According to early election results, the two incumbents, Irais Lopez-Ortega and Lisa Gift, will likely retain their seats on the Calistoga City Council.

With 43.6% of all potential votes counted, Lopez-Ortega led with 39.64%, while Gift had 33.81% and challenger Marion Villalba had 26.5%.

The Democratic Press will rely on information from election officials and the candidates themselves before naming a winner, since not everyone who received a ballot will be voted.

In addition to these two City Council seats, Calistoga’s mayoral seat was also up for grabs in this election, though incumbent Donald Williams, elected mayor for the first time in 2022 after serving four years on the council, ran unopposed and reclaimed his seat once more. two years.

The Calistoga City Council is elected at large and consists of five members.

Irais Lopez-Ortega, 60, has been on the City Council since 2013. She was the top vote-getter in the 2020 race, winning about 35 percent of the total vote. She is only the second Latina to hold elected office in the city.

She is also a board member for Water Education For Latino Leaders, a nonprofit organization that provides water policy education to elected officials in California.

Lopez-Ortega was involved ia high-profile court case in August 2021 after being charged with four counts of elder abuse by the Napa County Prosecutor’s Office. In March 2023, she pleaded guilty to one felony count; the other charges were dismissed through a plea bargain, according to court records. Lopez-Ortega was sentenced to one year of probation and one day in jail.

Lisa Gift, 42, was elected to the council for the first time in 2020. Her focus has been on supporting families and small businesses, she told The Press Democrat in the run-up to the election.

According to her, the biggest challenges the city is currently facing are the housing crisis and aging infrastructure. She wants to work on these issues as well as promote diversity and inclusion in the community.

In early 2022, Gift made her experience public with mental health struggles — which included a suicide attempt and an arrest on suspicion of violating the terms of a domestic restraining order — during the COVID-19 pandemic. She pleaded guilty in July 2023 to two counts of violating a protective order and two counts of violating a court order and was sentenced to a 20-day work program, one day in jail and three years of probation.

That probation was later revoked in October 2023, but was then reinstated in July 2024 when she pleaded guilty to violating the protective order; she was also sentenced to a 10-day work program.

The only challenger in this race, Marion Villalba, 42, is a local substitute teacher.

In the run-up to the election, she said housing, youth education and developing the Napa County Fairgrounds property — which the city bought from the county for $2 million this year — would be her top priorities if elected.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

You can reach Tarini Mehta at 707-521-5337 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @MehtaTarini.