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Jacque Robinson and Terry Tornek to Duke it out for Mayor in Run-Off
Pasadena Independent Mar 11, 2015
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Jacque Robinson is pleased with early results announced Tuesday – Photos by Terry Miller
Jaque Robinson and Terry Tornek to Duke it out for Mayor in Run-Off
Nick Kipley
Entering the Pasadena City Council Chambers on Tuesday night, the Mayor poses with his hands on his hips and greets smiling supporters. He is one of the only politicians in the room not wearing a suit. Instead, he is dressed casually. Loafers and jeans with the cuffs rolled up. Up on the four flat-screen T.V.’s are the lists of names of those who are running for various offices. The screens change from the Mayoral Race to the District One Councilmember Race to the School Board Race to show who has gained the most votes for what. Sitting around the dais are groups of volunteers feeding ballots into machines. At 8:30pm, there are no results yet.
On the first Monday of May this year Bill Board will end his sixteen-year term. As Pasadena’s longest standing Mayor he has created a legacy for the city that the candidates this evening are all eager to build from. As they wait in line to be interviewed by a small film crew, they talk animatedly to equally eager reporters scribbling in notepads or firing off emails.
Mayor Bogaard talks about catching up on his reading. He says he favors reading historical books—biographies—and is looking forward to travelling to Madrid and San Sebastian in Spain this spring, to visit his grown children living there. He also speaks of France, “My second favorite city aside from Pasadena is Paris. I haven’t made the reservations yet but we’re [He and his wife] are looking forward to spending some time there.”
At around 9:15 the chatter in the room is interrupted when City Clerk Mark Jomsky announces the count for the 9,300 mail-in ballots over the P.A. system. Even this early in the night, the mailed-in votes seem to indicate that something like 66% of the votes in the Mayoral race will be split between Vice Mayor Jacque Robinson and Councilmember Terry Tornek. The other major portion of votes—approximately 28%—will be divided between candidates Don Morgan and Bill Thompson, with the final 4-5% portion of the votes going to Allen Shay. Candidate Jason Hardin—who was not present for the event—received a little less than half a percent of the total votes.
About forty minutes after the reading of these results, with the vote counters still working away, Mayor Bogaard leaves the Council Chamber. Vice Mayor Robinson, Candidate Morgan and Candidate Shay leave the council room over the course of approximately twenty minutes.
Terry Torneck enters the room at around 9:45 with his family. He says he’s, “Feeling good,” about the results. “This is just the first hurdle,” he says, “We still have to do the run-off.”
What he means is that because of the split nature of the ballot the only way to win automatically is to earn 50% of the votes plus one. And given the forecast of the election by the reading of the mail-in results, it appears that this event is only a preliminary round for the main run-off, due to take place on April 21st. Mr. Jomsky confirms this as the night goes on and data from Pasadena’s 47 precincts slowly start to accrue and the numbers start to gel.
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By 10:05pm, the spread between the five voters consistently begins pointing to a race between Tornek and Robinson, and by the time the last of the votes have been tallied it is official. With Tornek’s 37.1% versus Robinson’s 30.3% of the total votes, the mayoral race for the city of Pasadena will go to a run-off in April.
But this isn’t the only run-off taking place. Pasadena Unified School District Board Member Tyron Hampton, who is running for the District 1 Council Seat held 46.1% of the vote at the end of the night, and will be facing off against Calvin E. Wells in April.
Backed by a strong group of supporters, Hampton wants to see a Pasadena that’s friendlier to small business owners, creates more jobs and provides better educational services to its students.
Hampton sees Pasadena as a place where entrepreneurs like himself—owner of D.H. Designs, floorcovering business—can succeed economically while also helping the city by giving back.
And he chooses to lead by example, “the Community came together and asked me to run,” he says, “Because I am not afraid to roll my sleeves up.”
Hampton said that one of his visions for education reform involves a commitment to early child education, “It’s something that [Pasadena] could really get behind,” he says.
He also is passionate about passing initiatives that will encourage business owners to hire locally, including passing measures that would affect the Pasadena P.D. on the grounds that, “Community policing is the best resource for public safety.”
The relative newcomer is confident that his community-based, down-to-earth initiatives will gain much support in his district, and is eager for this April’s challenge, “I’ve got my running shoes on,” he said.
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