Click more to view election news live from City Hall as it comes in here on SCVTalk.com. Latest news is at the top.  

10:13pm

FINAL TALLY

Ender-  5,404

Kellar- 5,354

Trautman- 4,369

Spierer- 4,371

Gutzeit - 2,473

 Laurie Ender and Bob Kellar win

10:12 pm

The ballot inspector’s desk has been cleared. Final counts imminent.

10:08 pm

Initial thoughts: 

Big loss for Bob Spierer. Most thought he’d be in a dogfight for second place, but he’s running in fourth place.

Trautman definitely has a future in local elections with greater appeal than I thought she might have. Spierer and Trautman finished 2 votes apart.

Gutzeit: smart candidate. Probably talked about bikes too much and didn’t campaign as well as the others. 

Ender: Well, she really proved that her time and money investing in the mommy vote has paid off. 

Kellar: No mystery here, but suffice it to say the Form 700 controversy didn’t harm him in the least.  

10:06 PM

All precincts but a few in Canyon Country are reporting.

Pulskamp: “We’re getting pretty close to the end of the results tabulated.”

Final results coming up.

10:02

Pulskamp just announced new results. Gail Ortiz, press babe, says that of the remaining precincts, two don’t have any voters in them whatsoever.

She’s thanking the candidates too and encouraging public participation.

I think I’m about to split.

10:00 pm

Two hours after counting began, Pulskamp is giving an “I love democracy” speech. He’s thanking the candidates now too.  

9:54

25 of 32 reporting

Ender 4,990

Kellar 4871

Trautman 4019

Spierer 3939

Gutzeit 2158 

Almost wrapped up here. I doubt there’s even 1,000 votes outstanding. Precinct 20 has reported, while 11 and 9 (North Valencia) still haven’t reported.

Much of Canyon Country still hasn’t reported either.

 9:50

Bruce McFarland, the Form 700 Grenade Thrower: “WOW!” at the turnout and Ender’s lead.

30 of 32 of those big plastic ballot boxes are now in the back of the Council Chambers. 2 precincts still outstanding.

9:45 pm

Ender 4,736
Kellar 4,621
Trautman 3,743
Spierer 3670
Gutzeit 2000

Precinct 20 (McBean area around the hospital) still not reporting. 18,770 votes total.  

9:43 PM

City Clerk Sharon Dawson smiling, waving and socializing with people. A sign, perhaps, that her job will be easy tonight. 

9:41 PM

Have an eyewitness report from Francisca Rivas, a Signal photog, who tells me that the Trautman party at Roast House was pretty crowded but the mood was “quiet.”

Rivas also just visited the “Bobs” party at the Hyatt.  

9:40 PM

Ender 4,594
Kellar 4,561
Trautman 3,659
Spierer 3621
Gutzeit 1967

Trautman still in 3rd place. All precincts in Mayo Hospital area save for Precinct 20 are counted. 21 of 32 precincts counted.

KHTS quote: “Trautman and Spierer still not far behind.” 

9:31 pm

Finally, a ballot box that’s nearly fully loaded. My guess is it’s from one of the bigger precincts that haven’t been counted yet.

Getting kind of lonely up here. Maybe it’s time for a break.

9:27 pm

Trautman takes third place!  

Ender 4,475

Kellar 4,389

Trautman 3,536

Spierer 3470

Gutzeit 1867 

North Valencia still not counted apparently. 18 of 32 precincts reporting.

17,737 votes tabulated so far. That’s 1000+ more than in 2006, right?

9:23 pm

Council chambers just about empty. Only suits, technicians, media and busybodies like me remain.

Is Laurie Ender’s celebration being held at Henry Mayo or somewhere else?

9:21

15 of 32 precincts reporting, still no North Valencia and Valencia proper

Ender 4,327
Kellar 4,181
Spierer 3,333
Trautman 3,287
Gutzeit 1767

Ender & Kellar really opening up a lead on Spierer now. Myers is gone, so he can’t tell me how insurmountable the lead is according to his fancy schmancy spreadsheet.  

9:16pm

34% of the votes are counted, 11 out of 32 precincts reporting.

 Now here’s the thing. Check out the precinct map. Valencia Summit, McBean, Wiley neighborhoods aren’t counted yet, neither is North Valencia, some parts of Saugus etc.

The first set of neighborhoods likely favor Spierer over Ender, while the second set are likely solidly Ender

Looking at the boxes as the clerks open them is depressing. They’re coming in like 1/4th full. 

I despise apathy.  

 9:12 PM

Looking around, I only see 20 boxes remaining.

Ender, 4126

Kellar, 3995

Spierer, 3156

Trautman, 3080

Gutzeit 1640 

Ender gaining more and more ground with every precinct report. She’s at 25.79%

9:09 PM

Looks like the only precincts in the Southern Santa Clarita valley that haven’t been counted are a few neighborhoods near/around Mayo Hospital and the Summit, and part of Newhall (Wiley Canyon Corridor).

Myers says it’s finished. I think he’s left.  

http://www.santa-clarita.com/election.asp

 9:04 pm

Is it possible Laurie Ender will finish first, beating even Bob Kellar?

10 of 32 precincts reporting

Ender 4,078

Kellar 3959

Spierer 3126

Trautman 3022

Gutzeit 1614

Ender & Kellar account for over 50% of all votes now.  

9:01 PM

“There’s still a couple people still interested in this election and are hanging on our every word,” Pulskamp said while interviewing the City’s economics chief who’s name escapes me right now. Jason something. Crawford?

 Ender 3950

Kellar 3844

Spierer 3002

Trautman 2852

Gutzeit 1489

8:58 PM

Who’s votes haven’t been counted? With Ender in the lead, it looks like she and Kellar are shoe-ins, but only Placerita Canyon, a small slice of Valencia and Circle J have been counted in the regular precincts.

