Cecilia Lunaparra was formally declared the winner of the race to represent Berkeley’s City Council District 7 on Friday as the Alameda County registrar of voters certified the final polling results.
Lunaparra, a senior studying Urban Studies and History, will be sworn into the City Council in a ceremony on Monday, representing the city’s Southside neighborhood. She will graduate from Cal two weeks later, on May 11.
“This is emblematic of an era of student power in local government,” Lunaparra said of her victory. “I spent the last four years trying to build a coalition of progressive student organizers to put energy, and passion and dedication into local government, and this is the culmination of that.”
She maintained her lead from the first batch of votes tabulated on election night, and steadily rose in standing with a final tally of 295 votes for Lunaparra, and 198 for James Chang as of Friday.
Overall, 493 ballots were cast in the election from a pool of 2,875 registered voters in the student-centric district. Lunaparra said by her campaign’s estimate, over half of the people they successfully did outreach to were first-time voters.
When former Councilmember Rigel Robinson won his first term in 2018 during the mid-term General Election, about 2,800 people cast ballots.
Robinson ran unopposed and was re-elected in 2022, but resigned from his seat in early January, citing “harassment, stalking and threats.”
Lunaparra will serve in the seat for the remainder of Robinson’s term until 2026.
