Incumbents held onto their seats in elections across
West Marin Tuesday, and the county as a whole followed statewide voting
patterns in rejecting all of the eight ballot initiatives at stake in
the special election.
The propositions’ defeat was a resounding
political blow to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had backed four of
the initiatives as integral to his mission to reform state government.
The governor’s proposals to limit state spending,
curb the political influence of unions, extend the time it takes teachers
to get tenure, and take electoral redistricting out of the hands of
legislators were all turned down at the polls.
The special election called by the governor changed
nothing in the state’s laws or constitution, though more than $250
million was spent by the various "Yes" and "No"
campaigns. Some found themselves ruing that lost money, particularly
in a state experiencing a budget crisis.
"It’s a shame with the amount of money
we need for schools that this election even happened," said Larry
Nigro, a teacher in the Lagunitas School’s open classroom program.
Bolinas Public Utility District director Jack McClellan,
who was re-elected Tuesday to another term, said there were serious
flaws in the state’s referendum system – a form of direct
democracy used by less than half of the country’s states.
"It’s a bad way to run a railroad,"
McClellan said.
He was quick to add that he doesn’t think
the popular referendum should be done away with, despite its problems.
"It’s like Churchill said: democracy
is the worst form of government there is. Except for all the others."
West Marin school districts
Local school board races were hotly contested this
year – particularly in the Lagunitas School District, where candidates’
divergent views on fiscal policy and compliance with federal education
standards made for an election that could steer district policy in the
coming years.
Challenger Susi Giacomini of Woodacre was elected
to the Lagunitas school board, along with incumbents Kelly O’Connor
of Lagunitas and Stephanie O’Brien of Woodacre.
Giacomini led at the polls, pulling down 29.86
percent of the vote. After her came O’Connor, with 21.12 percent.
Some 19.16 percent voted for O’Brien, followed by 16.33 percent
for Carl Strasen of Woodacre and 7.58 percent for Woodacre resident
Ed Bice. Chris Krotky of Forest Knolls, whose name appeared on the ballot
but who had dropped out of the race months prior to the election, received
5.41 percent of the vote (Note: election statistics do not take account
of absentee ballots).
O’Connor said he took his re-election as a
mandate to move forward on the central issue in his platform: securing
raises for the district’s teachers, who are now paid less than
their counterparts anywhere in the county.
"I ran on issues," O’Connor said.
"My issue was to increase compensation for the teachers. I look
forward to pressing ahead with that."
O’Brien said she was painted unfairly during
the campaign as being opposed to raises for teachers and staff. She
supports raises for teachers and staff, she said, but wants to make
sure they can be given without bankrupting the district. If raises too
large are given, she noted, the district could be forced to make up
the money elsewhere – by laying off teachers, increasing class
size, or even closing one of its two campuses.
"We’ve gone from being in the red to
being in the black," she said, referring to the budget reserve
the district has built up after previous years of fiscal crisis. "We
can do something significant, but whatever we do has to be sustainable.
In Shoreline School District, incumbent Tim Kehoe,
a dairy rancher on Point Reyes, was elected along with challenger Madeline
Nieto Hope, an artist and college teacher from Inverness.
Both were far ahead of the other challengers at
the polls; Hope had 33.88 percent of the vote, while Kehoe had 31.25
percent. Their closest challenger, Jeffrey Kellogg of Inverness, received
18.86 percent of the vote.
Hope said she looks forward to "building relationships
with new and existing board members."
"I’m relieved it’s over," Hope
said of the election, "and happy to move on to the next stage."
Bolinas says no to pesticides
All three of the local measures on the ballot
in West Marin passed Tuesday. Among those, the initiative with the greatest
potential impact region-wide – BPUD’s advisory Measure E,
which asked Bolinas residents if they support a ban on pesticides in
West Marin – passed by a landslide 85.84 percent.
The measure was meant to settle the question of
whether Bolinas residents actually stand behind the West Marin Mosquito
Control Committee, which has been negotiating with the Marin/Sonoma
Mosquito and Vector Control District on the pesticide issue for almost
a year. The committee has fought – so far unsuccessfully –
to obtain legally binding assurance from the district that it would
not use pesticides in West Marin.
District manager Jim Wanderscheid has said that
he needs to retain the option of using pesticides in order to reduce
mosquitoes and curb the threat of West Nile Virus.
He has also said that the mosquito control committee
– a group of five citizens from Point Reyes Station and Bolinas,
appointed by BPUD – does not stand for all West Marin residents.
To settle the matter, BPUD put Measure E on the ballot.
The measure is technically only a gauge of public
opinion in Bolinas, but its supporters said that the overwhelming support
within BPUD territory for the committee’s efforts is probably a
reflection of regional sentiment.
"I think Measure E passing indicates very
clearly that residents of Bolinas – and we are very confident that
also includes residents of West Marin – do not want pesticides
used in their environment," said committee chair Liza Goldblatt
of Point Reyes Station. "That’s clearly a mandate that the
work of the committee and the protocols we developed represent our community’s
views."
In the BPUD election, challenger Stacey Henderson
– who had expressed her support for mosquito district manager Wanderscheid
– was defeated by incumbents Jack Siedman, Bobbi Kimball, and Jack
McClellan. Henderson had only 8.08 percent of the vote, compared to
McClellan’s 27.77 percent, Kimball’s 29.04 percent, and Siedman’s
34.75 percent.
Parking plan confusing
BPUD’s other advisory measure, Measure
D, passed, although 45.43 percent of those at the polls Tuesday voted
"No" on it.
The measure was meant to assess community support
for a new parking plan in downtown Bolinas. The plan would add parking
spaces to the downtown and institute two-hour parking limits during
business hours, increasing access to stores and restaurants. It would
also ease traffic congestion by converting diagonal parking spaces along
Brighton Avenue to parallel spaces.
Bolinas resident Leo Kostelnik, who chaired the
committee that created the plan, said that maps of the proposed parking
layout distributed to residents before the election may have been confusing.
The maps may have misled voters into opposing the plan, he said.
"It’s a fairly simple program,"
Kostelnik said. "But it looked pretty complicated."
In Muir Beach, 87.10 percent of voters said yes
to Measure C, which will extend a property tax to repair the town’s
aging water system. The measure had no formal opposition prior to the
election.
West Marin voting trends
West Marin bucked statewide voting trends
on Proposition 79, one of two measures on the ballot that would have
provided prescription drug discounts for the poor and uninsured.
Proposition 79 stipulated that drug companies that
failed to provide discounts would have their products removed from MediCal’s
list of pre-approved drugs. Proposition 78, which was backed by the
pharmaceutical industry, set up no enforcement mechanism, counting instead
on drug companies to give voluntary discounts.
Some 60 percent of West Marin residents voted "Yes"
on Proposition 79, compared to 47.97 percent in the county and 38.9
percent in the state.
Tomales, as a whole, voted more conservatively
than other parts of West Marin. On Proposition 73, for instance, which
would have required doctors performing abortions on minors to notify
the patient’s parents, 27 percent of Tomales residents voted "Yes,"
compared to 7 percent in Bolinas and 8 percent in San Geronimo.
On Proposition 75, which would have curbed union
spending in Sacramento by requiring public-employee unions to obtain
written consent from members before using their dues for political causes,
36 percent of Tomales residents voted "Yes," compared to 9
percent in Bolinas and 13 percent in San Geronimo.