Thomson, Woodings, Sanchez secure Boise City Council wins; open space levy reaffirmed (original) (raw)

Lisa Sanchez, center, hugs her campaign manager, Jennifer Martinez, Tuesday evening as voting results showed a big lead for her to win the Boise City Council Seat 2 race. Sanchez celebrated with friends, family and supporters at St. Lawrence Gridiron in Downtown Boise.doswald@idahostatesman.com

For the first time this century, a majority of Boise City Council members — four of six seats — will be women after Tuesday’s election.

Lisa Sanchez and Holli Woodings easily dispatched crowded fields for seats 2 and 6 on the council. Both seats were open. Incumbents Maryanne Jordan, the council’s senior member, and Ben Quintana did not run for re-election.

Woodings is a former member of the Idaho House of Representatives and Democratic nominee for Idaho secretary of state. Lisa Sanchez is a well-known community activist in Boise.

The last time women made up a majority of the council? 1999.

Efforts to contact Woodings and Sanchez on Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

Incumbent T.J. Thomson, the only incumbent in Tuesday’s city of Boise elections, was in a closer race, but ended the night with a clear lead over his closest opponent, Naomi Johnson.

Thomson congratulated Johnson on a well-run race. He said he’s looking forward to getting to work on projects that are of special interest to him, including improved public transportation, as well as more parks and other green space for West Boise.

Boise voters also overwhelmingly backed a re-do of the same two-year open space levy they passed in 2015. A full 74 percent of voters passed the 2015 measure. But Ada County failed to assess the additional tax for one year due to a clerical error by the city’s budget department.

Tuesday’s levy election sought to reset the levy tax so that it would be assessed in the next two years. Roughly 8,400 fewer people cast votes in the levy election this time around. But a larger majority of them — 83 percent — supported the measure.

This story was originally published November 8, 2017, 12:03 AM.