San Jose Mercury News

By declaring plans this week to push their own ballot initiative on the Santa Clara stadium project, the San Francisco 49ers are using one of two plays from the old playbook. To stadium supporters, they are going right up the middle to get the issue on the ballot with as little interference as possible. To critics, though, the team has called an end run to avoid a potential rush of problems.

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A state judge in Carson City has scheduled a Jan. 8 hearing for arguments challenging the description of a proposed ballot initiative that seeks to define a person and override Nevada’s abortion laws. The Nevada “personhood” initiative seeks to amend the state constitution by defining a person and extending due process rights to “everyone possessing a human genome” from the beginning of biological development through end of life.

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It will soon be a bit more expensive to buy anything in San Mateo or stay in a hotel near San Francisco International Airport after voters convincingly approved seven tax-hike measures in Tuesday’s election. San Mateo County voters cast more than enough ballots to pass one sales tax measure and six hotel tax initiatives, while they squashed one other sales tax item.

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San Carlos voters will decide Nov. 3 whether their city clerk should be appointed to the job by the city council instead of elected by the public ”” a move officials say will depoliticize an important job and help draw qualified candidates. City Clerk Christine Boland said she has hoped to see an initiative like Measure V on the ballot since about the time she started working in San Carlos 11 years ago. It’s “ridiculous” for a clerk to run a political campaign, she said, because the job is for someone with expertise on such topics as parliamentary procedure and records management.

Effort to save state parks

Tue, Sep 15 2009 — Source: San Jose Mercury News

With the Schwarzenegger administration preparing to close up to 100 state parks, California’s top environmental groups are quietly putting together a ballot campaign they hope will turn the bad news into a renaissance for the state’s long-struggling park system.

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The Nevada Secretary of State’s office says petition initiatives to amend the state’s constitution need about 60 percent more signatures to get on the ballot in 2010. The state agency says more than 38,000 more signatures will be required from the state’s three congressional districts because of turnout in the 2008 election. Legislators changed the law this year to make supporters collect signatures by congressional district instead of by county.

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Voters overwhelmingly approved a $28 million bond to pay for a new senior center and other projects. The mail-in ballots were due Tuesday. The bond measure passed with 75.7 percent of the vote; it needed two-thirds voter approval to pass.

The city of Cupertino is calling upon its residents to bring an existing tax into the 21st century. Cupertino is asking residents to extend the tax paid on telephones to cell phones. City leaders say Cupertino could lose about $600,000 in revenues it receives each year through the utility user tax on telecommunications if the ordinance is not updated to continue to include cell phones.

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A proposal that would give Sacramento’s mayor more authority has narrowly qualified for the ballot. Mayor Kevin Johnson is behind the measure, which would change the structure of city government from a weak mayor-strong city manager system. The mayor currently only has one vote on the council. Under Johnson’s proposal, the mayor would have powers that include proposing the city budget, appointing department heads and having veto authority over the council.

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Voters may have the chance to repeal corporate loopholes in what could be an epic and expensive ballot measure fight next year. The measure, submitted last week by a liberal taxpayer advocate and a pair of labor groups, seeks to reverse three corporate tax breaks before they take full effect at more than $2.5 billion a year. Lawmakers agreed to the loopholes as part of budget agreements last fall and in secret negotiations in February.

With petition gatherers blanketing Walnut Creek, there is a lot of potential for confusion. Two sides have been battling it out for weeks for signatures to get two referendums, and likely two initiatives, on a ballot in front of Walnut Creek voters. The fight is centered around plans for a new Neiman Marcus store in downtown Walnut Creek. A group of residents have formed RAMPART ”” Residents and Advocates for More Parking and Reduced Traffic ”” backed by Taubman Centers, which owns Sunvalley Mall in Concord. The group has circulated two referendums over the past several weeks.

Redwood City’s business license tax would increase for the first time since 1995 under a measure the city council is poised to place on the November election ballot. The council is scheduled to decide Monday whether to ask city voters Nov. 3 to raise the current annual tax rate of $37 per business plus $24 per full-time employee to $43 per business plus $28 per full-time employee, beginning July 1, 2010.

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California would lose its direct initiative system in favor of a less powerful indirect initiative system under any of three laws floating in the legislature. Under the changes initiatives would go to lowmakers, who could change them from the form voters agreed to on petitions, before seeing the ballot.

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The Panetta Institute’s annual survey of U.S. college students was released a few days ago and it reported that for the most part, students are optimistic about where our country is headed, despite the continuing economic uncertainties. This year’s survey was in dramatic opposition to last year, where far more students thought things were going wrong. The students’ hopefulness, however, might have been tempered if the Cal State Monterey Bay team conducting the survey had reframed the questions toward California issues.