Kerns, Ringen reelected in TUD races
An additional 5,000 to 6,000 ballots from Tuesday’s election were still left to count in Tuolumne County, but the winners of the two races for the Tuolumne Utilities District Board of Directors were already clear from the results released as of Wednesday.
Both TUD incumbents held onto their seats in the first election since TUD switched from an atlarge to a district-based voting system similar to how county supervisors are elected.
Jeff Kerns won a second four-year term in the race for the TUD District 4 seat, which covers the Tuolumne area, in a landslide defeat of 19-year-old challenger Alexander Horat.
Kerns had received 1,714 votes, or about 67% of the total, to Horat’s 829 votes, or 33%, in the final batch of results released on election night.
“I’d like to congratulate Alexander Horat on the campaign he ran. He stuck to his points, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot from him in the future,” Kerns said in a phone interview Wednesday, “but we need to finalize this deal with PG&E to secure the water future of Tuolumne County.”
Horat has recently been in the public eye outside of his campaign
for the TUD board as a vocal critic of many recent actions by the county Board of Supervisors, especially a recently passed climate action plan.
In response to a request for comment, Horat provided a written statement Wednesday congratulating Kerns on his victory and pledging to continue fighting “for open and fiscally responsible government.”
“Standing up for what is right is something I will continue to do no matter what,” he stated. “We must do what’s best for the people, not what’s best for the government and corporations. I hope everyone looks more closely into what is really behind certain government affairs, and hold your elected officials accountable.”
Ron Ringen also won his third consecutive four-year term on the TUD Board of Directors after defeating challenger Brian Shrigley for the District 1 seat.
The last round of results released Tuesday night had Ringen in front with 1,503 votes, or 56%, to Shrigley’s 1,182 votes, or 44%, though Ringen said he was not yet comfortable outright declaring victory until all the votes were counted.
“PG&E has said all along that it’s going to divest itself from those water rights,” Kerns said. “If we don’t get it under local control, someone else will have them and that means we’ll be at their mercy. I’ve always felt deeply that having them under local control will be best for the whole county.”
Though PG&E suddenly paused negotiations with TUD earlier this year, it said that it plans to re-engage talks with the district sometime in 2023.
Ringen also said that he wants to work toward completing the half-finished restoration project of Phoenix Reservoir and establishing drafting points along the TUD open-ditch system where water could be pulled to fight fires.
Debi Bautista, the county’s registrar of voters, said she expected to release another round of results with many of the remaining ballots by Thursday.