King City Proposed Unified School Board: Fifteen Votes Separate Fifth and Sixth Places

KING CITY, California — November 5, 2026. The proposed King City Joint Unified School District has ten candidates for five possible board seats. The sixth Monterey County election-night report lists Yesenia Zavala with 686 candidate votes in fifth place and Mindy Hunt with 671 in sixth — a difference of just 15 selections. This ranking matters only if the district reorganization envisioned by Measure J proceeds under its final legal outcome.

All ten candidate totals

The county results reproduced by the King City Rustler list Linda Benway with 1,034 votes, David Gaboni 816, Leslie Girard 780, Susan E. King 768, Yesenia Zavala 686, Mindy Hunt 671, Sonia Valerio-Quiroz 613, Monique D. Ross 551, Miguel Lomeli 523 and Franky Lopez Jr. 464. Voters could select up to five names, so these are candidate selections, not unique voters.

Measure J is a separate decision

Measure J would reorganize existing King City Union, Greenfield Union and South Monterey County Joint Union High School districts into two unified K–12 districts. Its early result is 2,694 Yes votes (69.76%) and 1,168 No (30.24%). These are unofficial numbers in the same sixth report. A reported Yes lead is not by itself official certification or legal evidence that the proposed district already exists.

Existing school board races are different

The existing King City Union School District three-seat election has a different candidate list, different number of seats and a reported four-vote third-place gap. The existing high-school governing-board contest is also separate. Combining these ballots would mislead families about who may represent them.

Next county report

The figures above are from Monterey County’s November 4, 2:23 a.m. sixth semi-final election-night report. The next update was scheduled by 5 p.m. November 5, but this article does not claim that update has already been issued. The county elections office will conduct additional counts and certification; no candidate or measure is declared a certified winner here.

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