YEAR IN REVIEW: Supervisors get vote of confidence; city councils change

What could have been a wholesale change on the Colusa County Board of Supervisors turned out to be business as usual when all the ballots were counted.

Not so in the cities, where the senior member of the Williams council was voted out and two new faces defeated incumbents in Colusa.

Three supervisors — Gary Evans, Tom Indrieri and Mark Marshall — faced re-election bids in June, and a fourth — Kim Dolbow-Vann — was seeking a seat in Congress.

In an all-for-one and one-for-all campaign, the three incumbents appeared as a unified group trumpeting the success of the board as a whole for the relatively good financial health of the county — at least its budget.

Their opponents went on the attack for other perceived shortcomings, not the least of which was a claim that the board had done little for the county employees and moral was poor.

Marshall faced the most personal of the campaigns when his opponent, Williams City Councilwoman Angela Plachek-Fulcher, suggested the senior supervisor had made decisions to protect his wife's business interests.

Marshall chose to stay out of the fray and one a narrow victory.

Vann was not as lucky.

While the south county supervisor emerged as the Republican of choice in the June open-ballot primary, she could not overcome the numbers game and lost to Rep. John Garamendi in the November runoff.

Garamendi will represent Colusa and other North State counties for the first time as part of the redrawn 3rd District.

Similarly, Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Loma Rica, adds Colusa County to his territory. His campaign was unique in that he appeared on the ballot for both an Assembly seat and a state Senate post.

He was in a runoff for both offices when he dropped out of the Senate race for health reasons, and won the Assembly post.

He will represent the top half of the county. Veteran Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada, D- Davis, won in the newly drawn 4th District, which includes Williams, Arbuckle and most of the southern areas.

That District 4 Senate seat is still up for contention in a special election runoff slated for Jan. 8 between Republican Jim Nielsen and Democrat Michael "Mickey" Harrington.

Each is seeking to replace Rep.-elect Doug LaMalfa, who resigned from the state Senate in August and won a clear victory to replace retiring Rep. Wally Herger after his 26 years in Washington.

There were 39 local seats open in Colusa County.

The most contentious of those were the three seats on the Colusa City Council, where Kirk Kelleher was the lone incumbent to be returned to the council.

Kay Hosmer and Pat Landreth, each of whom had supported the unpopular city manager and equally unpopular economic development policy, were ousted in favor of Marilyn Acree and Greg Ponciano, who starts his four-year term as vice mayor.

In Williams, senior council member Don Barker finished a close third in a four-candidate race for two seats. He has been replaced by Kent Boes. John Troughton Jr. won re-election. Boes also will start his four-year term as vice mayor.

Barker's wife, Sally Barker, resigned her post as the elected treasurer, only six weeks after she won a second four-year term and officially just minutes after taking the oath of office. She was unopposed in the election, but with her husband out, the decision was for both to retire from city government.

In Colusa, Robin Rauch won the treasurer's post in a two-candidate race. She replaces Gar Rourke, who held the position for 17 years. He did not seek re-election.