District 7 City Council As election results continue to trickle in, District 7 City Council candidate Ryan Chin is feeling less confident about his prospects for a win. “It’s obviously not going in my direction,” Chin said. In the District 7 race, Fong was leading with 52 percent of the vote Thursday night. Chin followed with 47 percent. In the Nov. 3 results release, Fong had 51 percent to Chin’s 48 percent. Chin said he might “reach out” to opponent Darrell Fong. But it was unclear Friday if or when Chin will concede the race. “We’re happy that our numbers held and that our numbers went up,” Fong said Friday. Sacramento County Sheriff’s Race Both Sheriff Capt. Scott Jones and Capt

After counting everything except absentee ballots turned in on election day, Darrell Fong is leading by 373 votes. As of 11:20 p.m., District 7 City Council candidate Darrell Fong said he was hopeful. “We’ll see how the race ends up,” he said. “We’re ahead and our numbers are going up, but until the precincts are counted, we’re hopeful. We’ve had a great time, and there’s a lot of support, a lot of volunteers,” Fong said. “In the primaries we were 800 votes down, so we’ve closed the gap. But the fight is not over.” The most recent update Fong had seen showed he was 270 votes ahead of Chin. “We’ve run the race, and we’ve both run a strong campaign,” he said. “I just want to thank eve

After counting everything except absentee ballots turned in on election day, Darrell Fong is leading by 373 votes. As of 11:20 p.m., District 7 City Council candidate Ryan Chin said the results were way too close to call. The most recent update he had to reference showed Chin at 49 percent and Fong with 51 percent. “There are lots of other ballots to be counted still,” Chin said. If Chin does lose, he said he’ll go back to doing what he’s always done: “I’ll make sure I’m working in the community, making sure that I’m raising funds for scholarships for kids going into college or vocational training, or helping with our youth conference and lending my talents and abilities to the commun

1:11 a.m. update final results The ballot counting is far from over. The Sacramento County Voter Registration and Elections Department still has to count tens of thousands of vote-by-mail ballots that were turned in to the polls Election Day, said Brad Buyse, Sacramento County’s campaign services manager. And there are thousands of vote-by-mail ballots sent to the county in the last three days that still need to be counted, Buyse said. Still, the elections department posted results late into the night on Wednesday. Here is where the following local measures stand: Measure B: Utilities Rollback The “no” side had 68 percent of the vote, with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Support fo

Check in here for hourly updates from Sacramento Press as we cover the election all over the city. Turnout was light this morning at Park Folsom Retirement Home on Wales Dr., Folsom.  Volunteers were ready to help voters. Photos by David Alvarez Kevin Johnson cast his vote at 11 a.m. at Pat Anderson Education Center at 2751 Wilmington Ave. After he voted, he commented on the World Series. "It was great ... when you're a Sacramento resident and you grow up in this community you root for the A's and the Giants and I can't think of any better prize on November 1st than the Giants clinching it on the road." Johnson added, "When I see people, my first question is, 'Did you vote?' If

Sacramento City Council District 7 candidates Darrell Fong and Ryan Chin were leading their campaigns’ election day efforts Tuesday to get voters to the polls. Fong voted at Greenhaven Neighborhood Church Tuesday morning. Exiting the polling place, he vowed not to take a salary if elected until the city budget improves. The retired Sacramento police captain said his top priorities are public safety, building and figuring out how to provide city services when revenue is down. "The only agenda I have is seeing the city move forward," he said. "We will come out of this. We'll just have to be more efficient with how we deliver services." Fong then headed to his campaign headquarters in a s

Mayor Kevin Johnson released his endorsements for several Nov. 2 political races on Friday. He named his candidates in local, state and federal elections in a post on his blog.  In the Sacramento City Council runoff in District 5, Johnson endorsed education policy consultant Jay Schenirer. He had endorsed Schenirer for the first time in May, when the City Council candidate was running against four other candidates. Schenirer is competing against attorney Patrick Kennedy in the November runoff. The winning candidate will replace current City Councilwoman Lauren Hammond. Johnson decided not to endorse a candidate in the District 7 runoff. Ryan Chin, a communications director at Sacramento

Outgoing Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters is backing candidate Darrell Fong in the runoff election for the District 7 seat that covers the Pocket/Greenhaven and Valley Hi neighborhoods. Waters, who has served as the District 7 council member since 1994, lost the race in June to opponents Darrell Fong and Ryan Chin. Waters came in third place out of four candidates, with 27 percent of the vote. Chin led the group in the June election with 37 percent of the vote. He is now competing in a runoff campaign against Fong, who garnered 32 percent of votes cast. The two candidates must face off again because the city’s rules say that a council candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vo

The final Sacramento City Council election results did not yield any last-minute statistical miracles. Furthermore, a Sacramento city clerk’s predictions about City Council runoffs proved true: The leading two candidates in Districts 5 and 7 will compete in a Nov. 2 runoff election. The county elections office finished counting ballots from the June 8 election on Wednesday. Candidates Jay Schenirer and Patrick Kennedy will run for the District 5 seat, while candidates Darrell Fong and Ryan Chin will square off in District 7. Incumbent District 1 City Councilman Ray Tretheway lost his battle against challenger Angelique Ashby — just barely. A City Council candidate needs at least 50 per

Close to 60 people converged on a home in the River Park neighborhood of East Sacramento Tuesday evening to mourn the reductions in the public education budget in the Sacramento area and to discuss what can be done to prevent further cuts. Educators, students, parents, political figures and concerned members of the public were all in attendance to listen to speakers, hear poetry and voice their concerns and opinions on the state of education in the community. The wake was hosted by Jim Harper, a teacher of American government and history at Laguna Creek High School and an occasional instructor at California State University, Sacramento. Harper has been teaching for 23 years and was invol

