Vaitla and Partida come out victorious in city council elections

INFOGRAPHIC: The 2022 election results for Davis City council members. (Credit: Xochitl Armien-Funk)

By Emily Tran,

BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

Davis residents voted in the local city council election and saw partially counted up results on Nov. 8.

According to Unofficial Yolo County Returns, Bapu Vaitla received 59% of votes in District 1 and Gloria Partida won 61% of votes in District 4.

Vaitla’s political agenda included improving housing affordability, helping low-income residents and funding environmental endeavors. 

In addition to his priorities, Vaitla was able to win over the majority vote through his campaign efforts.

“We knocked on every door twice at least, and then a third time for undecided voters… We held about 22 meet and greets… probably close to a total of 30 events one way or the other,” Vaitla said. 

Although happy with the results, Vaitla was shocked by the vicious and petty attacks that were made during the campaign.

“There’s a lot of emotion and there’s a lot of desperation to win and I think people kind of lose sight that we’re all in this process to strengthen our local democracy,” Vaitla said. 

These referenced attacks were mostly towards Gloria Partida who had controversy due to long past crimes and opinions on Measure H.

“I know that I’ve done the work and I know that… my intentions for the city have always been to do the best that I can. Being solid in that knowledge allows me to ignore the negativity that was being put out there,” Partida said. 

She was a city council member during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving a lot of her initial projects behind. She ran in hopes of finishing what she started: helping with affordable housing, homelessness and economic development. 

Measure H was a very unpopular plan about peripheral growth which both candidates Dan Carson and Gloria Partida agreed with. Carson was at the front of the discussion encompassing the measure due to his lawsuit surrounding the ballot language.

“The idea of a council member suing was very unsatisfactory for people,” Partida said. 

Partida was surprised at how strongly people reacted to her own campaign.

“That level of negativity doesn’t usually happen in Davis. Some of the things going around in social media were extremely negative,” Partida said.