Incumbents roll in Marina as Delgado wins in a landslide.

With nearly all the votes counted, it's clear the incumbents on the Marina City Council have held their serve.

Mayor Bruce Delgado was the landslide victor in the Marina races, earning nearly 64 percent of the votes, and just after 11pm last night, Delgado was jubilant.

Let’s get the new green trail system! Let’s keep construction going on the VA clinic! Let’s get more student housing!” he says. “Let’s do more of the new good stuff!”

And as for his fellow councilmembers Nancy Amadeo and David Brown, who both appeared headed for victory, he sees even more progress in years to come.

“As a team, we’re doing pretty good,” Delgado says. “And we’ve got a new lease on life, and we should be able to do even better. With time you just get better.”

Delgado celebrated last night with Brown at Mountain Mike’s Pizza, while less than a mile away Amadeo gathered at American Legion Post 694 with mayoral candidate Ken Turgen and city council candidate Dan Devlin, Jr., both of whom she asked to run months ago.

“I personally wanted to see some younger people involved in politics,” Amadeo says, minutes before the first results came in.

But it was more than that: Amadeo, Turgen and Devlin wanted to reach out to the rest of the Peninsula instead of keeping it at arms length.

“We are all like-minded,” Turgen says. “We’re all about cooperation.”

Devlin adds: “We know how important Marina is to the Peninsula. We want to support our neighbors.”

The main issue that’s isolated the city is water: Cal Am wants to put in a test slant well for its desalination plant in Marina, but Brown was among those who voted that Cal Am must do a full environmental impact report in order to proceed (Delgado and Brown voted against the motion).

That vote is what led U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, to endorse Devlin, a decision that rankled Brown.

“I thought it was inappropriate for Farr to inject himself into a local race,” Brown says. “But apparently Sam’s endorsement didn’t go very far.”

Brown was worried before the first results came in last night—the Herald and Marina Chamber of Commerce also endorsed Devlin—and was relieved today when it appeared clear he would win.

“I expected to win, but not by so much,” Brown says. “I expected to narrowly scrape by.”

As of 2pm today, Brown held 33-percent of the votes. Amadeo earned 37-percent and Devlin got 29-percent.

As for the next two years, Brown, like Delgado, expects the council to keep getting things done.

“I think overall we have been able to work together, even though it sometimes lines up 4-1 against Nancy Amadeo,” Brown says. “But it hasn’t always been 4-1 votes either. The fact is, we’re not developing into factions.”

There are still mail-in votes to be counted, which the Monterey County Elections Department will tabulate in the coming days. 

UPDATE: (3:45pm) - The latest information from the Elections Department shows there are almost 34,000 ballots left to count (mostly mail-in), that comprise about 40-percent of the total votes cast. That means these races, particularly the city council race, could ultimately shape up quite differently.