Politics & Government

Glendora Voters Go With Age and Experience in City Council Race

Nelson, Tessitor and Santoro say years of community involvement were keys to their success.

In a seven-person candidate race, Glendora voters went with the three oldest candidates Tuesday evening, electing , and as Glendora’s newest members to city council, according to unofficial results.

The elected council members, all in their 60s, took decisive victories over John Fields, 53, Jason Nagy, 37, Erica Landmann-Johnsey, 37, and Cynthia Carrasco, 32.

The three new members will join council members Karen Davis and Gene Murabito on the council. Mayor Ken Herman and Councilman Terry Kent decided not to seek re-election.

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Nelson, Tessitor and Santoro each earned over 2,000 of the more than 14,000 votes counted Tuesday evening. Fields garnered 1,853, Nagy tallied 1,911, Landman-Johnsey earned 1,845 and Carrasco took 1,050 of the votes.

Nelson, 65, captured the most votes of the evening with 2,974. Nelson, owner of Mrs. Nelson’s Book Shop in La Verne, said the amount of overwhelming voter support came as a surprise.

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“I was prepared for anything, I thought anything could happen,” said Nelson Tuesday evening following the results. She credits the 25 years of community support for her bookstore as the key to her campaign’s success.

“I think people knew going in that I truly wanted to help this community,” said Nelson. “I had no political agenda. I wasn’t this young person aspiring to a career in politics. I’m retired and I want to give back to the community. People knew that my whole goal was a financially secure city, a prosperous city and not for it to become challenged as other cities are.”

Council member elect and the lone incumbent in the race Doug Tessitor said he was not surprised with the results at all.

“This turned out exactly the way I hoped it would,” Tessitor, 66, said following the announcement of the results. “I’m ecstatic to work with a wonderful, mature and experienced group of people on this council.”

Tessitor said he believed years of experience and community service is what contributed to the success of the three elected candidates.

“Judy and Joe have a quiet depth of support through the community,” said Tessitor. “It was that kind of community involvement that so many of the candidates who weren’t successful didn’t have.

Santoro, 67, chose to watch the results at home with his family.  Santoro grabbed the third open seat, despite being one of the targets in a regarding an investigation of Rio Hondo College's Police Academy, where Santoro was the dean.

“I know we put on a good, clean campaign and I was proud of that,” Santoro said after the results came in. “I’m ready for the new experience and working with the council. We have some very serious issues to discuss and I’m really looking forward to everyone’s input.”


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