Olsen, Ponce deadlocked for council

File art

As of Friday, July 1, Avalon Council candidates Michael Ponce and Oley Olsen are deadlocked for the second seat with 335 votes each. The count has been close, with Ponce holding just a two-vote lead in last week’s update.

So what happens if the election is a tie when the results come to the council this month?

City Attorney Scott Campbell, in a July 7 email wrote: “

If there is a tie, the council will decide the method of tie breaking and then chosen method will be used to fill the seat.  The most common tie breaking procedures are drawing straws, cards or a coin flip. “

Mary Schickling has held the top spot for most of the count and still leads for one of the two available seats with 366 votes. She is all but assured of taking a spot on the council. Mayor Anni Marshall will retain her seat as Mayor as she has garnered more than 63 percent of the votes. Both tax increase measures (sales tax and transient occupancy tax) will fail, with the No’s on the sales tax measure garnering almost 66 percent of the votes, while the No’s on the transient Occupancy tax have gotten more than 53 percent of the votes. The figures in all the Avalon races were virtually unchanged from the report given in the July 1 print edition of the Islander.