In District 1, Tyron Hampton Appears to Have Beaten Former Fire Chief Calvin Wells

School Board member Tyron Hampton got 1,085 votes (51.4%) while former Pasadena Fire Chief Calvin Wells collected 1,022 votes (48.5%) in preliminary counts in a hotly contested race for the District 1 seat on the Pasadena City Council which at times saw as few as 11 votes separating the pair.

About 400 provisional city-wide ballots and an unknown number of vote-by-mail ballots are yet to be tallied, said City Clerk Mark Jomsky. Those results will be released on Friday and could change the apparent outcome of the race.

Wells had amassed endorsements from five City Councilmembers and moreso, was the only candidate in any race to receive the backing of outgoing Mayor Bill Bogaard.

Regardless, the race was a dogfight from the beginning of the evening when mail in ballots were tallied and Hampton came out on top, but only by five votes. That narrow margin would ultimately spread to the 63 votes that carried the night for Hampton.

Hampton grew up locally, is a product of local public schools, and joined and works at his family’s business, Pasadena Construction. Hampton’s supporters, according to campaign documents, include Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and William Chu, CFO of Singpoli, a Pasadena real estate investment and construction firm which owns the dusitD2 Constance Pasadena.