Houston Elected To Water Board

By Stephen Hadland

Observer Publisher

While most of the country, including West Los Angeles, exciting contested elections, Culver City was no more than a big yawner.

All three legislators, Congresswoman Karen Bass, State Senator Holly Mitchell and Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas easily won their reelections on Tuesday.

The only really contested seat on the ballot was for the open seat on the West Basin Water District Board. Scott Houston won the seat with 11,318 votes with Jeff Ebstein with 8,230 and Culver City resident Stephen Murray with 5,411. Murray had run unsuccessfully for Culver City Council earlier this year.

Houston will take the seat previously occupied by Ed Little, a former Culver City Councilman who resigned for health reasons in May. Little died in August.

Bass, who garnered almost 84 percent of the vote occupies what some political experts consider the safest Democratic seat in the country.

While Bass will return to Washington D.C. with the Republicans firmly in control of the House of Representatives, Mitchell and Ridley-Thomas will enjoy substantial majorities for their parties in Sacramento.

County wide the voter turnout was a dismal 25.25 percent of the registered voters.