Ed Smith leads for Monterey City Council; second seat too close to call.

At the Monterey election party at the Fairgrounds last night, City Council candidate Hansen Reed said he had no sense of how the race would shake out.

“It’s an invisible election,” Reed said.

He was more right than he perhaps even knew.

As of this afternoon, the Monterey County Elections Department reports that almost 34,000 votes are yet to be counted, about 40-percent of the total votes cast.

That means the only clear winners in Monterey are Clyde Roberson, who is running unopposed, as well as City Council candidate Ed Smith, who has garnered 30-percent of the votes in the race. Deadlocked for the other open council seat are incumbent Nancy Selfridge and business owner Timothy Barrett. As of 2pm today, Barrett held 26.31-percent of the votes to Selfridge’s 25.56-percent. Only 52 votes separate them, a gap that could close easily. Reed is a distant fourth, with 18-percent of the votes. 

“I’m not stressed,” Barrett said at the party last night, which included all the Monterey candidates. “I will just ride the wave.”

Reed was similarly nonplussed.

“Either way I win,” Reed said, pondering a potential defeat at the polls. “I’ll still be on the Planning Commission, and I’ll have a lot more free time.”

Selfridge, who’s been through the election cycle before, was also at a loss to call the winners.

“You really just have no clue,” she said of the eventual outcome.

No matter the result, future Mayor Clyde Roberson (who’s served as Monterey’s mayor in the past), feel confident in the pool of City Council candidates.

“It’s been a really clean campaign,” Roberson said, as local youth rockers Operation Rock created a lively din in the background. “They’ve all got similar platform, and even though they have their own nuances, we’re all going to work together.”

Smith, an apparent winner, echoed Roberson’s sentiments on break from taking down his sign today.

“We all love the town, we all get stuff done,” he says. “I’m sure they’ll be some compromise, but I can work anybody on the team.”

As for his own victory, Smith is elated.

“I feel as though I’m the community’s guest, and I’m honored.”