Temecula City Council elections: Stewart, Alexander ahead

Six candidates are vying for two open Temecula City Council seats on Election Day, Nov. 3.

In Temecula City Council District 2, where current Councilman Mike Naggar would be running had he not opted to retire this year after two decades in city politics, Alisha Wilkins and Jessica Alexander are competing to take over the seat. One more candidate on the ballot in District 2, Andy Black, has dropped out of the race and endorsed Alexander.

As of 9 a.m., it appears Alexander has pulled ahead of Wilkins — Alexander has earned 1,919 votes to Wilkins' 1,681.

Wilkins had been slightly ahead earlier in the night.

Returns also showed 542 votes for Andy Black.

District 2 covers some of Temecula's older neighborhoods east of Old Town and south of Rancho California Road, as well as parts of the Paloma del Sol and Vail Ranch/Redhawk areas.

Wilkins, is a business owner, chair of the California governor's Commission on the Status of Women & Girls and a 17-year Temecula resident.

Alexander is also a business owner, as well as a former Marine and former New York police officer.

In City Council District 4, there is a more crowded field of four candidates.

The District 4 seat opened up earlier this year when former Temecula Mayor James Stewart resigned earlier this year over an email that was criticized as racist.

Back in June, Stewart responded to a constituent's email on the subject of police sensitivity training with a message that said in part "I don't believe there's ever been a good person of color killed by a police officer."

When that email became public, the mayor quickly drew backlash, and while he said the email resulted from a typo made while using speech-to-text software, he ultimately stepped down both as mayor and from his city council seat.

But Stewart, who was first elected in 2016, is on the ballot once again, hoping voters will put him back on the council.

Three other candidates, though, are hoping that won't work out.

Also on the ballot are Mark Gular, Sonia Perez and Adam Ruiz.

Gular is a navy reservist and student.

Perez is a business owner.

Ruiz is also a business owner, and the current vice chair of the Temecula Community Services Commission.

As of 9 a.m., Stewart was ahead with 1,580 votes.

Returns were also showing 1,205 votes for Ruiz, 811 for Perez and 617 for Gular.

Results, however, are not final — the Riverside County Registrar of Voters' office says about 400,000 mail ballots and 25,000 provisional ballots still need to be processed countywide as of Wednesday morning.

Ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day also remain to be counted, the registrar's office said. The next updated results will be posted at 6:00pm on Thursday.