Alameda Mayor Marie Gilmore has conceded in her race against challenger Trish Spencer. After an update by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters late last night, Spencer led Gilmore by 129 votes.
Alameda has 44,273 registered voters. So far, 20,823 votes have been counted. But as we know, it's anyone's guess as to when officials will finish tallying each and every one, what with the surge in voters who now send their ballot in by mail.
As KQED's Lisa Pickoff-White reported this week, only about 5 percent of Alameda County vote-by-mail ballots arrived before Election Day.
Spencer campaigned against new housing on the city-owned golf course and hasty development of the old Navy base at Alameda Point. She told KQED's Cy Musiker yesterday that her first priority is to "improve the dialogue between our community and our City Hall." She said she's for "smart development, cautious development, development that Alamedans want, as opposed to developers come into town and telling us what we get."
Regarding the base, she said, "I had many Alamedans say, you know, 'We have a gift that we’ve just been given, and let’s create something our children will have as a treasure. And housing and retail is not that.' "