Winders takes slight lead in Sonoma school board race

Celeste Winders moved into a slight lead over Joe Lemas on Tuesday in the race for the Area 2 seat on the Sonoma Valley Unified School District Board of Trustees after trailing him for the past two weeks.

Winders has garnered 693 votes (38.82%), compared with Lemas’ 681 votes (38.15%) and Jacquelyn Torres’ 411 votes (23.03%) in the Nov. 8 elections.

“Most votes are posted,” said Deva Marie Proto, county clerk, recorder, assessor and registrar of voters. “We probably have about 2,000 ballots remaining (0.75% of the total ballots submitted), but that is composed of provisionals, conditional voter registrations, damaged ballots and signature cures.”

Troy Kennedy of the Registrar of Voters said that there is no way of telling how many of the 2,000 ballots include votes cast in the Area 2 election.

“Our goal is to certify the election by Dec. 2, but we have up until Dec. 8 to do so,” he said.

Catarina Landry was the only candidate who filed to run for the Area 1 seat on the board, so she will take her oath of office — along with the Area 2 winner — at the Tuesday, Dec. 13 board meeting. They will replace outgoing trustees Melanie Blake and Cathy Coleman.

Reach the reporter, Dan Johnson, at daniel.johnson@sonomanews.com.