SUPERVISOR - Steve Kinsey. Lordy, what a race. It hasn't been this nasty since, well, the last time Dotty LeMieux ran for supervisor. Not that LeMieux herself is nasty - she's pleasant, if not especially dynamic - and the bulk of her supporters are reasonable folks who know what's what.
But we're sorry, she also seems to attract every crank this side of United We Stand. Kinsey, a developer's boy? Sure, and Elvis, the Freemasons, and the Knights of Columbus run the World Bank. Has it occurred to anyone in the LeMieux camp that the money Kinsey has received from the building trades marks merely the choice, by very traditional campaign contributors, of a lesser evil?
We trust that more refined thinking will settle in by election day. In truth, slapping away big development projects is just a tiny part of a supervisor's job, although it's the sexiest part; one gets to make loud noise about "adhering to the countywide plan" and "upholding A-60 zoning." Likely both candidates would do this well, although Kinsey might fare better in keeping county taxpayers out of court.
But what about the rest of the job? So much of it is about tickling and tweaking. It's about finding another $5,000 in the budget for the libraries or paramedics. It's about expediting a resident's application to build a small toolshed. And yes, it's about cutting deals with other supervisors to get what you want. Ultimately the job is not about fighting Civic Center. It's about using Civic Center to West Marin's advantage. You would think this is obvious.
Simply put, Kinsey has a long, long record of activism in his own neighborhood and in his own community. He has a long record of working with people, not against them, whether he agrees with them or not. He's our choice.
MEASURE A calls for a quarter-cent increase in the Marin sales tax to continue Marin Agricultural Land Trust's purchase of conservation easements, land buys by Marin Open Space District, and maintenance of county and city parks. Residents of Sonoma County have already voted themselves an open-space sales tax. Should Marin voters fail to do the same, we could no longer claim a spot in the vanguard of progressive land-conservation.
If Measure A fails, MALT's program stops dead in its tracks. Bob Berner, executive director of the trust, notes that over the last four years, roughly 20 landowners have approached MALT with interest in selling their development rights. That demand for cash will be met one way or another; ranchers who can't sell to MALT may very soon be selling out. The tax would last 10 years and requires two-thirds majority approval. Yes on A.
MEASURE B for Shoreline School District would authorize a $120-per-parcel tax on district property owners to fund art, drama, computer, music, physical education, libraries, foreign language, and field trips. The four-year tax is 27 percent higher than the expiring parcel tax, and to our mind Shoreline has earned it. The small but sprawling district suffers because 60 percent of its territory is publicly owned, and compensating payments from the federal government are notoriously late and short. Still, the poorly drawn district strives for the range of programs available in districts that are either larger - or smaller and more compact. In 1969, West Marin voters decided to create this district; they should feel obligated now to support it. Measure B requires a two-thirds majority. Yes on B.
MARIN HEALTH CARE DISTRICT - By far the biggest mess on the ballot. Marin General Hospital, of course, became part of healthcare giant Sutter/California Healthcare Systems a year ago. Critics claim that administrative salaries have soared, that Sutter/CHS has milked its new holding at the expense of patient care, that HMOs have been offered such huge discounts to use the hospital that rates to non-HMO residents have skyrocketed, and that this five-member board - which merely supervises the hospital's lease - favors the administration's interests over those of the nurses and the ailing hoi polloi.
A different board, a nonprofit with non-elected members, has charge of finances and operation, and the duties of the Health Care District board are limited. Still, its makeup and philosophy should reflect the interests of Marin residents and patients; it's the only say we get.
There are three candidates vying for two four-year seats. Dermatologist Diana Parnell, who is distressed by the nursing cuts, should be returned to her seat. Healthcare advocate Linda Remy, who thinks top-level salaries should be scaled back, should join her. Linda Tavaszi, the other candidate, is a former Marin General administrator who helped craft the Sutter deal.
Also, two current board members, emergency room doctor Larry Bedard and pharmacist Paul Lofholm, are facing recall elections. Lofholm isn't fighting the recall. He has resigned, and consumer advocate Sylvia Siegel should serve out the remaining two years of his term.
Bedard's recall, which was prompted by beefs about conflict of interest, isn't worth the cost and ballot space. His term expires a month after the election, during which time the board won't even meet.
We endorse: No on Bedard's recall, Yes on Lofholm's recall, Sylvia Siegel for Lofholm's seat, Linda Remy to replace Bedard, and incumbent Diana Parnell.
PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT - Bill Clinton/Al Gore. On the political spectrum, the Clinton Administration lands somewhere right of Nixon's and maybe just left of Eisenhower's. Clinton's wife is smarter than he, which seems to enrage dumb white males who sense they are not even the smartest person in their own trailer home.
Clinton himself seems an amiable lug, with passing marks on foreign-trade policy, Bosnia, and fiscal restraint. He'll never stop the deforestation of Brazil, or alternatively, elevate America to a City of God. But Bob Dole wouldn't either, and if a president is going to be mediocre, we'd as soon he weren't crabby about it.
US CONGRESS - Lynn Woolsey. We think her handling of the Point Reyes Farmland Protection Act has been clumsy. A big show was made of tabling the legislation until more landowners support it, but the split reaction from the Marin Farm Bureau seemed almost beside the point. The bill would have been dead on arrival in Congress; next term, more energy should be spent lining up Republican co-sponsors.
That said, Woolsey remains a nationally quotable critic of the Gingrich bunch, blasting away at Pentagon spending and welfare cuts. Opponent Duane Hughes has some sane ideas about legislative reform and combining some cabinet departments, but is a flat-earth type who wants the government to do all its work in English only. Why? What for?
(Side note: we're reminded of a scene we witnessed recently in a Petaluma liquor store, where the two proprietors were conversing in Farsi, a Persian language. A burly truck driver walked in and glared at them. "Hey," he erupted. "This is California. You guys learn Spanish." Much laughter all around).
