After leading for weeks following the Nov. 3 general election, San Bernardino City Council candidates Ben Reynoso and Damon Alexander have been certified winners in their respective races for the Fifth and Seventh ward seats, according to final election results released Tuesday, Dec. 1, by the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters.
Their four-year terms and those of Councilman Juan Figueroa and Kimberly Calvin, who both won election in March’s primary, are set to begin Dec. 16.
Reynoso, a first-time candidate, defeated incumbent Councilman Henry Nickel by 600 votes, results show. Alexander, who ran for the same seat in 2015, garnered 2,616 more votes than incumbent Councilman Jim Mulvihill.
Nearly 11,000 Fifth Ward residents voted for their preferred candidate, while more than 8,300 Seventh Ward residents cast a ballot for theirs.
When the new council convenes for the first time later this month, it will bear little resemblance to the seven-member body that represented the city of more than 215,000 just two years ago.
Since then, San Bernardino voters have placed six new council members and a new mayor.
Aside from Mayor John Valdivia, a two-term councilman when he ran for the city’s top elected position in 2018, Councilman Fred Shorett, who narrowly won reelection two years ago, is the last remaining link between the two councils.
Throw in the recent hiring of City Manager Rob Field and leadership at City Hall has been overhauled in short order.
