Moss and I spent all night going over all the propositions and deciding which to vote for and against. I thought I would share my decisions with you in case you a) live in California and haven't had the time to look at them or are undecided on some, or b) are really curious about how I am voting in the state elections.



1A No - 1A would mean that the state wouldn't be able to allocate local taxes in order to help underprivileged areas. It also locks the local sales tax rate so that it can't be lowered in the future (true it also can't be raised, but overall this prop looks bad).

59 Yes - This prop allows us to see what the government is doing. This is a good thing. The ACLU also backs this.

60 Yes - This protects the current system so that in the general election there can be as many candidates as there are parties. It doesn't change anything. It's basically just there as extra insurance against 62.

60A Yes - This prop says that the state will use the proceeds from excess property sales to pay back existing bond debt, but limits it to the bond debt incurred by prop 57 (which passed in March and was a prop asking for 15 billion in bonds to help with past budget deficits. 60A will help to pay back that debt faster and ultimately save the state money. It is limited to this bond debt, so after those bonds are repaid the proceeds from excess property sales will go back into the general fund (where they go now).

61 Yes - Allows for the state to sell $750 million worth of bonds to fund children's hospitals. The argument against it is that it doesn't provide universal healthcare, but I think it's imortant to give the hospitals funding so that they can be clean, efficient and up to date. This doesn't raise any taxes and would mean improved facilities, which is pretty important to people with sick kids, I think.

62 No - 62 wants to change the primary system for statewide elctions so that in the primaries you could vote for anyone you chose, regardless of party affiliation, but in the general election only two candidates would be in the running. While I do think our current election system is flawed, this is not a better option. It's the kind of thing that narrows your choices (and it's been used in the past for bad things like helping KKK leader David Duke run for Governor in Louisiana).

63 Yes - 1% income tax on people with taxable incomes over 1 million dollars in order to fund mental healthcare facilities. It taxes only people who can afford to pay, and provides expanded mental healthcare statewide. There's strict financial accountablity for how the funds will be spent, too.

64 No - This proposition wants to protect corporations from private parties who want to sue for false advertising or environmental pollution. It says it's there to stop frivolous lawsuits, but frivolous lawsuits are a very small percentage of lawsuits brought on by consumers. If this passes only the attorney general and public prosecutors will be able to sue.

65 No - 65 was proposed by the group that proposed 1A, but even they don't support it now that they have 1A. No to both.

66 Yes - The ACLU agrees, we need to fix the three strikes law. It's costing us money and keeping people in jail for life over things that shouldn't warrant a life sentence.

67 Yes - This would take money from us whenever we make in state calls, but the money would go to keeping emergency rooms open, which is important.

68 No - This proposition is not fair to Indian Tribes and supports the creation of gaming faciities outside of Indian reservations. Bad news all around.

69 No - DNA samples should not be taken from everyone who is arrested regardless of whether they are charged with anything. This is a horrible breach of privacy. The ACLU agrees with me.

70 Yes - The proposition was suggested by Indian tribes. It would allow them to increase the types of games they offered and to build as many casinos as they want on their land as long as they agree to pay the same amount that other businesses pay to the state. This is fair and they are subject to auditing and still required to submit environmental reports. Currently Arnold has made compacts that charge a flat fee per slot machine, which may actually be higher cost to the tribes than what they would pay out under prop 70, but of course only a few tribes have signed his compacts. This would probably draw more tribes to sign. Yes, it would mean more casinos, probably, but only on Indian land, and they'd be paying what basically amounts to income tax. This one is tricky because at first Moss and I thought we didn't want it, but upon closer examination have decided that it is actually a fairer deal than what is going on now.

71 Yes - The arguments against this proposition, which would give three billion in bonds to stem cell research, are that the state would have that much bond debt and that the pharmaceutical companies would be using taxpayers' money to carry out private research. Also that there might be cloned babies. The plan actually provides for university research and specifically bans baby-cloning. Also, the thought here is that this area of research could gain cures and treatments for cancer, AIDS, parkinsons, diabetes, etc., and if the research manages to lower healthcare costs by even 1%, it'll pay for itself. It's important research, and doing it as a state (the research will be done by universities and non-profits and will be subject to California Open Meeting laws) is actually better than not.

72 Yes - Prop 72 wants large corporations to provide health insurance for their workers. This is a good thing. It also caps the amount employees will have to pay in premiums (premiums have risen 70% in the last three years!) and stops taxpayers from paying for the emergency healthcare costs for uninsured employees of large corporations like McDonald's and Wal-Mart. Mickey D's and Wal-Mart can afford to give their employees insurance, and their employees really don't make enough to afford it otherwise.