STATE SENATOR - John Burton. He's an old hand with a fat record of support for social programs and the environment. As a Congressman, he carried the bill creating the wilderness areas of the Point Reyes National Seashore. After decades in both Sacramento and Washington, he could do this job in his sleep. After Milton Marks, who would notice if he did?
STATE ASSEMBLY - Kerry Mazzoni cruised through her first term, kept her nose clean, earned pretty good marks for a fresh(wo)man legislator from the California Journal, and set her considerable energy to a worthy cause: a statewide policy of encouraging charter schools. GOP rival David Crockett dropped out of the campaign early after taking a job in Southern California. We hear he's running again, if anyone's curious.
PROP. 204 would authorize nearly $1 billion in bonds to pay for clean-water projects, habitat restoration, and flood control in the Sacramento/San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay. Support ranges from the Environmental Defense Fund to the state Farm Bureau Federation, California Business Roundtable, and AFL-CIO. Yes on 204.
PROP. 205 - No, no, no. Not another dime should go toward expanding our penal system (in this case, county jails and juvenile halls) without rethinking what we consider crime and how we mete out punishment. This proposition won't benefit from revelations this week that guards at Corcoran State Prison have been staging gladiatorial contests between inmates, which often have ended in death. The Drug War has failed, prisons spread like spores: there are better ways to waste money than this. No on 205.
PROP. 206 reallocates money for the self-reimbursing Cal-Vet program, which offers mortgages to war veterans. Yes on 206.
PROP. 207 would prohibit restrictions on attorneys fees in contingency fee cases. Corporate lobbyists say the restrictions would discourage "frivolous" lawsuits. That means they would rather not be pestered by little folks, who sometimes can only get a lawyer only if the stakes are high. Yes on 207.
PROP. 208, PROP. 212 - Some believe the latter proposition was put on the ballot solely to undermine the first. Both call for limiting campaign contributions to state and local candidates - great, the system is drowning in money - but Prop. 212, with its tight restrictions on speaking fees and honoraria, is expected to be ruled unconstitutional if it succeeds.
Prop. 208 is plenty teethy. For instance, contributors to a county supervisor candidate in Marin could give at most $100. The emphasis in local races would return to face-to-face campaigning and away from all those fliers that seem to come only in gray and green. Yes on 208, No on 212.
PROP. 209 - Someday, we hope soon, this state can safely replace its affirmative action programs with ones aimed at the economically disadvantaged, regardless of race or sex. We aren't there yet. We'll know we are there when the current programs draw the same reactions as mohair production subsidies or rural electrification - that is, when they sound archaic and cute. The electorate is hotly split over 209, which means the reason for affirmative action hasn't gone away yet. No on 209.
PROP. 210 - In 1979, the last time a member of the Light editorial board flipped burgers before turning to an even lower paying career, the minimum wage was $3.25 an hour. Since then, inflation has halved the value of a dollar, which means this proposal to raise the minimum wage to $5 next year (and $5.75 in 1998) amounts to something less than a cost-of-barely-living increase. In theory, increases in the minimum wage aggravate unemployment. However, Burger Kings never shut down; they just raise the price of fries a bit. Yes on 210.
PROP. 211 would shift the burden of proof in securities fraud cases from the investor to the company or broker peddling company stock with deceptive information. High-tech growth companies are fighting this one hard. By nature their stock is volatile, and they (rightly) argue that investing in equities is not for the naive. However, few investors' lawsuits are ever filed - let alone heard and won - which suggests the game now favors corporate legal teams. Prop. 211 would just right the balance some. No on 211.
PROP. 213 would prevent drunk drivers and uninsured motorists from recovering damages for pain and suffering following an accident. This would make sense if our insurance system made sense. You cannot: plan cities so everyone must drive to make a living; then require everyone to buy expensive insurance; then deny basic rights to the sizable minority who can't afford insurance. No on 213.
PROP. 214, PROP. 216 - This pair of initiatives springs from complaints that HMOs often pay bonuses to doctors for keeping costs down, and that doctors are encouraged not to recommend expensive treatment options. Both propositions would require a physical examination of patients before care is denied, and both would require fuller financial disclosure of HMOs.
However, Prop. 216, which bears Ralph Nader's imprimatur, is too self-righteous. It would impose a set of taxes on HMOs: for company mergers, reduction of beds, sale of HMO stock, and privatization of nonprofit or public facilities. Whether these taxes would improve healthcare is debatable, but for sure healthcare would come steeper. Yes on 214, No on 216.
PROP. 215 would allow the terminally ill, plus patients with AIDS, glaucoma, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain and other afflictions to smoke dope (or eat it in food) to ease pain, increase appetite, relieve nausea, etc. Opponents don't want this because pot is, uhh....illegal. They assume, we guess, that disaffected kids everywhere will now try to get cancer. While we regret medicinal pot's side effects - inappropriate giggling, bad poetry, and renewed interest in Led Zeppelin music - they don't matter much in the face of human suffering. Yes on 215.
PROP. 217 would renew the state's top two marginal income-tax rates, 10 and 11 percent, which kick in for individual filers at $115,000 and $230,000 - and for joint filers $230,000 and $460,000, respectively. Whoa, do they really want us to vote on this? Can we vote for it twice? Yes on 217.
PROP. 218 takes 1978's odious Prop. 13 and goes one worse. Now the church of Jarvis/Gann wants to gut local government's ability to collect any property-related fees, whether for garbage collection, fire protection, park maintenance, or mosquito control. Such assessments would need approval by affected landowners, whose votes would be weighted to the size of their holdings. The projected dollar loss to local governments statewide is in the hundreds of millions. No on 218.