California
A Palo Alto firefighters union ballot initiative that seeks to maintain staffing levels and prevent station closures remains on track to go before voters in November if moved along by city council members at their Monday meeting. The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters last week validated 6,009 signatures ”” 563 more than needed ”” that the firefighters union collected to qualify the initiative for the ballot, said Palo Alto City Clerk Donna Grider. Â
The days are numbered before the U.S. Conference on Initiative and Referendum kicks off in San Francisco July 30th. Have you registered to attend for free yet?
For some pre-coverage of the conference check out BallotPedia.
In an urgent attempt to maintain universal health coverage for children in Santa Clara County, community leaders are organizing a campaign to rescue one of the region’s landmark programs for working poor families. Their goal is to win broad support for a November ballot measure that would pump $13.5 million per year into the Healthy Kids program through a $29-a-year parcel tax on county property owners. County leaders recognize the challenge: Asking voters in a down economy to assist other families who can’t afford insurance for their children.
A new video is posted on our Youtube page. Check it out, and make sure to sign up for the US Conference on I&R and join your fellow citizens in San Francisco later this month if you haven’t already done so. It will be a fun and informative event on how you can put yourself in charge.
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On Wednesday, Don Perata (D) — Oakland mayoral candidate and former Senate President Pro Tempore — and other supporters of a proposed tobacco tax measure said they have submitted more than enough petition signatures to put the measure on the 2012 ballot, the San Jose Mercury News reports. The initiative — called the California Cancer Research Act — would increase California’s cigarette tax by $1 per pack to raise funds for cancer research (Richman, San Jose Mercury News, 6/30).
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson, soundly thrashed in his bid last week to get a strong-mayor proposal on the November ballot, said Tuesday that he still has time to persuade the City Council to bring the measure before voters in the fall.
The California chapter of the NAACP is announcing its support for a marijuana legalization ballot measure, saying current laws unfairly target people of color. The group plans to highlight findings at a news conference Tuesday that it says show young people of color have faced a lopsided number of arrests for low-level marijuana crimes. The measure on the November ballot would let adults possess up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use.
Councilman Carl DeMaio’s ballot initiative that would dramatically change city contracting and outsourcing rules failed to get enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, the city clerk determined today. Based on a random sampling of 3 percent of the 134,441 signatures on the petition, too few of the signatures were found to be valid registered voters in the city of San Diego, said Bonnie Stone, the city clerk’s deputy director of elections and information services.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said Monday that he is not inclined to support a measure on the November ballot aimed at protecting funds for local government. Villaraigosa made his remarks at a Capitol news conference alongside his cousin, Speaker John Pérez (D-Los Angeles) and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums. Pérez stood with Dellums and Villaraigosa to announce support for the Assembly Democrats’ budget plan, which includes a $900-million repayment to cities for money borrowed in an earlier budget plan.
Two times in recent years San Francisco voters have backed measures to harness skyrocketing pension costs for future city employees. Now a third proposal is in the works that for the first time would affect workers already on the payroll - a politically risky proposition in a notoriously pro-labor town.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger welcomes the 2010 Global Forum and U.S. Conference on Initiative & Referendum to the state:
It is a pleasure to send my warmest greetings to all who have come together for your 2010 Global Forum on Modern Direct Democracy…
I am glad you have chosen California to showcase direct democracy. Groups like yours are crucial to fueling the debate that is allowed by our land of freedom.
Today is the last day for ballot initiatives to qualify to make it into the November election. Seven measures have already made it on, the Secretary of State’s website says. Probably the most prominent is the measure that would legalize and regulate the growth, sale and use of marijuana.
Residents plan to pursue a ballot initiative to force the city to pay for street sweeping after the City Council passed on the costs for the services to residents earlier this month. Duarte gave its licensed trash hauler, Burrtec Waste Services, the authority to take over street sweeping duties and begin billing residents directly. The city’s general fund paid for the services before the change was made at the June 8 City Council meeting.
Two employee unions and a resident filed a lawsuit today (June 23) against the city of Menlo Park and a resident involved in the effort to place an initiative on the November ballot that would alter pension benefits for new employees. The unions and Menlo Park resident Katy Rose, who is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, held a press conference at noon today (June 23) at the Menlo Park Civic Center to announce the legal challenge; the lawsuit asserts that the pension reform initiative violates the California Constitution, and asks that it be kept off the ballot.
Assemblyman Dan Logue, R-Linda, was elated this week to learn his initiative to suspend the state’s anti-global warming law made the November ballot. In a phone interview, Logue said he found out Tuesday the initiative had enough valid signatures. He said the initiative needed 440,000 signatures and it got 800,000. The names were collected by volunteers and paid “signature gatherers,” he said. AB32 became law in 2006. It provides that between 2012 and 2020, greenhouse gas emissions will be reduced to the levels they were in 1990.