Bolinas Public Utility District has benefited in
recent years from competent stewardship, and we see no reason to fix
what ain’t broke. Incumbents Jack McClellan, Bobbi Kimball, and
Jack Siedman have demonstrated the leadership and public responsiveness
requisite for sitting on Bolinas’ unofficial town council.
Challenger Stacey Henderson has served the community
well in her role as West Marin’s representative on the county’s
West Nile Virus Task Force, though she has been criticized (excessively
and unfairly) for her support of the Marin/Sonoma Mosquito and Vector
Control District. We hope, for the sake of democracy, that Henderson
continues to voice her dissent from BPUD’s approach to mosquito
control. But there’s more to running a utility district than skeeters,
and the incumbents’ experience and track records recommend them
strongly.
Lagunitas School District – Three school
board candidates clearly stand out from the field. Incumbents Stephanie
O’Brien and Kelly O’Connor understand (as much as anyone can)
the Byzantine realm of public-school finance and have shown resolve
in pursuing their ideas. The two tend to disagree on policy matters
(O’Brien favors a more conservative approach to district spending
than O’Connor, and is a more avid critic of district compliance
with the federal No Child Left Behind act), but that’s all to the
good: the board only stands to benefit from lively debate. Both O’Brien
and O’Connor should be re-elected.
Challenger Susi Giacomini is ready to join their ranks.
Giacomini, a mother of three and 20-year Valley resident, has demonstrated
her commitment through many hours spent volunteering in the schools;
what’s more, she’s shown a command of the key issues at numerous
board meetings. She’s our third choice.
Challengers Carl Strasen and Ed Bice could make good
trustees down the road. Right now they’re not ready – as evidenced
by their frank unfamiliarity with some of the issues raised at last
week’s candidates’ night.
Shoreline School District – Two seats
are open. Of the five candidates in the race, we favor challenger Madeline
Nieto Hope and incumbent Tim Kehoe.
Nieto Hope, an artist and college instructor, is already
volunteering much of her time at West Marin School and at district board
meetings. She has progressive and specific ideas for addressing problems
such as dropping enrollment in the district and recruiting talented
teachers.
As a rancher, Kehoe at first glance seems the voice
of an element already overrepresented on the school board. That could
change. The older ranchers already on the board have been serving for
some time, and may well step down in the near future. If that happens,
Kehoe’s presence – representing the new generation of a permanent
faction in the community – will be critical. He’s also proved
himself as a trustee, earning praise for his practical and open-minded
style.
Challengers Christian Bramswig, Jeffrey Kellogg, and
Phil Torres all seem devoted to serving the district’s students
and families. But in terms of hands-on experience with the district,
they lose out by comparison with Nieto Hope and Kehoe.
West Marin ballot measures
Measure C, which would allow the Muir Beach Community
Services District to continue taxing residents in order to repair the
town’s aging water system, is routine housekeeping. In 1997 the
district created a 20-year plan for improvements to the town’s
water treatment plant and delivery pipes (some of those pipes are now
more than 40 years old). This measure will green-light the plan for
another four years, extending a $300-a-year tax on homeowners and $3,250
a year for businesses. The job of improving water delivery in Muir Beach
is worth doing right. Vote YES.
Measure D – There’s a lot to like
about this advisory measure, which Bolinas Public Utility District put
on the ballot. A downtown-parking committee created by the district
has produced a plan to bring order to Bolinas’ sometimes-chaotic
parking on Wharf Road and Brighton Avenue. The plan calls for two-hour
parking limits downtown during business, which should increase access
to stores and restaurants. Although one parking space would be lost
if a strip of Brighton goes from diagonal to parallel parking to reduce
traffic congestion, 33 new spaces would be designated downtown and by
the beach, for a net gain of 32 parking spaces. All this should make
the roads safer for pedestrians and more accessible to ambulances and
fire engines.
To top it off, under the new plan Bolinas would
actually have fewer traffic signs than it now does, since old
"No Parking" signs would be torn down. That should dispel
the worries of some naysayers who worry about what better parking will
do to the atmosphere of "ballsy" old Bolinas. Vote YES.
