WOMEN are coming into positions of power in Garden Grove (Shutterstock)>

I think it’s a mistake to read too much into election returns, especially as votes are still being counted. After all, each election day is simply the start of the next election cycle, right?

But there are some apparent trends emerging that are hard to ignore.

In Garden Grove, it looks like three female candidates are winning their elections. Assuming those numbers hold up, the Big Strawberry may find itself in the unprecedented position of having a majority of women on the city council.

This is a kind of a big deal. The only woman ever to serve serve on the council for the first quarter-century or so of the city’s existence was Kathryn (Kay) Barr, who succeeded her husband Lee and served 1979-70 as mayor.

After that, no woman had ever been elected to the council until Janet Nguyen did it in 2004, her first step into higher offices including county supervisor and the state legislature.

Since then, other women have been elected and – unless there’s a meaningful change in the counting – four will be seated on the dais in December.

The new mayor – and the first woman ever directly elected as the city’s top official – will almost certainly be Stephanie Klopfenstein, currently the District 5 councilmember. As of Monday evening, she leads former councilmember Diedre Thu-Ha Nguyen by 1,433 votes.

In the District 5 race, Yesenia Muneton is leading Sandy Thomas and Ariana Arestegui is ahead of Tri Lam in District 6.

Combined with Cindy Tran (District 3 and mayor pro tem), that’s a history-making four out of seven.

Along with City Manager Lisa Kim and Garden Grove school superintendent Gabriela Mafi, the Big Strawberry can be said to be the most remarkable example of the rise in women to positions of power and influence locally since, well, forever.

I welcome this. Without getting into politics and such, it’s been my experience that women often – but not always – are inclined to take the “long view” of issues and have more interest in planning for the future.

Any organization can make good use of that, it seems.