Point Reyes Light - November 2, 2000

The Light’s election endorsements

By Don Schinske

SHORELINE SCHOOL DISTRICT Measures A & B, respectively, would renew the current parcel tax and authorize a $7 million bond measure to upgrade the district's six schools, which were out of date even before carbon paper and ditto machines. Yes, there are taxes involved. But this is less about money than about giving a flip, and about showing kids you give a flip, and then maybe more of them give a flip, and so on. Our only question is whether $7 million is enough. Tell us, who are we in West Marin, if our schools can’t be the grandest buildings in town? The Light strongly endorses Measures A and B.

BOLINAS ADVISORY MEASURE G is simply a gauge of townspeople’s sentiment about their garbage hauler, Shoreline Disposal, whose contract expires next year. A subsidiary of Waste Management, Cotati-based Shoreline PO'd most of the utility district board by naming BPUD in a cross-complaint after the closure of West Marin Sanitary Landfill. At the least, BPUD directors could use a disgruntled result to strike a better deal with the hauler next year. Yes on Measure G.

BOLINAS-STINSON SCHOOL DISTRICT – Incumbent Tomas Krakauer, who just earned a degree in school governance, should keep the seat he was appointed to two years ago. The soccer coach and former bus driver (and former engineer) is a heart-on-his-sleeve booster who wants to get everyone, absolutely every last person, excited about the district.

Our problem comes in picking from among the newcomers. One of the candidates, Robert Mowry, is married to our Coastal Cook columnist, Laura Riley. What could I say objectively except that he's a friend? Publicist Kim Bender, a member of the school's site council, is highly regarded. Contractor Matt Lewis, a 1976 graduate of the district, is fired up about serving; if he gets in with Krakauer, this board in an instant becomes the most intense, emotive governing body in all West Marin.

The Light endorses Tomas Krakauer plus any one of the other three.

MARIN HEALTHCARE DISTRICT – As usual, the issue is whether the district should keep trying to bust its 30-year lease with Marin General Hospital corporation, which four years ago turned over operation of Marin General to Sutter Health. Typically this race pits Ross Valley people against other Ross Valley people. So we're delighted that Bob Baker, the popular veterinarian in the San Geronimo Valley, is running, even though he acknowledges he's not well-versed on the battle order.

Provisinally, Baker's pro-Sutter. We are anti-Sutter, although once the current lawsuits by the anti-Sutter majority play out we might change our minds. For now, we think the anti-Sutterites should press their case so we can see where it all ends – with the lease upheld, the lease broken, or maybe the lease ordered back for renegotiation.

That means along with Baker we're endorsing the two anti-Sutter incumbents, board chairman Diana Parnell and John Severinghaus, both doctors. However, Doug Ley, the challenger for Severinghaus' seat, isn't wrong when he says the board could be doing a lot more than obsessing over its tenant.

The Light endorses Baker and Parnell for the long seats, and Severinghaus for the short seat.

MARIN RESOURCE CONSERVATION DISTRICT – This board race for the erosion-control and ranchland-management district was more interesting when late rancher Ed Pozzi was in it. Indeed, West Marin was more interesting with Pozzi in it.

As it is, rancher/vintner/insurance man Hank Corda will keep his seat. So too will contractor/environmentalist/former math teacher/former fisherman Richard Plant. They will be joined by rancher/vintner/innkeeper/former private eye/Grateful Dead fan Steve Doughty.

US PRESIDENT – The somewhat lifelike Al Gore is our choice over George Bush and Ralph Nader. That he seems uncomfortable in his own skin hobbles him as a campaigner; it doesn't change the fact of his readiness and fitness for the work. Bush, on the other hand, seems too happy with who is, high-fiving his way through middle age with a level of curiosity no higher than screen-saver. Worse, like many Western Republicans, he tries to turn his indifference to the larger world into some sort of virtue: "Lemme tellya how we do it in Texas," he says, deploying perhaps the least reassuring trope in American politics.

We'll just note that the Bush does not believe in global warming, would reduce our dependence on foreign oil by drilling in Alaska's Arctic Wildlife Refuge, and picked a running mate who as a congressman voted against the Head Start program plus the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.

Our riff on Nader: Granted, whatever faint buzz this election has generated locally, the Greenies have supplied it, and we expect their candidates to finish no worse than second among West Marin voters. Obviously we ourselves aren't Greens (for starters, we're more optimistic about what's broadly called "globalization," but that's a big topic for another day) Mostly, we don't think a protest centered around a dour consumer advocate causes much angina over at the country club, particularly if that protest may be exactly what sends incurious George to Washington with 5,000 of his closest friends.

But folks can do what they want. We just hope those planning to vote Green hold off until the East Coast polls close and nationwide returns take shape, and then make their move. The Light endorses Al Gore for President.

