One just, one unjust result in Riverside

Elections by their nature often yield mixed results. Sometimes, the better candidate wins, sometimes the obviously not good candidate wins.

In the elections for Riverside City Council, the best outcome by far is the defeat of incumbent Gaby Plascencia by challenger Sean Mill. The two faced off before, four years ago, when Plascencia narrowly defeated Mill and then went on a campaign of retribution against him.

Plascencia used her position to try to remove Mill from the Arlington Business Partnership and the city’s planning commission. The city’s Board of Ethics found that she violated the city’s ethics rules and her own council colleagues ended up censuring her.

Policywise, Plascencia has been a standard public sector union ally with standard progressive policy views that are mostly irrelevant to running a city government.

Mill, on the other hand, has a much needed backto-basics approach to governance. He wants to prioritize slashing red tape for businesses, promoting mixed-use development, working with regional partners on solving the city’s homelessness problem and making sure the city is trimming the trees and paving the streets. These are the reasonable priorities of any city government. With Plascencia’s ouster, Riverside gains a needed voice of reason on the city council.

Meanwhile, in a race between two Riverside councilmembers for state Assembly — Ronaldo Fierro and Clarissa Cervantes — it appears many voters were less discerning.

Clarissa Cervantes is best known for twice getting arrested for driving under the influence, including as recently as last year, just weeks after going to court and getting her first DUI conviction taken off the books.

Clarissa is the sister of current Assemblymember Sabrina Cervantes — whose seat is up for grabs — and has been successful in riding her sister’s coattails up the political ranks. As of this writing, Clarissa Cervantes is leading Fierro by just over 100 votes. Whoever ends up winning will face off with Republican Leticia Castillo in November.

It’s a shame that voters reward criminal behavior among elected officials, especially behavior that reveals fundamental irresponsibility. Voters ultimately get the leaders they deserve.