Enviros win one seat on the Monterey Peninsula water board.

Lance Monosoff doesn’t like election-night parties. “Dead food and dead people,” he says.

So Monosoff, a candidate for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, is spending Tuesday, Nov. 6, at his home near the Carmel River with his family and his computer, waiting for early election results.

Two of his sisters drove down from the Bay area for the tiny “victory party.” They sit on couches in the front room, and Monosoff’s niece and nephew sleep in the bedroom next door. Monosoff sits on a leather easy chair, checks his laptop and sips vodka. It’s more cozy dinner party than raucous celebration.

“I really appreciate the fact that he [Bob Brower] ran a clean campaign,” Monosoff says. “There was no mud slinging. It was the way elections used to be: arguing about the issues. My hat’s off to him.”

Monosoff and Brower are vying for Carmel’s District 5 seat on the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District. Monosoff is the environmentalists’ choice for the seat; Brower, who owns Chateau Julien Wine Estate, has the backing of the hospitality industry and development interests.

In the contest for Pacific Grove’s District 4 seat, environmentalists support Regina Doyle, while business groups have endorsed Lee Yarborough.

Victories for Monosoff and Doyle could shift the balance of the board and give a majority to the slow-growth votes.

It’s not quite 9pm on Tuesday and Monosoff is upbeat. At 9:10pm the phone rings. “Far out,” Monosoff says. But then, “oh, that’s not good.”

Monosoff hangs up the phone and reads from a note card on which he has scribbled numbers. “The absentees are in and I’m losing.”

Early results show Brower winning with 1,397 votes to Monosoff’s 1,220. There’s better news in PG. Doyle leads with 1,300 votes to Yarborough’s 1,262. (Semi-official results the next morning show Brower and Doyle winning the election.)

Monosoff exhales. “Damn,” he says. “I’m a little disappointed.”

Then he shifts gears. “It’s not over yet.”

Adds Tia Monosoff Lenberg: “It’s certainly not a landslide.”

Monosoff says he ran for office because he believes in community service.

“He’s always been politically active,” Monosoff Lenberg says. “Remember when you ran for supervisor when you were 18?” she asks her older brother.

“I ran for Carmel School District,” he corrects her. It was 1973. Monosoff was the youngest candidate in the state, turning 18 just days before the election. “There were five people running for two open seats and I was number three. It looks like it might be the same way this time.”