BERKELEY — A seat on the Berkeley City Council left vacant by Councilmember Rigel Robinson’s sudden resignation will likely be filled by 22-year-old Cecilia Lunaparra, according to updated election results released Thursday.
Lunaparra, a UC Berkeley undergrad, maintained her lead over James Chang, chief of staff for Councilmember Ben Bartlett and a graduate student at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
As of 1:01 p.m. Thursday, Lunaparra had 59.79 percent of the vote, while Chang had 40.21 percent.
The two candidates entered the race to represent District 7, which is largely made up of UC Berkeley student voters, after Robinson stepped down and bowed out of the race for mayor earlier this year.
Turnout in the special election ending Tuesday appears to have been low, with only 480 ballots counted so far in a district with nearly 3,000 registered voters.
The election results are not expected to be finalized until at least April 26. The Alameda County Registrar of Voters still needs to tally ballots postmarked by Tuesday and submitted in the mail up to seven days after the election.
Chang declined to comment on Thursday. Lunaparra said she has not heard from her opponent or his campaign, but was optimistic the result would end in her favor. A win for Lunaparra would be historic — she would be the first Cal undergraduate and first Latina to serve on City Council, she said Thursday.
“I am so excited but, honestly, I’m mostly just incredibly thankful. I’m proud of the campaign that we ran and thankful to get the chance to do it with the community,” Lunaparra said in a phone interview Thursday.
Lunaparra has served nearly two years on the city’s Environment and Climate Commission, advocated for placing a successful vacancy tax on the 2022 ballot, led trainings on how to provide public comment during council meetings and has called for a pedestrian plaza on Telegraph Avenue as a member of Telegraph for People.
Before her time in Berkeley, Lunaparra was an active organizer in high school, founding San Mateo Union High School District Awareness, a small group of students advocating for policy changes at the district level. She also served as a legislative intern for San Mateo County Supervisor David Canepa.
Lunaparra has been met with an outpouring of congratulations from family, friends, supporters and current Berkeley councilmembers following the updated ballot count.
In a statement posted to her social media accounts Thursday, Lunaparra thanked voters for their support and committed herself to fighting for their best interests.
“Being your councilmember will be the honor of my lifetime and I hope to continue to earn the immense trust you have placed in me,” the statement read. “We worked so hard to get to this place, but this is only the beginning. Now the real work begins.”
