Keim’s lead is narrowing compared to Sanchez’s for Oceanside mayor – San Diego Union-Tribune

Oceanside City Councilman Ryan Keim had a narrowing lead over incumbent Mayor Esther Sanchez in the latest results released Monday after the Nov. 5 election.

The new figures reduced his previous lead of 591 votes to a narrow margin of 239 votes. According to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, approximately 140,000 ballots remain to be counted across the county, with the next update expected Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Keim is a former Oceanside police officer who was appointed to a vacancy on the council in January 2019 and then elected to a four-year term in 2020. He is the mayor’s only opponent and has been ahead by a narrow margin since the first results were announced.

Sanchez, an attorney and former public defender, has served on the council since 2000 and was first elected mayor in 2020.

Oceanside’s treasurer election is also close.

Incumbent city treasurer Victor Roy led his two opponents in the early results, but he fell to second place late last week.

Phyllis Dominguez, a small business owner and 22-year Oceanside resident, was ahead by nearly 800 votes with Monday’s results. Jack Fernandes remained in third place.

Roy and Fernandes both have problems in their record.

An independent investigation conducted for the city in 2022 found that Roy had behaved poorly on the job, violated city policies and used library computers to view inappropriate material. Fernandes publicly acknowledged that he had been arrested before the election, and a police report revealed that he was involved in an apparently unrelated “road rage” incident in La Jolla.

Dominguez vowed to restore trust in the office, in response to questions from the San Diego Union-Tribune before the election.

“Due to a history of controversy in this office,” Dominguez said, “the new city treasurer will need to restore the office’s credibility and rebuild the necessary relationships with the other departments to become an effective watchdog of the taxpayers’ money and reliable financial institutions. advisor to the city council.”

Two Oceanside City Council races have not changed with additional results.

Jimmy Figueroa, a local nonprofit leader, is ahead of the closest other candidate, Laura Bassett, for the District 3 seat now held by Keim. Other candidates in that district include Tom DeMooy and Austin Sorensen.

In District 4, incumbent Peter Weiss has a lead of more than 20 percentage points over his two opponents, Omar Hashimi and Amber Kae Niuatoa.

Nearly 70 percent of Oceanside voters supported approving another decade for Measure