In the race to fill the vacant 1st District seat on the Citrus Heights City Council, Kelsey Nelson was in the lead against two other candidates vying to replace Mayor Bret Daniels.
Nelson, Amie Burgundy Brown and Andrew Wayne Saunders hope to win the election and represent District 1, which includes the northwest end of suburban Sacramento County.
In vote totals released Tuesday night, Nelson had 66% of the vote in the three-way race. Brown was in second place with 17% of the vote, and Saunders in third place 16% of votes as of 8:15 PM
Daniels’ term representing the 1st District expired at the end of this year. In late August, the mayor of Citrus Heights announced he would resign, leaving his City Council seat vacant a few months before the end of his term.
“I have failed to secure housing in my district and I do not want to put the city at risk, so I must resign,” Daniels said in a statement to his fellow council members, telling them he would move to Kentucky .
In July, Daniels told CBS 13 that he planned to leave California at the end of the year due to “an erosion of local control” in the state and move to a place more in line with Christian, conservative values .
Daniels lost in the March primary to replace Sue Frost, then-outgoing supervisor of Sacramento County’s 4th District. Daniels came in second with 26% of the vote, losing the county supervisor seat to Rosario Rodriguez. Frost supported Rodriguez, who received 51% of the vote.
Jayna Karpinski-Costa, the Citrus Heights council member representing the 4th District, was chosen by the council in September to become the city’s new mayor. The council elected MariJane Lopez-Taff as vice mayor of Citrus Heights.
Incumbent City Councilman Tim Schaefer is opposing returning to his seat representing the 3rd District in Citrus Heights. Tuesday night, Schaefer had XX% of the votes.