See http://www.santa-clarita.com/election.asp for more 

8:55 PM

6 New Precincts + all absentee precincts reporting

Ender 3,897

Kellar 3790

Spierer 2980

Trautman 2804

Gutzeit 1461 

Spierer picking up some votes now.

Checking precincts 

8:53

I heard someone say “SHIT!” after the last tally. She stormed out of the chambers after that.  

8:49 pm

 All mailin ballots counted!

Laurie Ender 3,742 votes

Kellar 3,594

Spierer 2,805

Trautman 2590

Gutzeit 1342 

Inspectors check actual ballots

8:45 PM

No white mail in/absentee boxes remain on the cart. Looks like we’re just about done with those and ready to hear the results for all the absentee voters who sent in their ballots in the last few weeks.

All the late criticism of the Ender campaign may not have reached such voters in time.  

 Council Chambers surprisingly not crowded. Maybe less than 100 people here, and most of them are city staff or election staff.

8:44 PM

I’m way faster typing this out than Jon Dell is at announcing results live on KHTS. Boo-ya! 

8:41 pm

It’s tough to hear Pulskamp announce the numbers. Suffice it to say, he just announced that with 29 of 32 mail-in precincts reporting, Laurie Ender has taken the lead followed by Kellar then Spierer.

I’m working on getting the numbers. Pulskamp should get a bullhorn.  

Edit: Numbers

Ender 3,520

Kellar 3,513

Spierer 2,622

Trautman 2,534

Gutzeit 1,251

8:38 PM

Tim Myers is ready to call it a night. He says Kellar and Ender.

 He shows Kellar and Ender tied at 23% of the vote with Trautman at 20.5% of the vote.  

8:36

23 of 32 precincts

Bob Kellar 3,095

Laurie Ender 3,081

Bob Spierer 2,287

Diane Trautman 2,250

Maria Gutzeit 1,102 votes 

8:32 PM

First real ballots are now on the Inspection Board’s desk. Ballot boxes are blank, no marks on them that gives a clue as to where they are from.  

8:30 PM 

Laurie Ender picked up 1,000 votes in the last round up

Vote by mail precincts remaining include several in the Newhall area (Gutzeit country?), at least one in the Grannary Square area of McBean, the Industrial Center, Old Town Newhall, and Sand Canyon. 

Tim Myers has run the numbers and says Spierer and Gutzeit are finished for the night.

8:24 PM

I’m trying to reverse engineer the Precinct numbers on the boxes (See pic below) to the precinct map of Santa Clarita. There’s only 12 boxes left for absentee/mail-in ballots. It looks like the boxes for North Valencia -precincts 6, 11, and 3- have already been counted. Those would be the votes for the neighborhoods Laurie Ender was supposedly strong in.

 Pulskamp has more announcements coming up.

Actual an update  14 of 32 precincts

Bob Kellar: 1997 votes

Laurie Ender: 1912 votes

Diane Trautman :1581 votes

Bob Spierer : 1474 votes

Maria Gutzeit: 749 votes 

8:16 PM

First results in! 6 out of 32 mail-in precincts reporting

Bob Kellar: 1,178 votes

Diane Trautman 976 votes

Laurie Ender 912 votes

Bob Spierer 861 votes

Maria Gutzeit 411 votes 

Based on these very preliminary results, Myers says Gutzeit is out.

8:09 PM

It’s difficult to hear Santa Clarita’s new Fire chief talk above the whirring of the ballot counting machines. Workers are busy pulling absentee/mail-in ballots out of the boxes and carefully placing them in the machine.

Tim Myers just pulled up and showed me his “model” he’ll use tonight to predict the outcome of the election. It’s a farily simple concept. As votes are tallied and updated, Myers plugs in numbers to his spreadsheet which then shows him how much each candidate has to “make up” in order to place first or second.

“Once they’re 5-10% behind the leaders, it’s pretty much over,” Myers tells me.

His model has Trautman and Gutzeit in last place, but he admits that a big turnout could destroy the model.

 

Where all the action is tonight- ballot machines counting away.

8:00 PM

Polls are closed and the absentee and mail in ballots are here in the Council Chambers. The count begins now.

 7:47 PM

Ken Pulskamp is on SCVTV live right now, explaining how the ballots will be brought up to the front of the Council Chambers where the ballot counting machines are.

Pulskamp is now discussing how the ballots will be counted with Sharon Dawson, City Clerk.

“No hanging chads right Sharon,” Pulskamp asked her. “Right,” she said.

On a side note, there’s still problems with the City’s wifi system. City IT staff can’t seem to get the public system to work right, so they’ve given me and KHTS a city laptop on a city network so that we can do our business. Katie Geyer, city beat reporter at The Signal, is working off a wireless AT&T network card.

Polls close in about 8 minutes.

 7 PM

It’s 7 pm here at City Hall and the stage is set for what might be a suspenseful evening.

Council Chambers are roped off with the public restricted to the left side of the room. Kleig lights shine brightly on a stage left of the speaker’s dais, and city hall staff are busy testing lighting, camera equipment and sound systems.

They’re also trying to fix the public WiFi system, which isn’t working as I right this.

So the stage is set tonight for wht some are expecting to be a very close election. Will Bob Kellar keep his seat? Will Laurie Ender’s attempts to turn out the votes in Valencia and among the PTA give her a seat on the council?

Will Bob Spierer win despite the attacks? Or will Gutzeit and Trautman surprise everyone by finishing in second place?

All ahead tonight in less than one hour. The media people are starting to arrive, but I’ve got the best seat in the house, so be sure to refresh this page for updates as they come in.