Carmen Trutanich / Flickr

Mike Feuer took City Attorney Carmen Trutanich's job with 62 percent of the vote versus the incumbent's less than 38 percent, a more than 24-point spread.

Some think Trutanich's failed run for district attorney, which had him breaking a vow to stay put, killed his chances. You might also consider his mad-dog crackdowns on medical marijuana and the fact that pot-shop regulation was also on the ballot, perhaps bringing a hostile medicinal vote to the polls. In any case, his drubbing was historic:

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erin leigh mcconnell / Flickr

Tuesday's election was historic. We got our first elected mayor of Jewish ancestry. And our second mayor in modern times with Mexican heritage.

But most of you didn't bother to vote. The L.A. City Clerk registered a low-low "ballots cast" percentage of 19.2. Meaning one out of 5 of you -- and that's just of the ones who are even registered to vote -- bothered to show up. That number probably will increase to nearly 1 out of 4 as the final tally is certified by June 11. Still, it's kind of sad:

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Photo by Ted Soqui

Eric Garcetti relishes victory

Eric Garcetti, 42, will be the youngest mayor of Los Angeles in 100 years. At 42, he's not quite as fresh-faced as he was when he ran for City Council at the ripe age of 29. But he's still young enough to pop-and-lock and play keyboards with Moby.More »

LuLu Hoeller

Echo Park said no to John Choi.

Hollywood and the Tri-Hipster Area are nothing if not independent, and on Tuesday they defied months of wrongheaded conventional wisdom that said John Choi, a guy nobody in City Council District 13 had heard of, could win an L.A. City Council seat thanks to riches from the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the hated DWP union.

Critics called it buying an election. It certainly appeared that way at times.

But voters defied the experts who said the obscure Choi was the frontrunner thanks to big money unions urging voters to the polls. Choi was not the frontrunner, ever. O'Farrell, the respected field deputy to Eric Garcetti, was. O'Farrell won decisively ...

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PHOTO BY TED SOQUI

Eric Garcetti at his victory party

By Kate Stephanus

Eric Garcetti's victory party last night at the Hollywood Palladium drew hipsters, activists and campaign pros -- along with a few people who had, shall we say, more unusual reasons for lending their support.

Some of these partygoers had a lot to say about the issues they were concerned with, which they were convinced Garcetti would pay particular attention to if elected. Others had more personal reasons. All had complete confidence that Garcetti will go above and beyond expectations, doing everything from generating jobs to providing pot for all who need it.

Here are the five most interesting reasons people gave us last night for their Garcetti vote.

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Amitp

See also, City Attorney Trutanich announces he will notify shops they must close.

Proposition D's huge win on Tuesday was a clear message from liberal Los Angeles that it does not want more than 1,000 weed shops in virtually every business district of the sprawling city, as things stand today.

The new law becomes the first tricky and controversial test for Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti, a man with a great distaste for controversy. It shutters all dispensaries that opened in defiance of the L.A. City Council's 2007 moratorium banning new pot shops.

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Garcetti and Greuel

Eric Garcetti was elected mayor of Los Angeles on Tuesday, reassembling the coalition of Westsiders and Latinos that carried Antonio Villaraigosa into office eight years ago.More »

Ron Galperin, the newly elected L.A. city controller

The final tally is in: By 3:16 a.m., with 100 percent of precincts reporting, newcomer Ron Galperin had decisively beaten City Hall veteran Dennis Zine, getting elected L.A.'s new controller with 56.2 percent of the vote.

Galperin's victory is arguably the biggest upset of this city's municipal elections -- the Century City attorney was the only outsider to run for citywide office. He was able to beat Zine, a longtime member of the city council and the LAPD, despite raising far less money: $584,433 to Zine's $1.14 million.

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Laura Chick

The wrong city controller ran against Eric Garcetti.

As current Los Angeles City Controller Wendy Greuel's run for mayor ended in defeat, one can't help but think that Laura Chick, the hard-charging, plainspoken controller between 2001 and 2009, would have mopped the floor with Garcetti.

"There is no way you can get your foot in the door [at L.A. City Hall] unless you start showing up to events for elected officials and making whatever the maximum donation is," Chick told journalist Kevin Roderick in 2004.

That kind of candidness from Chick, which maddened L.A.'s political elite, would have undoubtedly won over voters of all political stripes -- just as her hard-hitting audits did.

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Eric Garcetti

Wendy Greuel called Eric Garcetti at about 1:45 a.m. to concede the race for L.A. mayor.More »

Garcetti for Mayor

Eric Garcetti and wife Amy Wakeland watch returns late Tuesday

After nearly two years of campaigning, Councilman Eric Garcetti is poised for victory in the race for L.A. mayor. Just before midnight Tuesday, Garcetti addressed a cheering crowd of at least 2,000 supporters at the Hollywood Palladium, saying that while the final tally was not yet known, "this is shaping up to be a great night."
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Ron Galperin

See updates at the bottom of the post. First posted at 9 p.m.

Ron Galperin has taken an early lead in the race for City Controller tonight, with early results showing him ahead of City Hall veteran Dennis Zine, 52 to 47.9 percent.

These results are an extremely small percentage of the total ballots to be counted tonight, so be sure to check back often.

Zine, a long-time city councilman and 33-year veteran of the LAPD, was initially by far the better-known candidate. He also raised $1.14 million to Galperin's $584,433.