Measure E was also placed on the ballot by
Bolinas Public Utility District as an advisory measure. It will gauge
support among Bolinas residents for the much-publicized efforts of the
West Marin Mosquito Control Committee to push through a ban on mosquito
pesticides not approved by the Organic Material Research Institute.
Negotiations on the issue between the committee and the Marin/Sonoma
Mosquito and Vector Control District (which annexed West Marin last
December) have been at a stalemate for months.
The spin on pesticides’ health effects comes
hard and fast from both sides, but one thing is clearly at stake: the
future viability of West Marin’s organic farms. Even a pesticide
harmless to humans and wildlife, if it drifts a few miles in the wind
or is carried by water, can wreck the livelihood of a grower or rancher
by leading to a loss of organic certification. Under those circumstances,
West Marin’s agricultural community needs something more than assurances
from mosquito-district staff, who insist that pesticide application
is "site-specific." Vote YES.
Countywide election
College of Marin – This year’s board
election for the College of Marin is a no-brainer. There’s every
reason to believe that incumbents Wanden Treanor, Greg Brockbank, and
Barbara Nolan will continue to bring enthusiasm and savvy to the problems
facing the college, from falling enrollment to the prospect of closing
the Indian Valley Campus because of a lack of funding.
Challenging these three is Peter Romanowsky, a self-described
minister/entertainer who in the past seven years has run for seven local
offices, including the College of Marin board in 2001. Romanowsky has
told the press that he wants to change "the atheistic philosophy
of our schools" through the introduction of spiritual values. We
say no thanks.
State propositions
Proposition 73 – Few choices are less agonizing
for young women than having an abortion. In an effort to throw obstacles
in the path of those who have made that choice, Proposition 73 would
require doctors performing abortions on minors to notify a parent or
guardian and would institute a 48-hour "reflection period"
before the procedure could go forward.
Do parents have a right to know if their child is
having an abortion? We don’t think that’s up to the state
– and neither does California’s Supreme Court, which ruled
in 1997 that minors don’t need parental consent to undergo the
procedure. We do believe, however, that drawing out what is already
a nightmarish process for most patients would lead to an increase in
dangerous "back-alley" abortions and potentially violent family
conflicts.
This is as good a time as any for Californians to
show legislators that they won’t sign off on not-so-sly concessions
to the religious right. Vote NO.
Proposition 74 – No one who grew up attending
California’s public schools would deny that a few bad teachers
can be found in them. In an effort to address this problem, Proposition
74 would increase the probationary period for beginning teachers from
two to five years and make it easier – but only marginally so –
to fire tenured teachers.
That gets it backwards. Some of the worst teachers
are the occasional "deadwood" instructors, who after decades
on the job are basically waiting out the clock for their pensions. This
minority of oldtimers lacks the enthusiasm of the sometimes error-prone
beginners who would be affected by Proposition 74. Young teachers’
academic freedom is already compromised during their first two years
on the job; they’re subject to the whims of school officials who
can fire them without due process. We see no reason to keep them walking
on eggshells any longer. Prolonging limbo for beginning teachers would
also make them think twice before buying homes in the communities where
they teach.
A better initiative might have focused on creating
a fair and expeditious process for dismissing tenured teachers who’ve
lost their dedication. An unintended consequence of this one would be
to discourage potential teachers, already in short order. Vote NO.
Proposition 75 would require public-employee
unions to obtain explicit consent from union members before using their
dues to support political causes. The measure has been billed "paycheck
protection" by its supporters. If that’s the case, then surprisingly
few workers want to be protected; of more than a million union members
who would be affected by the proposition, only 181 have publicly endorsed
it.
Union members are currently permitted under federal
law to withhold their dues from campaign contributions. Proposition
75’s backers are betting that shifting the onus to workers to approve
the use of their dues in politics will result in decreased funding.
They’re probably right. The real motive behind Proposition 75 isn’t
hard to see. Republicans are trying to slash one of the primary sources
of campaign funding for Democrats.
If the financing of Democratic campaigns is crippled,
the blow could be felt in a host of causes having little to do with
state workers: the environment, consumer protection, healthcare, etc.
