Redondo Beach voters have chosen their next mayor — but it’s not yet known whom that is.
The city clerk’s office announced preliminary results around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 4, in Redondo Beach’s all mail-in election. The city, for the first time, is using the ranked choice method — unless a given candidate receives a majority of first-place votes.
The unofficial results released Tuesday included about 4,500 ballots that arrived before Election Day and only voters’ first-choice rankings were counted. Ballots that come in after that will be tabulated on March 13, when the final results will be announced.
None of the candidates had a majority of the votes, as of Tuesday, but appointed Mayor Jim Light was closest, with his 1,816 votes accounting for about 43.6% of the total. In second was outgoing District 1 Councilmember Nils Nehrenheim, who had 1,190 votes, or 28.6%. Business owner Joan Irvine who had 459 votes or 11%, former councilmember and business owner Jeff Ginsburg had 358 votes or 8.6%, and former city commissioner and art producer Georgette Gantner had 339 votes or 8.1%.
“It’s really exciting to see the slow growth Bill Brand legacy leading the charge,” Nehrenheim said of he and Light so far garnering the most votes. “It’s still really up in the air. We’ll find out next next week.”
Light, for his part, was cautious in a Tuesday night statement.
“I don’t like to count my chickens before they’re hatched,” he said. “There are over 5100 outstanding votes, plus any mail-in ballots that are received over the next week. And this run did not include any rank choice (votes).”
The ranked-choice method — used to elect the mayor, as well as three new council members and the city attorney — is a process by which voters listed each candidate by preference, as opposed to picking one favorite. The process, used for the first time in L.A. County during this local election, eliminates the need for a runoff between voters’ top two candidates and a monthslong certification process.
A candidate must earn more than half of the votes to win ooutright. If no candidate has enough votes to win after all ballots are counted, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated. In that case, voters who ranked the eliminated candidate as their first choice would have their votes go to their second choice. That process would continue until a candidate has more than half of the votes.
The ballot processing and announcements will be livestreamed on March 13 on redondo.org and on the city’s YouTube channel.
Whoever ultimately comes out on top will lead the City Council, governing Redondo Beach’s more than 49,000 registered voters citywide, with more than 10,000 in District 1, and more than 9,500 in each Districts 2 and 4.
Gantner, a retired payroll executive and former Redondo Beach arts commissioner, has said the council needs a fresh makeup and that she would focus on project completion, public art installations and public safety, if elected.
Ginsburg was elected to Redondo Beach City Council in 2013 and resigned in 2016 with six months left in his term so that he could support his ailing father-in-law at the time. He was also involved with the Riviera Village Association, Leadership Redondo Beach and served as a public works commissioner.
His top concern, if elected as mayor, would be updating the city’s infrastructure.
Irvine spearheaded Keep the Esplanade Beautiful, a nonprofit whose mission is to tidy up along South Redondo’s walkways above the Pacific Ocean, among her other community efforts. She has worn many career hats, gaining decades of experience raising money and controlling budgets.
If elected, Irvine said, she’d focus on economic development, government efficiency, community safety and resident health, with a specific focus on seniors.
Light was appointed as mayor in February 2024 after former Mayor Bill Brand died. He is the former president of the South Bay Parkland Conservancy, which he helped found alongside Brand.
Although he never intended to run for office, Light said, he wants to devote a full four years to the job after working in the city for the past year. He would look to focus on citywide revitalization, converting the decommissioned AES power plant site to parkland and retaining local control over housing.
Nehrenheim, who has worked as an L.A. County lifeguard for three decades, was first elected to the City Council in 2017 and was reelected in 2021. If elected as mayor, Nehrenheim said, he would want to capitalize off the success he’s already had, focusing on public improvement projects, infrastructure projects, and creating a startup mentality behind the city’s digital services and hiring new vendors.
In the race for city attorney, meanwhile, Redondo Beach senior prosecutor Joy Ford was leading former Redondo Beach councilmember and senior trial attorney Steve Colin, garnering 3,107 and 945 votes, respectively. That’s about 76.7% to 23.3%.
Voters also on Tuesday elected new City Council representatives for Districts 1, 2 and 4, Redondo Beach Unified School Board members decided on and a handful of measures that would make changes to the city charter, like requiring city officials to live in Redondo Beach for the entirety of their terms.
The final election results will be announced around 2 p.m. Thursday, March 13.