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Mitch O'Farrell

Update: Choi is steadily gaining on O'Farrell as more votes flow in. See bottom for details. First posted at 10:49 p.m.

Local knowledge is prevailing over ambitious newcomer -- at least in the early returns for Los Angeles City Council District 13, a huge urbanized-plus-hills district including Hollywood and the Tri-Hipster Area.

City Council aide Mitch O'Farrell has 5,648 votes, or 52.51 percent, and political neophyte John Choi, heavily underwritten by labor special interest groups, has 5,107 votes or 47.48 percent.

O'Farrell was the decade-long deputy to Councilman Eric Garcetti, and has participated in scores of community meetings, hearings and projects. Choi, unknown in the area until recently, moved to Echo Park last year to run for the office and launched a high-cost effort to build his name ID.

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Can Antonio elect one last school board member (also named Antonio)?

Updated below; first posted at 9:06 pm

Based on early returns, we can say that Monica Ratliff leads Antonio Sanchez by four points, with roughly 14,000 ballots cast.

This is the final LAUSD school board race of 2013, and will decide who replaces outgoing board member Nury Martinez, who is running for city council to replace Tony Cardenas, who moved on to United States Congress. It's the circle. The circle of life.

The candidates vying to represent the Northeast Valley are Antonio Sanchez, a former aide to outgoing Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and Monica Ratliff, a fifth-grade teacher at San Pedro Elementary, a highly rated school in one of the poorest areas in the city.

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Jose Gardea (left), Gil Cedillo (right)

Update: Gardea is closing the distance to Cedillo. See details at bottom.

Updated at bottom to explain that the city election web site's confusing "7.52 percent reporting" is wildly misleading. Far far more votes have been counted. First posted at 9:05 p.m.

Gil Cedillo is leading Jose Gardea in early vote results for Los Angeles City Council District 1, with Cedillo getting 2,715 votes or 56.57 percent and Gardea 2,084 votes or 43.42 percent.

Cedillo and Gardea are vying to represent an Eastside council seat in a community with a dense population of Latinos, mostly immigrants from Mexico and Central America. CD 1 is one of the poorest neighborhoods in L.A., extending from Northeast Los Angeles to the Pico-Union area. The two men share some fascinating similarities and differences:

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Nury Martinez, left, and Cindy Montanez, right; two Latinas vying to become what might be the only female on the city council

Updated below; first posted at 9:03 pm

Early returns in tonight's most specialist election, the City Council Dstrict 6 special election, puts Cindy Montanez in first place with 46 percent of the vote, with Nury Martinez in a distant second with 18 percent.

The contest, which will choose a replacement for the now-Congressman Tony Cardenas, is an open primary. If Montanez manages to get 50 percent of the vote, she'll win the race outright. If no one reaches the 50 percent threshold, the two candidates with the most votes will face each other in a July 23 runoff.

This East Valley free-for-all includes no less than six candidates: school board member Martinez, former State Assembly member Montanez, businessman Jose Roy Garcia, 23-year-old Walter Escobar, You Tube sensation Derek Waleko and blood drive organizer Richard Valdez.

There's a real chance that come July 1, when the new City Council is sworn in (and most likely sworn at), there will be no women at all in the 15-member body. The two frontrunners in this race, Martinez and Montanez, have the best chance of breaking into the all-boys club.

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Yeah, this photo of Curren Price is exceedingly weird

Updated at bottom

First posted at 8:54 pm.

The early vote-by-mail ballots are in, and Curren Price is leading Ana Cubas by 14 points.

As any school child knows, the only jobs that qualify you to sit on the Los Angeles city council are state legislator, city hall staffer or cop. So it's no surprise that the race for the fightin' 9th should come down to state Senator Price and city Councilman Jose Huizar's chief of staff, Cubas.

If Cubas wins, she'll enjoy the distinct privilege of being the only woman on city council, at least until things get sorted out in the District 6 special election.

And if Price wins, he'll be the only City Councilman ever to be named Curren. So either way, history will made.

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Carmen Trutanich

Just before 11:30 p.m., while the L.A.'s mayor race remained much too close to call, Carmen Trutanich conceded to supporters that he'd lost his reelection attempt.

It wasn't even close. With 22 percent of precincts reporting, plus mail-in ballots, "Nuch" was down 60 percent to 40 percent -- a humbling defeat for any incumbent, much less a man who once had his sights on the L.A. County District Attorney's Office.

But after getting stomped in that race last year, and tonight's far-from-close defeat, it's worth wondering whether the San Pedro native's career is over.

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Eric Garcetti, the new mayor of L.A.?

With inexorably slow vote-counting underway by Los Angeles city officials, Eric Garcetti has pulled in front of Wendy Greuel and a local college exit polls is predicting a Garcetti win.

Garcetti's lead is not huge, but the all-important "trend" of the count tonight has benefited Garcetti with each new update. He has 91,147 votes or 51.73 percent and Greuel has 85,038 votes or 48.26 percent.

Students at Loyola Marymount University conducted an exit poll of 800 voters that says the win will ultimately go to Eric Garcetti.

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The technology favored by the LA City Clerk's office

Polls have been closed for three and a half hours, and the Los Angeles City Clerk has managed to count less than 50,000 votes.

At least LA County had that damn fog as an excuse.

LA Times columnist Steve Lopez is going absolutely bonkers on twitter:

it could take three weeks for city to count votes in this election, despite low turnout. i am not joking. what century are we living in?

— Steve Lopez LA Times (@LATstevelopez) May 22, 2013

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