And after several hours of the race being too close to call, it’s now clear who will lead the new school district.
Eight people — including the four members of the Lammersville Elementary School District board — were locked in a tight race for five seats to become unified school district trustees.
According to unofficial reports from the San Joaquin County registrar of voters, Mountain House Community Services District board member and San Francisco police officer Matthew Balzarini (16.82 percent), Lammersville Elementary board member and Vice Principal at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton Ben Fobért (14.13), Lammersville native and local farmer David Pombo (14.05 percent), Lammersville Elementary board member and school and educational psychologist James Hiramoto (13.7 percent) and elementary school teacher Michaela Vergara (13.44 percent) looked to have secured their positions on the new board as of 9 a.m. today, with all precincts reporting.
Balzarini served on the school board for 2½ years before getting elected to the community services district board of directors in November 2008. Hiramoto has sat on the school board for 1½ years and Fobért has served on the school board for two years.
On the outside looking in are current Lammersville Elementary School board members Shane Nielson (10.86 percent) and Atul Khanna (9.85 percent) and newcomer Jake Johnson (6.72 percent).
Nielson has sat on the school board for six years. Khanna has served on the school board for four years.
While the trustees' race went down to the wire — only 166 votes separated top vote-getter Balzarini from Nielsen, who didn't earn a seat — Measure A cruised to a landslide 79.92 to 20.08 percent victory.
The vote means that students from the district — now just a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade district — will soon attend high school under the Lammersville umbrella instead of at Tracy Unified School District, likely at a high school that will be built in Mountain House.
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