SLO County announces school board election results. Here’s who won

All the votes have been counted, and we now have the final results of San Luis Obispo County’s school board races.

All told, 47 candidates ran for 19 seats across eight districts. Here are the complete election results, released by the Clerk-Recorder’s Office on Wednesday.

Paso Robles Joint Unified School District

Three new faces are coming to the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District board.

Laurene McCoy won the contest for the at-large seat with 38.7% of the vote. Adelita Hiteshew followed close behind with 36.8%. Jim Irving was in third at 24.5%. McCoy’s margin of victory over Hiteshew was 308 votes.

In Trustee Area 1, Jim Cogan secured a seat on the board with 48.2% of the vote. Following behind were incumbent Chris Arend with 27.3% and Peter Byrne with 24.5%.

In Trustee Area 4, Sondra Williams won with 43.1% of the total. Her closest challengers were appointed incumbent Frank Triggs with 37.5% and Catherine Reimer with 19.4%.

Two of the seats — Trustee Areas 1 and 4 — are for four-year terms, while the at-large seat is for a two-year term.

Lucia Mar Unified School District

San Luis Obispo County’s largest school district, Lucia Mar Unified, had competitive races in four trustee areas. In total, 10 candidates ran for a seat.

In Trustee Area 3, Andrea Naemi-Vergne won with 36.6% of the vote. Appointed incumbent Daevin Thomas followed with 32.8% and Ashley Smeester with 30.7%. A total of 120 votes separate the leaders.

In Trustee Area 5, incumbent Colleen Martin was reelected with 57.7% of the vote over Gary Joralemon at 42.3%, a difference of 704 votes.

In Trustee Area 6, Eilene Pham made a comeback and won with 43.1% of the vote. Roxana Maldonado followed with 41.2% — behind by only 94 votes. Scott Bloom finished last with 15.8% of the vote.

And in Trustee Area 7, Donna Kandel handily beat Luke Davis 61.5% to 38.5%.

Atascadero Unified School District

In the Atascadero school district, nine candidates competed for four seats. The election was at-large, meaning all voters within the district’s boundaries had all of the candidates on their ballots.

The four winners were Tracy Ellis-Weit with almost 15% of the vote, followed by Vy Pierce with 14.4%, Rebekah Koznek with 12.8% and Denise McGrew Kane with 12.3%.

Following them were Dan Hathaway with 11.1%, incumbent Tami Gunther with 10.5%, Scott Staton with 9.6%, incumbent George Shoemaker with 9.3%, and Chris Collins with almost 5%.

San Luis Coastal Unified School District

In San Luis Coastal, six candidates ran for three seats on the board.

However, Jim Quesenberry in Trustee Area 2 had indicated that he would automatically concede to Rob Banfield because he missed the deadline to pull out of the race.

In Trustee Area 1, incumbent Marilyn Rodger cruised to reelection with 58.7% of the vote, while Loren Leidinger had 41.3%.

Banfield won Trustee Area 2 with 56.6% of the vote, followed by Quesenberry with 43.4%.

Incumbent Mark Buchman won the race for Trustee Area 4, ahead of Tony Evans 67.5% to 32.5%.

Templeton Unified School District

The race for two seats on the Templeton Unified School District board proved to be among the most tightly contested in the county.

Janel Armet won the first seat 27.4% of the vote, and Jennifer Grinager won the second seat with 25.7% of the vote.

Following them were Matt Allison with 25.5%, Jason Tesarz with 9.7%, Jay Raftery with 7.89%, and Fiona Bond with 3.9%.

Cayucos Elementary School District

In the small coastal school district, five candidates ran for seats in three trustee areas.

Trustee Areas 2 and 3 went uncontested, while Trustee Area 1 had three candidates running for the one seat.

Kerry Friend won with 43.2% of the vote, followed by incumbent Steve Geil with 33.1% and Chloe Phillips with almost 24%.

Coast Unified School District

Coast Unified, which serves Cambria, had one contested race for Trustee Area 2.

Incumbent Lee McFarland won with almost 51% of the vote over Susan Dever with 49%, a margin of only 16 votes.

Cuesta College (San Luis Obispo Community College District)

Cuesta College’s board of trustees had two candidates run for Trustee Area 4.

Incumbent Peter Sysak held on to win with 50.3% of the vote over Adrienne Garcia-Specht with 49.7%. The margin was 124 votes.