Point Reyes Light- October 29, 1998
The Light's election endorsements
Measure A and B - Yes on both. Measure B would raise the sales tax a half percent, Measure A would funnel that revenue to a range of transportation improvements in Marin and Sonoma counties. The plan is a dog's breakfast, and maybe some bits and pieces need more work (to my eye, the rail plan looks pretty weenie, especially considering the years of fuss over securing the rights-of-way). However, we trust voters won't make the ideal the enemy of the good. If A and B go down, the usually fractious coalition backing them likely won't convene again for another five years. That's a long time to spend idling on the 101 freeway feeling foolish.
Measure C for Bolinas and Stinson Beach property owners is a $40-per-parcel annual tax to benefit the towns' school district. Patrick Murphy of the district's budget committee calls it a "mini" parcel tax that would expire after four years and generate roughly $75,000 a year in revenue. District voters renewed a larger school tax in April; the point now, says Murphy, is to end all the constant discussions at school board meetings about core programs to cut. The district's reserves have been depleted in recent years by deficit spending. Yes on Measure C.
Marin Healthcare District - Incumbent Sylvia Siegel, Bernie Del Santo, and Lawrence Arnstein will make the board unanimous in the belief that Sutter/MGH has violated the terms of its lease and should no longer run the county hospital. We figure the only way to resolve this protracted mess is to let the Sutter foes press their case as far and fast as possible; Marin General won't get better at this point without judicial therapy.
State Assembly - Incumbent Kerry Mazzoni should have extraordinary clout in what, due to term limits, will be her last two years in the Assembly. Opponent Russ Weiner is a nice enough kid, although he did help start something called the Paul Revere Society; the membership card he showed me talked about saving "Our Nation, Our Border, Our Language," and the like. I just let it go.
US Senator - Marin's Barbara Boxer can sure pick
her opponents. Six years ago, she buried her GOP rival who admitted
going to strip joints. This time out, opponent Matt Fong goofed
by giving $50,000 to a traditional-values group that probably
doesn't go naked in their own showers. Boxer's more than just
lucky, though. Enough voters - sometimes just barely enough -
do agree with her that social justice and environmental protections
aren't open to overmuch compromising.
US Congress - Lynn Woolsey will go back for a fourth term. Co-endorser Dave Mitchell likes her liberal voice. I, however, just don't think she does the job better than any 10 or 12 people who work here in the Creamery Building could. The Farmland Protection Act has flatlined again, leaving us all to believe that it's very, very difficult to corral $30 million from a $1.7 trillion federal budget.
Governor - Gray Davis, although we shouldn't expect much from a guy whose bearing is so weighty he can inspire the following: on Monday night, I was called and reminded - by one of Davis' own campaign workers - how important it is that I vote for Gary Davis
Grayness aside, Davis has spent half his life circling this job in the want ads. As a governor's chief of staff, he even tried to organize Jerry Brown's vaporous workday. Mostly, he's a traditional Dem with warm, mainstream thoughts about public schools, the environment, and organized labor.
True, he won't get visited late at night by any big ideas. But at least there's no trace of that gated-community nervousness that besets GOP rival Dan Lungren, who thinks every tax cheat is a good Rotarian and every pothead is Charles Ng.
Lt. Governor - This post is given absolutely no duties and a staff of 17 to do them with. The job, however, does come with a seat on the UC Board of Regents; we'll go with Democrat Cruz Bustamante in hopes he might temper the anti-affirmative action campaign of obsessed Regent Ward Connerly.
Secretary of State - There's nothing to suggest that Democrat Michaela Alioto, who hasn't ever been elected to anything, should start her political career by holding statewide office, or that she'd be more competent than incumbent Bill Jones. Likewise, in the race for state Controller, we pick incumbent Kathleen Connell over young GOP challenger Ruben Barrales. On his website Barrales says that if elected he would makes sure law enforcement gets all the money it needs, which suggests some misunderstanding about what bookkeepers do.
Treasurer - Republican Curt Pringle is a fiscal tightwad and one of the shrewder minds in Sacramento. Former Democratic Party Chairman Phil Angelides is a land developer of mixed reputation who likes running for stuff. So who would do a better job marketing the state bonds? Unknown, but it's assumed both men have larger ambitions, and we don't think arch-conservative Pringle should get the stepping stone. Phil Angelides for Controller.
Attorney General - East Bay State Senator Bill Lockyer vows to crack down on environmental crimes and civil-rights abuses while strongly supporting First Amendment protections. But then he spoils it a bit by getting all excited about executing people, lots of them, the younger the better. Likely this results from his diet; Lockyer's sworn off fruits and vegetables. As for rival Republican David Stirling, all most West Marin voters may care to know is that he's been Lungren's top buttboy in the AG's office, and that years back, as chief of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, he carried on a running battle with the United Farm Workers.
