Benicia re-elects mayor, splits on tax measures

BENICIA – Benicia Mayor Steve Young appeared to be heading to an easy re-election victory on Tuesday as voters appeared to split on taxes for the city, supporting a second sales tax hike this year but rejecting an effort to raise the city’s property transfer taxes.

Young, who was first elected to the City Council in 2016 and as mayor in 2020, appeared ready to cruise to victory, taking a commanding 66.7% lead over hardware store showroom manager and political newcomer Kevin Kirby, who took 33.3% of the vote, according to preliminary results released on Tuesday night.

Meanwhile, incumbent City Councilmember Trevor Macenski and former Councilmember Lionel Largaespada were leading two challengers for two open City Council seats, with 32.7% and 31.5% of the vote, respectively.

Macenski and Largaespada took an early lead over Benicia LGBTQIA Network founder Christina Gilpin-Hayes and engineer Franz Rosenthal. With two seats up in the at-large election, two candidates will win. Gilpin-Hayes, who had the support of Young and three other current members of the council, remained within a few percentage points of Largaespada in early returns, but he widened his lead as the night went on. Rosenthal lagged with just over 9% of the vote.

Benicia’s tax measures offered the biggest surprise of the night, with Measure F, a citizen-driven initiative which would raise the city’s sales tax by a half cent except for some grocery store food items, drawing strong support with 62.6% of the vote. 

The measure requires a majority of over 50% to pass. Benicia voters have split over sales tax increases in the past, rejecting a hike in 2022 but overwhelmingly passing a three-quarter-cent sales tax in March. After that hike, the city required a change in state law to raise the sales tax in accordance with Measure F.

However, the city has been grappling with a severe budget shortfall and also proposed to create a limited city charter in order to raise its property transfer tax, which voters were asked to adopt as Measure G. A second measure, Measure H, would actually raise the tax. Both measures were failing as of Tuesday night, with Measure G receiving 46.7% of the vote and Measure H receiving 42.1%.

Benicia voters also elected a new school board representative on Tuesday. Janny Manasse, a senior director of development at UC Berkeley, appeared to defeat Kashanna Harmon-Lee 62.9%-37.1% to represent Area 3, which covers the western portion of Benicia north of Interstate 780. 

Neither had any political experience, but Harmon-Lee had the support of Benicia School Board Area 3 Trustee Gethsemane Moss, who declined to seek reelection, as well as the Benicia Teachers Association and the Progressive Democrats of Benicia.