The Board of Supervisors likely will have a more progressive bent come January, with the apparent election of Jane Parker. According to the most recent tally by the county elections department, Parker’s lead over incumbent District 4 Supervisor Ila Mettee-McCutchon has grown to 370 votes with most of the remaining ballots counted. Registrar Linda Tulett says the new count represents nearly 12,000 mail-in ballots, including about 2,600 from District 4. While elections staff still must tally an unknown number of provisional and damaged ballots, the race between Parker and Mettee-McCutchon is essentially over. “From what I understand, there just aren’t enough ballots out there to change the outcome,” says Parker, associate director of the ACTION Council, who learned of her apparent victory from her opponent. “Ila was the one who told me,” Parker says. “I was over at the Board of Supervisors, at the budget hearing, and Ila came up to me and said, “Well, I guess congratulations are in order.’ ” “We shook hands,” says Mettee-McCutchon. “I did offer to assist her in the transition.” Parker, who narrowly lost the seat in 2004 to now-deceased supervisor Jerry Smith, credits her win to her grass-roots campaign—phone banking, walking precincts and volunteering to drive voters to the polls on June 3. “It’s just a great honor to work hard, really try to tell the voters what my approach might be, talk to them about their concerns, ask them for their support, and then, boom, have them make the effort to go to the polls and vote for me.” Something else was different this time around: Parker had overwhelming support from labor unions, including teachers, nurses, food and commercial workers, hotel employees and county staff—in addition to the enviro/smart-growth vote. Four years ago, UNITEHERE! Local 483, endorsed Smith. “A lot of politicians would get resentful, and blow you off, but as soon as the next campaign came along, Jane Parker came right back to our office,” says Local 483’s Mark Weller, whose union represents hotel and restaurant employees. “And even before that, she joined us on the Travelodge picket line.” Weller says dozens of Local 483 members made phone calls for Parker’s campaign. And over at SEIU Local 521, Monterey County public employees worked more than 200, three-hour shifts for the Parker campaign, says member Peter Kwiek. “This election was different,” he says. “In my 10 years with SEIU, I’ve never seen this level of rank-and-file member participation. “Jane is pro-labor and pro-environment, and this combination appeals to SEIU members. The Parker campaign has gone a long way towards dispelling the myth that you have to support anti-labor, anti-environment politicians to create jobs.”