Superintendent of Public Instruction - The problem for well-funded conservative Gloria Matta Tuchman, who co-wrote the anti-bilingual ed measure voters passed in June, is that incumbent Delaine Eastin is not the usual soft, over-theorizing sellout to the teachers' unions. The job carries no power other than persuasion, and Eastin has been unrelenting in her demands for higher teaching and testing standards and better facilities. The recent limiting of class size to 20 students, which originated with her, is one of those simple, profound moves that was so obvious no one else thought to do it.
State Supreme Court - Justices come up for a "yes or no" vote every 12 years, as well as in the gubernatorial election immediately following their appointment. Of the four on this ballot, only ancient Stanley Mosk merits positive note. He's been serving since Reconstruction (okay, since 1964) and lends the current Deukemejian/Wilson court whatever inspiration it has. The other men - Ronald George and Ming William Chin - are considered merely adequate.
However, the legal folks we talked to all find 1996 appointee Janice Brown, a former Wilson staffer, to be underqualified and perfectly awful. Apparently she makes no secret of wanting to move up to the US Supreme Court as its first (conservative) black female. One report is that she pads her opinions with gratuitous economic cant designed only to capture national conservative attention. Yes on Stanley Mosk, Ronald M. George, and Ming William Chin.
State Appeals Court - Ten justices are up for reconfirmation here, and Brother Mitchell honestly tried to check out who all these people are. However, the lawyers we called had no strong impressions. One attorney suggested we call the head of the San Francisco Bar Association, who might have some ideas (one would hope). And a call to Stanford Law School elicited the thoughtful tip that we call Boalt Hall, the law school at Cal, instead. I'm sorry, we just gave up, which I generally do when people resort to suggesting that I "check on the Web." Yes on all.
Proposition 1A would authorize floating a $9.2 billion bond to fix and expand school buildings, in part to accommodate smaller class sizes. Yes
Proposition 1 would exempt from higher assessment any properties that must be repaired or replaced when environmental contamination is discovered. Republican Curt Pringle drafted this to help a couple of his friends, although it is consistent with all previous fiddling around with Prop. 13. Yes
Proposition 2 - Yes. The legislature often dips into highway funds to pay bills; this just ensures such loans are repaid quicker.
Proposition 3 - The two main parties back this measure, which would eliminate our new open primary in presidential election years. They argue that party delegates chosen in open primaries are less desirable because they weren't elected solely by party members. For Christ's sake, stop playing around with this thing. No.
Proposition 4 would ban animal (read: coyote) trapping and end what is now the experimental use of toxic 10-80 collars on flocks targeted by individual coyotes. For city folk, the practice of trapping and killing predatory animals no doubt seems gratuitous and cruel. However, critics who argue in favor of more humane alternatives for controlling predators should talk to West Marin's sheepmen - the few who haven't been eaten of business. Most have tried all known alternatives plus many more the critics couldn't dream of. Prop. 4 is an animal rights - not an environmental - issue, and we don't think it's a compelling one.
Proposition 5. In a bit of clever dealing, Gov. Wilson tricked California's Native American tribes into agreeing to limit the type of slot machines they can have at their casinos. Therefore, the tribes are asking us now to let them be "self-reliant" - a rather grand term for being allowed run video slot machines, racetrack betting, and card games that offer payouts on a pooled (that is, lottery or pari-mutuel) system.
Now, I'm willing to turn over whole industries to the Native Americans: the selling of copier supplies, the management of hedge funds, whatever. But I'm sorry, it doesn't work to say, "Please, permit us to separate pensioners from their monthly checks, especially because the Nevada casinos won't like it." Should we legalize crack because the Cali cartel would get ticked? No on Prop. 5.
Proposition 6 would ban the sale of horsemeat for human consumption. No.
Proposition 7 would offer tax credits to companies who cut down on pollution. It's not ideal; you're eligible for the tax breaks not necessarily if you clean up, but merely if you're trying a little harder than the other guys applying. But it's something. Yes.
Proposition 8 - No. This measure would create a new job and state agency: the Chief Inspector of Public Schools. The governor would appoint the chief to a 10-year term. At the district level, school site councils made up mostly of parents would rise to the level of a second - although unelected - school board. The new council would set school curricula, a likely result being that all kids in suburban Southern California won't get a peek at Huck Finn. Essentially, Prop. 8 takes the state's entire education system and clones it. Of course, the two mirror bureaucracies would have to fight over the same old dribble of funding.
Proposition 9. A Hobson's choice. If Prop. 9 fails, consumers (regardless of where they now get their power) will be stuck with the raw deal they got out of deregulation: we'll keep paying PG&E to cover the cost of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and pricey wind- and solar-power contracts. If it passes, PG&E and California's other two other big utilities will sue, the state will cave in, and consumers will still have pay off those old debts along with everyone's court costs. No
Proposition 10 would levy a 50-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes, which we might support even if the state flushed the four bits down the toilet. Yes
Proposition 11 would let the governing boards of cities and counties enter into sales-tax-revenue-sharing agreements without going to ballot. Yes