seven members are white. Noah Lor is Hmong. And that's part of the reason Sam Rangel changed his mind about running. When he saw his friend Richard Cervantes was also planning a campaign, he decided not to pursue his own political career just yet. After all, Cervantes was just 93 votes shy of winning a council seat during his 2009 campaign, and Rangel said he didn't want to ...
More... Richard Cervantes says his campaign for Merced City Council is going to start where the last one left off -- with a focus on business and jobs. When he ran in 2009, Cervantes was just 93 votes short of winning a council seat, so he thinks he can build momentum with his second wind.
More...
Monica Villa, whose struggles in Merced's homeless camps have been well documented over the past two years, is running for Merced City Council.
More...The latest two contestants for the Merced City Council race include a former gang member who spent years counseling young people away from gang life, and a former city councilman and advocate of South Merced. Samuel Rangel, 38, left the gang life in his 20s and eventually started New Hope Merced, a faith-based nonprofit focusing on the rehabilitation of gang members. He also worked for the county as an alcohol and drug counselor. He also published a book in 2009 about his approach to gang r...
More...After taking out papers to run for city council on Tuesday afternoon, small business attorney Michael Walker Murphy visited one of Merced's fire stations to talk with Merced firefighters about public safety issues. "We've got to feel safe that if we call 911, we'll get a first responder and we'll get taken care of," he said. "I spent the afternoon talking with firefighters because it's important that we retain our sense of community in our neighborhoods and pride in the place we call home." ...
More...Charles Daniel Bolin and Michael Walker Murphy were the latest Mercedians to throw their hats in the ring for Merced City Council elections. After taking out his candidacy papers, Bolin spent much of his time Tuesday talking with downtown business owners about "what it is that Merced isn't doing right." "I want to help businesses," he said. "I want to eliminate the red tape and bureaucracy that's driving our businesses to Modesto or Fresno." Bolin, 25, is a Merced native who says he was bo...
More...The campaigning for Merced City Council is already going strong -- at least on Facebook. Tony Dossetti fired the first shot more than three months ago, when he created a Facebook page to support his campaign. The retired police chief's page has already managed to snag 86 "likes" and on it he claims a number of endorsements from Mercedians, including former councilman Jim Sanders. Dossetti also already launched a separate website for his campaign. Noah Lor, meanwhile, has changed the ava...
More...Update: The Merced mayoral race is a four-way fight, featuring a rematch of 2009's battle between Michelle Gabriault-Acosta and Bill Spriggs. Also withdrawing mayoral candidacy papers was Councilman Bill Blake and former councilman Stanley P. Thurston. Former Merced Police Chief Tony Dossetti withdrew paperwork on Monday to run for Merced City Council, as did current City Councilman Noah Lor, whose term expires at the end of this year. Dossetti worked in the Merced Police Department for 30 y...
More...