US SENATE – We're tired of incumbent Dianne Feinstein. For years we've given her a pass on steady pleading for beefier border security. Now she's defending the $1.3 billion the US is delivering to drug-trafficking Colombian paramilitary groups for their fight against drug-trafficking Colombian guerillas. How can a California senator have such a bad read on Latin America? By all means, if you're going Green, go with well-spoken Medea Benjamin. We'll take the Republican, Tom Campbell of San Jose, who has been hammering at Feinstein for her support of existing drug laws. A bonus: Campbell's irritating his own party in the process. The Light endorses Tom Campbell for US Senate.

US CONGRESS – Lynn Woolsey seems to get outfoxed a lot, no more painfully than last week, when putative ally Barbara Boxer screwed her over on the Miwok business. And earlier this fall she got 12 – that is, about two percent – of her colleagues to support her legislation to revoke the Boy Scout charter if the group kept barring gays from serving as troop leaders. G her points for principled failure; few legislators, no matter how righteous their cause, would subject themselves to such a one-sided floor defeat. But the thing is, Woolsey's causes are almost always righteous. Lynn Woolsey for US Congress

STATE SENATOR – John Burton has been cutting deals in marble hallways since the Punic Wars. Now he's the probably the second most powerful person in the state capitol and for all intents he’s running unopposed.

STATE ASSEMBLY – Joe Nation (that name!) should finally get the shot he wants at a venue larger than Marin Municipal Water District. He says he's passionate about issues, such as education and transportation, although the wonky RAND consultant is mostly known as a smooth campaigner. He might be wise now to tuck away his numbers and position papers and political calculations. That’s right, fly blind. Fix things. Improve lives. The Light endorses Joe Nation for Assembly.

PROP. 32 would authorize the state to borrow $500 million which veterans could draw upon for home and farm mortgages. Historically this arrangement has paid for itself because vets are a low credit risk. YES on Prop. 32

PROP. 33 – When voters in 1990 decided to limit term lengths for legislators, they also disqualified them from enrolling in CalPERS, the state's main pension plan. There's some questions about the vesting period for retirement health benefits; state workers normally get them after 20 years, and some formula would have to applied for legislators who under term limits can only serve six or eight years. It's minor business. YES on Prop. 33

PROP. 34 – State senator John Burton wrote up this non-attempt at campaign-finance reform. Under a charitable reading, Prop. 34 is a way to get at least some of a much-stiffer reform package – 1996's Prop. 208 – past the courts, where 208 has been hung up on First Amendment issues. Prop. 34 generally sets higher contribution limits than Prop. 208 and would let political parties keep shovelling bottomless piles of "soft" money to candidates. Parts are downright lame: under Prop. 34, lobbyists would be barred from contributing directly to candidates although they could arrange for contributions from a client. NO on Prop. 34

PROP. 35 as it’s advertised would allow private contractors to bid on state architectural and engineering work. Unionized Caltrans engineers now handle most of the work, and not because Caltrans is grabby but because voters decades ago grew weary of seeing all the work passed out to private ontractors as political patronage. NO on Prop. 35

PROP. 36, backed by billionaire currency speculator George Soros, reads less like a polished initiative than a good idea for one. Under Prop. 26, anyone arrested for drug possession (and not in conjunction with another crime) could enter a drug treatment program without threat of incarceration. Their "conviction" would be erased upon completing treatment. This differs from the current practice of sentencing drug offenders to diversion programs, where jail time awaits those who fail.

Prop. 36 has weak spots. It's silent on the subject of drug dealers and juvenile users. Also, it doesn't require any post-graduation drug-testing, which only shows the intent is more to legalize drugs than treat addiction. Still, with the Turkish condition of our prisons – and absolute failure of the drug war to do anything but overcrowd them – some court at some time must start reinterpreting this whole area of crime and punishment. As with most initiatives, Prop. 36 if approved will drop straight in a judge’ lap. Okay then. YES on Prop. 36

PROP. 37 – You ship oil, say. You’re asked to pay into an oil-spill clean-up fund, which gets drained whenever your captain gets drunk and tars over a coastline. Such a payment is called a regulatory "fee." Under Prop. 37 it would renamed a "tax," meaning it would take two-thirds of the legislature to impose it rather than a simple majority. And so maybe you wind with smaller tab, or none at all, and you’ve reduced the number of politicians you have to cram into your luxury box at football games. NO on Prop. 37

PROP. 38 would provide a $4,000 annual subsidy to parents who enroll their kids in private school. It's the voucher system, up off the mat for about the zillionth time. Luckily, voters never get tired of kicking its teeth in. NO on Prop. 38

PROP. 39 would reduce the majority needed to approve a K-12 school-construction bond from two-thirds to 55 percent. Technically, a 55-percent majority still violates the doctrine of one-person, one-vote. But anything that gnaws at a leg of Proposition 13 deserves a pat on head. YES on Prop. 39

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