Finding out who’s running for what and where in Los Banos

With the November election less than two months away, I’d like to focus attention not on the presidency, which has received plenty of attention, but on local offices in Los Banos.

There are several local offices in play this November—for the city and the school district. Reporter Shawn Jansen provided Enterprise readers last week with a good overview of Los Banos candidates in this year’s election. I’d like to build on that information in today’s column.

What if we didn’t have someone like Shawn to identify the candidates? What if we wanted to know exactly which candidates we can vote for? And what if we wanted to know more about who is running throughout the county?

To find the answers to these questions, I did an internet search for “Merced County Elections 2020,” and saw a web page with the heading “2020 Elections.”

I thought I was close to finding the answers to my questions about offices and candidates when I clicked on “Candidates and Campaigns” near the top of the page, but I was wrong. When I clicked on these words, I got a page designed not for voters but for people who want to be candidates.

After a while I gave up and sent an email to elections@countyofmerced.com. I received a prompt and friendly reply from Delniece Davis, Elections Specialist II.

She provided web page navigation help, which I am passing on to my readers.

Once you’re on the page “2020 Elections” click on the words “November 3, 2020 Presidential General Election.” On the next page, entitled “November 3, 2020 General Election,” you will need to scroll down, way down, past Press Releases, General Information, Remote Accessible Vote by Mail (RAVBM) and Report of Registration until you get to “Candidate Information.”

Then you’re almost there, but not quite.

You’ll need to keep scrolling down, past six more subtitles until you get to “Candidates’ List.” When you click on that, success! You have a complete list of every office in Merced County up for election and the candidates running for each office.

The long list starts with the Merced County Office of Education Governing Board Member, Area 3 and ends 72 pages later with Central California Irrigation District

Director, Division 5. With persistence you can find the offices in Los Banos in contention this November and their candidates.

Here is what I found, in the order I found it:

Los Banos Unified School District Governing Board Member, Area 2: candidates Luis Castro, Incumbent, and Jessica Moran, Merced College Administrator.

Los Banos Unified School District Governing Board Member, Area 4: candidate Gary Munoz, Incumbent.

Los Banos Unified School District Governing Board Member, Area 6: candidates Alex Y. Dvorkin, Certified Public Account; Margaret Benton, Incumbent; and Mark Duffy, Retired Educator.

Los Banos Mayor: candidates Paul Llanez, Business Owner, and Tom Faria, Councilmember/Music Teacher.

Los Banos Councilmember, District 1: candidates Kenneth W. Lambert, Business Owner, and Dave Newman, Speed Rail Engineer. Los Banos Councilmember, District 4: candidate Deborah Lewis, Incumbent.

Your next challenge will be to find out, if you don’t know or remember, what area of the school district and what district of the city you live in. (There is one office that’s not voted on by district: for Los Banos mayor, every registered person in Los Banos can vote.)

If you want to know the school district area in which you live, you’ll need to go to the Los Banos Unified School District web site and click on “Los Banos Unified Board of Education.” Then click “Trustee Area Boundaries,” and you’ll find a map with the six areas clearly demarcated.

If you want to know what city council district you live in, you’ll need to go to the City of Los Banos web site and click and hold on “City Government,” where a drop-down menu will show “Election District Boundary Map,” which when you click will reveal the map of the four city districts.

Once you find out what area and district you’re in, you can then figure out if the office for your district/area is up for election and which candidates are running for it.

I realize this all takes some time, but I believe it’s worth it. Voting is both a right and privilege, and each person should take his vote seriously for every office that’s in play in an election. I especially appreciate this privilege when we remember important days in our country’s history, including 9/11/2001.

Voting in this year’s presidential election has been in the news a lot, and appropriately so. But anyone looking at the importance of a single vote should focus on local elections.

In Los Banos I’ve seen elections decided by ten votes or fewer, even before the school district and city were divided into areas and districts. Now, one vote in each relatively small geographic area or district has an even greater chance of playing a critical role.

I also believe in the importance of an informed electorate. Newspapers used to be the key source of ongoing information about candidates, but with advertising down and reporters reduced, that’s just not the case anymore.

Social media isn’t always reliable when presenting information about candidates, so it’s up to each individual to seek out as much correct information as he or she can about each candidate, their backgrounds and their positions.

I wish you luck, dear reader, as you prepare to cast an informed vote, probably by mail and probably well in advance of the November 3 election day.

John Spevak wrote this for the Los Banos Enterprise. His email is john.spevak@gmail.com.