Unions already spend much less than corporations in Sacramento –
$12.5 million last year, compared to $46.6 million from business groups
– and the majority of corporate money is going to Republican candidates.
In the battle over campaign financing, as in other battles, it’s
dangerous to disarm one side at a time. Vote NO.
Proposition 76 – This measure would eliminate
the state’s current formula of guaranteed annual funding for schools
and social services, giving the governor broad powers to cut spending
in the event of budget gridlock or a "fiscal emergency."
It’s hard to overstate how radical a proposal
this is. Under the new rules, an emergency could be declared if the
Department of Finance’s revenue projections are off by a mere 1.5
percent, or if a minority of 14 state senators hold up the budget. Read
between the lines: that means that a small group of intractable Republicans
(or Democrats, under future governors) could bypass the democratic process
by stalling budget talks until spending prerogative passes to the governor.
While this may sound great to proto-fascists, it’s
downright scary to those – no matter what their political stripe
– who cherish the balance of powers on which our government rests.
Were Proposition 76 passed, a drastic decrease in school funding is
almost certain. But that’s not the worst of it. The measure would
strip the legislature of its age-old Power of the Purse, upsetting the
checks and balances built into our state constitution. Americans won’t
stand for this. Vote NO.
Proposition 77 – Legislators shouldn’t
be drawing their own electoral districts. On that most people can agree.
Those who don’t should consult California’s electoral map:
across the state, voting districts bend and stretch to bypass pockets
of constituents – Democratic and Republican; black, white, and
Latino – who could upset the status quo. The last round of redistricting
(in 2000) made for a 2004 election in which not one of the state’s
153 Assembly, state Senate, or congressional seats changed parties.
Proposition 77 would charge a bipartisan panel
of three retired judges with redrawing districts along county and city
lines. The process for picking the judges is a model of fairness: politicians
could only nominate judges not registered with their parties;
and the final panel, chosen at random from the pool of nominees, would
have to include at least one Republican and one Democrat. The map produced
by the panel would be subject to voter approval.
Opponents of redistricting – mainly Democrats,
who with their decades-long dominance in the Legislature have the most
to lose – are right to point out that Proposition 77 isn’t
perfect. The proposition would force election officials to perform the
formidable task of preparing precincts for the new districts in time
for the June 2006 primary; moreover, district mapping will rely on outdated
information from the 2000 census.
Those flaws, while significant, don’t outweigh
the measure’s benefits. Since 1982, five ballot initiatives have
sought to get redistricting out of the hands of politicians (Proposition
77 will be the sixth). Change is long overdue. Vote YES.
Propositions 78 and 79 – These measures
have a lot in common. Both would provide prescription drug discounts
to the poor and uninsured. The key difference is that Proposition 79
has teeth: pharmaceutical companies that fail to offer appropriate discounts
would have their products taken off MediCal’s list of pre-approved
drugs. Under Proposition 78, on the other hand, the industry would be
counted on to make voluntary discounts. Proposition 78 would also set
up a narrower definition of those qualifying for the program than would
79.
If drug companies plan to comply with Proposition
79’s goal of lowering the cost of prescription drugs, why have
they raised over $80 million (more than has been spent on any other
ballot measure in United States history) to push for a Doppelgänger
with no enforcement mechanism? Vote NO on Proposition 78 and YES
on Proposition 79.
Proposition 80 – Remember the energy crisis?
Few Californians today want to relive the disasters that followed our
state’s de-regulation of power utilities – a naive move that
set the stage for a long summer of blackouts in 2001 and an artificial
electricity "shortage" contrived by Enron and other profiteers.
Proposition 80, while it can’t undo all that, will help make sure
we don’t suffer through it again. The proposition would reinstitute
state regulation of the utilities market, placing a legal obligation
on energy companies to act in the public interest.
The measure has drawn fire from some unlikely corners.
Green-energy proponents, for example, fear that Proposition 80 will
limit consumers’ ability to purchase electricity from alternative
sources (the California Solar Energy Industries Association has come
out against the initiative). Sorry, guys, but deregulation is one mistake
we couldn’t help learning from. Vote YES.