A runoff election for District 7 of the City Council is nearly inevitable between Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong. Neither of the candidates has enough votes to be declared the winner, and with only 4,000 provisional ballots left to process, not much is expected to change. “With 4,000 ballots left, I would suspect that the race is close to final,” Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said. “Other than final, this is about as final as it’s going to get.” A candidate needs at least 50 percent of the vote plus one to win. Chin has 37.57 percent and Fong has 32.6 percent, as of 3:22 p.m. today. You can view the updated election results here. You can view a map of the geographical distribution

The primary election night results showed no clear winner in the heated District 7 City Council race, and now county officials are saying there will "likely be a runoff" between Chin and Fong. The two candidates will now face another four and a half months of campaigning to win the coveted council seat.   Chin and Fong both have strong ties to the community. Fong, a retired law enforcement officer, and Chin, the former county planning commissioner, feel it’s those ties that will show a diverse support network to fuel them both toward November.   “That’s what I’m most proud of," Chin said. "I got all types of different people, different communities.”     He said he is aware of naysa

The waiting game for the District 1 City Council race continues. The Sacramento County elections office released new vote tallies Friday afternoon, and has counted about 35,000 of the roughly 86,000 that remained after Election Day. However, the new ballots still don’t definitively show whether Natomas activist Angelique Ashby has won the District 1 seat, or if she will compete in a runoff in November with incumbent City Councilman Ray Tretheway. The county elections staff still needs to count more than 51,000 ballots. Voters cast ballots for many state and local candidates Tuesday, so it’s unknown how many of the 51,000 ballots include votes for the City Council races. With 5,405 votes

Sacramento City Councilman Robbie Waters has lost the District 7 seat he has held since 1994. Sacramento County’s election website showed that Waters, with 1,935 votes, follows two challengers in the polls. District 7 candidates Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong are expected to compete in a runoff, Assistant City Clerk Stephanie Mizuno said Wednesday morning. District 7 includes the neighborhoods of Greenhaven / Pocket and Valley-Hi. With all precincts reporting, Chin has 38 percent of the vote. Fong is chasing Chin with 31 percent of the vote. The two candidates are separated by a few hundred votes: Chin has 2,712, while Fong has 2,215. While Mizuno cautioned that the results are semi-offici

As polling began Tuesday morning, accusations flew between District 7 candidates. Darrell Fong claimed that volunteers from Ryan Chin's campaign were removing his signs and harassing voters at polling places. Chin made the same claims about volunteers from Fong's campaign.  A campaign spokesperson reported that Robbie Waters' headquarters received complaints by phone about Chin's supporters trying to swayvoters. Chin responded in part by saying his volunteers had nothing to do with the "negative tactics" reported by Waters and Fong.  By late afternoon, David Plag, who works for Waters' campaign, said that the early results were leaning Republican. Fong sent a text to community contribut

11:21 p.m. UPDATE Angelique Ashby's supporters gather around the wide screen television to anxiously watch the results of tonight's election. With a lead of more than 10% on her closest competitor, incumbent Tretheway, Ashby supporters are anticipating the coming numbers. "We think we know the answer," volunteer Celia Hernandez said. "We just need it official!" Cheers, laughter and applause resonate throughout the police stationassociation, and tensions build as the night wears on, the final count looming closer and closer. "We're all excited," canvas coordinator Greg Pruden said. "Really looking forward to getting the final returns in and seeing what the final result is. We're reall

The District 7 City Council race heated up early this morning when Ryan Chin and Darrell Fong claimed that their signage was removed from supporters' lawns and constituents from each campaign were harassed outside of polling places in the Pocket/Greenhaven areas. Darrell Fong said he received an e-mail from a concerned voter that she was harassed by Chin’s campaign volunteers outside of her polling place, and that she was grateful that he had not used the same tactics. One of Fong’s volunteers, Harold Fong, said that he felt it was just a “tacky method to run a campaign." Both candidates steadfastly state that each has run a clean campaign. A campaign spokesperson for incumbent Robbie W

The Sacramento Press election team is pulling an all-nighter Tuesday to bring our readers City Council election results. We will continuously update our election coverage starting at 4 p.m. Tuesday until the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters stops releasing results late that night.  In addition to reporting the results from the polls, our staffers will be on-the-scene at election parties to cover the perspectives of candidates and their supporters. In Sacramento, polls will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. Election results will start coming in after 8 p.m. "I'm out campaigning," City Councilman Steve Cohn said late Monday afternoon. "Tonight's the last time I'll be walking door-t

Ryan Chin said he would weigh neighborhood and business concerns if elected to the City Council. The Sacramento Press is interviewing City Council candidates in advance of the June 8 election. Chin is one of four candidates competing for the District 7 seat, which represents neighborhoods including Pocket/Greenhaven and Valley Hi. His competitors are incumbent Robbie Waters, Darrell Fong and Diedre Hobart. Chin said he has experience working on neighborhood and business issues. “I understand business,” he said, “but I’ll always be connected and committed to the community, and making sure they’re represented.” Chin, who works as a strategic communications director at California State U

Darrell Fong, a retired Sacramento Police Department captain who is running for City Council, said he could provide a better perspective to the city and his district because he does not intend to make politics his career. The Sacramento Press is interviewing City Council candidates in advance of the June 8 election. Fong, a third-generation Sacramento resident, is running for the District 7 seat on the City Council. His opponents are incumbent Robbie Waters, and Ryan Chin and Diedre Hobart. “My goal is just to focus on the city alone and the district,” Fong said. District 7 neighborhoods include Greenhaven, Pocket and Valley Hi. Fong, 53, noted that he has lived in the Pocket neighborh