Murrieta Residents Re-elect Alan Long to City Council

Former Murrieta Mayor Alan Long will be returning to the city council seat from which he resigned two weeks ago after being arrested on suspicion of felony DUI following a crash that injured four teenagers.

Long, 44, was one of the top three finishers in Tuesday’s nine-way race for three council seats, according to preliminary results from the Riverside County Registrar’s Office.

There are still 66,000 vote-by-mail, 19,000 provisional and 8,000 damaged ballots to be tallied countywide, the Registrar said Wednesday morning.

“Work on those begins Wednesday,” a statement from the office of the registrar said. “The next updated results will be posted at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday.”

The longtime Anaheim firefighter has said little publicly since his Oct. 20 resignation, which occurred four days after he was arrested for crashing his pickup truck into a car occupied by four cheerleaders from Murrieta Valley High School. Two suffered major injuries.

According to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, the ex- mayor had a blood-alcohol level of .08, the baseline that marks the point at which a motorist is considered under the influence while behind the wheel.

“I believe once all facts regarding the event have been revealed and the legal due process is complete, I will be exonerated,” Long said in his resignation statement.

He vowed to press on with his re-election bid but conceded that he needed to vacate his office, lest there be any “hint of impropriety.”

Along with the DUI count, Long is charged with four sentence-enhancing bodily injury allegations. He’s slated to be arraigned Dec. 11.

In his campaign statement, Long touted fiscal responsibility and efforts to ensure a “high quality of life” for Murrieta residents as selling points.

“Public safety, jobs, open space, quality development and maintaining a caring and connected community will continue to be my top priorities,” he said.

Long landed in the national spotlight earlier this year when federal authorities attempted to bus dozens of immigrants to a Border Patrol facility in Murrieta. The move led to days of protests and a gathering of residents that blocked buses from reaching the facility.

Fellow Councilman Rick Gibbs was re-elected to a third term, garnering the most votes of all other candidates. Gibbs preceded Long as mayor. The seat is rotated annually.

Gibbs emphasized his dedication to improving local medical care and creating a more business- and military-friendly city as central components of his platform.

Small business owner Jonathan Ingram claimed the third seat, edging out Murrieta’s transportation finance director, Ruthanne Taylor-Berger.

— City News Service contributed to this report.