SAN DIEGO -- Former Councilman George Stevens and Tony Young will meet in a Jan. 4 runoff to fill San Diego's 4th District City Council seat left vacant by the death of Charles Lewis.

With all 66 precincts reporting after Tuesday's special election, Stevens, a Baptist minister who represented the district from 1991-2002 before being termed out, led the eight-candidate field with 4,241 votes, 34.7 percent.

Tony Young, Lewis' chief of staff, was second with 2,790 votes, 22.8 percent, and Dwayne Crenshaw, a community development director who lost to Lewis in the 2002 election, was third with 2,596 votes, 21.2 percent.

Businesswoman Marissa Acierto was fourth with 1,108 votes, or 9 percent. Bruce Williams, a director of community affairs for Mayor Dick Murphy, had 819 votes, or 6.7 percent.

The remaining three candidates -- Gloria Tyler-Mallery, Jim Galley and Patrick DeShields -- all had less than 2 percent of the vote.

The results are unofficial and still need to be certified by the San Diego County Registrar of Voters office.

Because no candidate received more than 50 percent plus one of the ballots cast, a Jan. 4 runoff election will be held between the top two finishers.

The 37-year-old Lewis died Aug. 8 of internal bleeding brought on by cirrhosis of the liver. He also had hypertension, pancreatitis and gastritis.

Young has been in charge of the 4th District office since Lewis' death.

Lewis was Stevens' chief of staff before being elected to the City Council in 2002.

Stevens said he is confident of winning in a runoff but that he had hoped the special election would have settled the matter.

About 19 percent of the district's 64,350 registered voters cast ballots in the special election, according to the City Clerk's Office. City officials expected a 20 percent turnout.

The counting was conducted by a private firm at the Malcolm X Library in Valencia Park.