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Redwood City voters on Tuesday re-elected council members Jeff Gee and John Seybert, along with former mayor Diane Howard.
There were six candidates running for the three available City Council seats. Gee led with 24.53 percent of the votes, followed by Howard with 22.05 percent and Seybert with 18.95 percent. Nearly three-quarters of voters cast their ballot by mail.
Diane Howard will be returning to the council after a four-year break. She was Redwood City’s mayor from 1997 to 1999, and finished her most recent term on the council in 2009. She celebrated her win at a local restaurant, surrounded by family and friends. “I feel humbled and overjoyed all at once,” Howard said, who added that her first priority will be balancing the budget.
Gee and Seybert held an election night party together with fellow candidate Ernie Schmidt at the Fox Forum. Both Gee and Seybert were first elected to the council in 2009 and are completing their first term.
“I can breathe now,” Gee, currently the vice mayor, said after enough votes were counted to confirm his re-election.
Before serving on the council, Seybert was a two-term chairman of the Redwood City Planning Commission. He said he’s eager to serve a second term: “Starting tomorrow, we continue the momentum.”
The other candidates were Corrin Rankin, who received 12.98 percent of the votes; Ernie Schmidt, 10.79 percent; and James Han, 10.71 percent.