Sonoma County Measure M Yes - This will up county sales tax and use the money to improve roadways, help with traffic congestion, start on passenger rail plans to connect Sonoma and Marin, provide more bus service, build and maintain pedestrian and bike routes. In Healdsburg, 3.25 million dollars will go to a local bike and pedestrian trail. Yay bike and pedestrian trails! Also, it will put a lot of money towards widening the freeway, which is a big job that really needs to be done. Traffic in Sonoma county is ugly because 101 is only two lanes in most places, and it isn't as if population is going to go down anytime soon. It's probably going to keep going up.

State Assembly Representative - Patty Berg. Our other choices were a Republican and a Libertarian, which is enough to make one want to vote for Democratic Patty on principal, but as a pleasant added bonus, I like her. She's our current rep and she cares about the environment (the Sierra Club endorses her) , and schools and healthcare. She even sends round random good things like reports about what she's been doing to help protect the environment or warnings about current scams (like the Nigerian bank account e-mail scam) in case people haven't heard about them. She's a good egg.

Northern Sonoma County Hospital District Board - This election sounds fairly boring, but is actually a hotbed of gossip and intrigue. Right now three seats are open and five people want them. Of those five people, three are currently on the board, and two aren't. The five candidates are Jack Air, Ruth M. Olson, Herbert F. Polesky, Floyd S. Coakley and Kurt Hahn.

Floyd is a local guy with a history of public service who ran for the Hospital board in 200 and didn't make it. He values public meetings and is angry that the current board often ignores public meeting laws by holds secret meetings and e-mail meetings. He's also got a good sense of humor.

Kurt is the current Hospital District Board director and the most controversial figure in this, as he's behind a lot of the public meeting law breaches, and he's also had conflicts with other board memebers, which led to a string of resignations. In short, Kurt does not work and play well with others. He's also fond of underhanded tactics which help in the short term, but hurt in the long term. The Healdsburg hospital is seriously short of funding (we've had to increase parcel taxes to keep it alive twice now), and Kurt hasn't helped this.

Jack's a retired businessman who seems to feel secure in his role as the white male who gets by on power speak. He's on the board now, and uses and lot of big words, but doesn't really say anything with them. However, he does oppose Kurt and get along with Herb and Ruth.

Herb is a retired physician who actually has some idea about what the hospital might need. He's on the board and endorses Ruth and Jack.

And then there's Ruth, who is an industrial engineer She's a cat who spouts management phrases like AOL kids spout l33tsp34k, but she actually knows what they mean and has a plan. Her theme song should definitely be Cake's "Short Skirt, Long Jacket".

Basically what seems to be going on here is that Herb, Jack and Ruth want to form a Hospital District triumvirate, ousting Kurt and congratulating themselves on their big business tactics, which will hopefully get the Healdsburg hospital back in good financial standing. Nobody seems to like Kurt, but he's running anyway, and Floyd's an outraged citizen who wants to see things run properly.

My votes go to Ruth (because she is efficient and smart about business), Herb (because he'll play nice with Ruth and he's got the medical background), and Floyd (because I think he'll ensure that the public meetings take place and run fairly. Effectively I'm counting on Floyd to balance out Ruth, who may be a bit overzealous with the profit-hungriness). I hate to break up the clique, except that... well, I really don't. I dislike cliques, and Jack seems less than ideal.

Healdsburg City Council - Another three of five race. I'm voting for Current Mayor Lisa Schaffner, Current Council Member Mark Gleason, and Tod Brilliant. Lisa's a Republican, but she seems to be doing a good job so far and has secured a lot of open spaces like Fitch Mountain. Mark is kinda eh, but I like him better than the two I am not voting for, and Tod rocks. He's got a good sense of humor and wants to include the hispanic community in city affairs and "destroy the real estate cabals".

The two I am not voting for are retired police officer Gary Plass, and local television producer, Mike McGuire. Mike's about my age and has an impressive leadership history (president of the school board twice), but I can't really find out what he stands for, and he seems like a schmoozing little worm. He called us and lied about meeting us on our answering machine ("Hi, I met you while walking in your neighborhood, and I'm calling to see if I can answer any questions for you." No, Mike, you didn't. We would have remembered that. We are antisocial hermits. We totally remember who we talk to in the street). Ick. Gary seems really concerned about funding the Healdsburg police, and lemme tell you, if the amount I see them aimlessly cruising and abusing their sirens (really, they act like djs scratching records "wooo-wo-woo-wo-woo-wo-wo" --ever so annoying ) is anything to judge by, they have enough money.

And finally Healdsburg Measure Q No - This wants to increase hotl tax from 10% to 12% and give the money to police and firefighters. The problem I see here is that we're asking non-residents to pay for our emergency services, and in the process we're hurting small hotel owners. If we must give the police more money (so they can get bigger, louder sirens to show off with perhaps?) we ought to do it some other way. I haven't noticed public safety being a big problem in Healdsburg, though.

That's it. Please feel free to pass any of thisinformation on to other people if you think they would benefit from it. Here's hoping tomorrow turns out to be better than we might expect.