Tornek vs. York- the election continues

Since Terry Tornek won last night with less than 50 percent of the vote last night, this council election will continue for another month and change, until the run-off on April 21.

This was the expected result- Tornek in the lead with York in 2nd place.

There may be some bad blood coming up between the two. As we reported last week, Tornek believes York deliberately violated the Pasadena Fair Campaign Practice by not giving the other candidates her fliers 48 hours before mailing them out. York basically has said there was a mailing mix-up.

Tornek told me last week, and said on KPAS last night that he does not intend to sign the Pasadena Fair Campaign Practice agreement for the run-off election, and will not abide by its rules anymore.

What does that mean? Most likely, very little. The issue at hand has been the idea that if one candidate knows what the other is mailing out to the voters, he can have an advantage over the other candidates. But in reality, I'm not sure it makes a whole lot of difference. Unless one candidate comes up with such a groundbreaking issue that nobody has ever thought of before, and another candidate breaks the agreement to make sure he can get fliers out on the same issue at the same time.

But in reality, there are only so many issues that Pasadena residents care about, and the candidates that have been sending out mailings have all been addressing the same issues all along.

In regards to the run-off, since Tornek has already won almost 50 percent of the vote, he has the clear advantage. I'd expect York to approach Ciran Hadjian about an endorsement and getting her to try and turn out some Hadjian voters for York. She would need all of Hadjian's voters and her own to show up at the run-off to equal the number of voters Tornek had in the first round last night.