Tulare County voters approve second term for supervisor chair Larry Micari

Tulare County Board of Supervisors chairman Larry Micari, who faced a challenge from a Latino in his re-election bid, received voters’ approval for a second term according to early results.

Micari had an overwhelming 63% of the vote with 88% of the votes counted in the heavily Latino District 1 against Joe Soria. Soria, a small business owner, received 37% of the vote.

Out of the 3 supervisorial races on the ballot, incumbents Micari and current vice chairman Pete Vander Poel III, faced challengers, who are both Latinos.

Vander Poel, who was seeking reelection to represent District 2, had an overwhelming 78.18% of the vote with 82. 76% of the votes counted. His challenger by Benny Corona, a biomethane analyst and son of a farmworker family, received 21.88%.

District 1 had 8.78% voter turnout, while District 2 had 10.22% according to early results.

According to state data Soria raised $81,230 while Micari raised $40,723 for the district 1 race. In District 2, Corona raised $70,450 while Vander Poel $37,382

Micari, a retired Tulare County sheriff’s captain, was first elected to the board of supervisors in 2020 after defeating one-term incumbent Kuyler Crocker, the first Latino ever elected to the board.

Micari got himself involved in a controversy a little over a week before the March primary when he verbally attacked his colleague Eddie Valero, the only Latino on the board during a candidate forum where Latinos candidates were not included.

Micari apologized for the attacks at the following board’s regular meeting where Valero accepted Micari’s apology.

Valley Voice reported that Vander Poel told the church audience at the same candidate forum attended by Micari that “off the record” that the only reason he was facing an opponent for the first time in 16 years “is because I’m white and conservative.”

Vander Poel got himself into hot water four years ago when he said Valero “wanted another piece of the tortilla” when Valero asked time for a follow-up question during a pandemic briefing.

Vander Poel, who represents a district where Latinos account for 55.2% of the voting age population, apologized and spoke to the media.

While Tulare County is 66.5% Latino, currently has only one Latino on the board of supervisors.

In 2021, Tulare County Board of Supervisors was unanimous in choosing a redistricting map with three Latino-majority districts.

Those districts were District 1 held by Micari (57.4% Latino), District 2 held by Vander Poel (55.2% Latino), and District 4 held by Valero (61.5% Latino). District 5, held by Dennis Townsend, is 49.6% Latino.