California
The Lakeport city council has voted to sent the issue of allowing fireworks in the city to a vote. Residents supporting fireworks in the city collected nearly 700 signatures on a petition to bring the vote.
Read the story from the Lake County News
By now, any Californian who has not been hounded to sign a petition for a ballot initiative must never go grocery shopping or strolling along a downtown street. The paid signature gatherers are abundant, they are aggressive and sometimes they are deceptive in their pitches. Most of them have an incentive to be pushy and not quite forthright: They are being paid by the signature.
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A ballot initiative that would put a vote on allowing safe and sane fireworks in the city before residents is on the Lakeport City Council agenda this Tuesday. The council will hold a budget workshop with staff beginning at 4 p.m., with the regular council meeting to begin at 6 p.m. at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St. The fireworks initiative effort began after the council voted 3-2 this spring to ban safe and sane fireworks in the city, as Lake County News has reported.
Citizens for California Reform has launched the petition drive to qualify for the November 2010 ballot the Part-Time Citizen Legislature Proposition. The measure is a constitutional amendment that returns California to a citizen legislature and petitions can be downloaded from the website www.reformcal.com.
California state lawmakers would be tested for drugs on the first day of every session under a proposed initiative. The initiative backers plan to collect the roughly 434,000 signatures they need using all volunteers. Initiative experts say the campaign likely will not make the ballot supporters do not use paid signature gatherers.
What’s in a stadium name? Potentially millions for the city’s park system, said a supervisor who wants the city to reverse it’s policy on naming rights at Candlestick Park. Supervisor Bevan Dufty wants a measure on the November ballot allowing the city to sell naming rights there again once the 49ers lease expires.
Paying more sales tax and shelling out an additional vehicle license fee are two items edging closer to the November ballot for San Francisco voters to consider. The City has a proposed budget for the fiscal year that began July 1, but expected state cuts and next year’s projected revenue shortfall make deeper cuts inevitable if there are no additional revenue sources found. There’s broad support for a local vehicle license fee ”” which could only be imposed pending the passage of state legislation ”” that could generate about $43 million a year.
Petitions to recall three-fifths of the City Council can officially be circulated, but a tight self-imposed deadline by proponents of the action leaves only about three weeks to collect 2,551 signatures for each politician they are trying to remove from office. City Clerk Lucy Mallonee has declared that recall petitions for Mayor Tommy Jones, Councilman Joe Sousa and Councilwoman Elizabeth Stone meet state regulations and can be put in circulation. The recall committee, which is trying to make the Nov.
The union representing San Diego County employees announced Tuesday a signature-gathering effort for a ballot initiative that would limit members of the Board of Supervisors to two four-year terms. The initiative’s backers have 180 days to collect the more than 77,000 signatures required to qualify the measure for the June 2010 ballot, according to Melinda Battenberg, with SEIU Local 221.
An effort is under way to get a measure on the California ballot that would require drug and alcohol testing for members of the state Legislature. If a lawmaker tests positive, they would not get paid until they finish a substance abuse program. And if they test positive twice, the lawmaker would be forced to resign.
A recent editorial in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News takes a shot at California’s much-maligned initiative process, claiming Utah’s highly restricted ballot initiative process to be superior. Much of the blame for California’s current financial woes has been misdirected at the state’s ballot initiative process, and the historic Proposition 13 property tax limitation in particular.
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.
As California’s financial woes deepen, a coalition of tax reform and labor groups has filed a proposed ballot initiative for 2010 that would eliminate an estimated $2.5 billion worth of corporate tax breaks that the governor and state lawmakers approved since last September.