Andy Wilson and family (Photo – wilsonforcitycouncil.com)
Hallelujah!
By Brian Rodriguez
That’s what Andy Wilson shouted after he’d been announced the winner of District 7 in Pasadena. A 36-vote lead separated Mr. Wilson, the incumbent, with his opponent, Phil Hosp.
The final tally showed Andy Wilson with 1,793 votes compared to 1,757 votes for Mr. Hosp in a race that split the district’s voters almost in half.
Last week, first-time council candidate Phil Hosp held a 20-vote lead over Councilmember Andy Wilson. A week later, both the provisional and additional vote-by-mail ballots pushed Mr. Wilson to the top.
Mr. Hosp has conceded and there are no plans for a recount. In his first comments on social media, Mr. Hosp thanked his supporters and vowed to stay involved:
Thank you to everyone for your support….I just wanted to say how honored I am to have you behind me. My campaign started because our leaders need to put residents first. We came up 36 votes short. However, we all love this city and need to stay involved. Thank you again!
Andy Wilson will serve four years on the Pasadena City Council. He lives with his wife (Liz); two sons (Spencer, 14, and Dylan, 11); and a white, fluffy, pound rescue dog named Gandalf.
Certified Canvass District 7 Official Election Results (Photo – cityofpasadena.net).
[This article has been updated to include additional comments from Mr. Phil Hosp’s social media – April 27, 2017 12:30 p.m.]
Congratulations, Andy. Yes, you weren’t who I supported, but you and Phil both ran hard-fought races and brought up a lot of issues that everybody’s now talking about. Kudos to both of you – and Sheena, Bryan, and Alex, too – for being willing to put yourselves out there and run for office; it’s not an easy thing to do.
It’ll be interesting to see how the current council interprets this race, though. It’ll be tempting – especially for Terry Tornek – to think of it as a confirmation of everything that’s gone on the last couple of years and that everything should continue as is (if not speed up, in the case of development). I think, though, that the real way to interpret it is that people don’t want fast change that results in a “transformation” of Pasadena, as the mayor recently described what’s going on in the city, but that people want slower, more measured change that’s grounded in what people already love about Pasadena. Phil obviously ran on anti-current pace of development and anti-current pace of urban village building (road diets, decreasing speed limits, lots of new bike lanes, etc.) but even Andy had to change his view during the campaign from being 100% pro-General Plan to telling people he isn’t pro-development. I think it’s safe to say that all of Phil’s voters are anti-current fast pace of development and change, and a good number of Andy’s are, too. It’ll be interesting to see if Council – especially those members running in the next election cycle – interpret it the same way.
wonderful what a relief!! Thank you for telling us!