The Northcoast is gerrymandered for conservative Democrats, hence Huffman, Wood and McGuire, a trio of seat warmers of little distinction and less accomplishment, their expensive mailers notwithstanding. McGuire boasts the Redwood Trail which, count on it, will never become reality. Wood voted against the state’s version of single payer. Huffman went for the Hillary-Schumer-Pelosi Axis over Northcoast Democrat's strong support for Bernie. All three are to the political right of the majority of Northcoast Democrats and have been imposed on us by corporate-funded Demo Central. The AVA recommends No on all three of them. It has been at least fifty years since Democrats represented working people, and Republicans sure as hell don’t represent working people, leaving millions of us with One Two-Headed Party running errands for the wealthy.
Governor
Gavin Newsom: This guy’s going to be president so get used to him. He has demonstrated some political courage, at least when he was confined to San Francisco, successfully defeating Frisco’s insane policy of handing drug addicts and drunks nearly $400 a month. Cash. Of course the care part of Newsom’s Care Not Cash never materialized and the streets of Baghdad by the Bay have never been as squalid as they are today, a sad fact brought to us by party-line Democrats. Newsom’s for the truly insane high speed train project and is about the same as Jerry Brown on all other state issues. The glib, fast-talking Gav will be more of the same as he preps for the White House.
John Cox: A conservative Catholic — against abortion and the death penalty but for medical marijuana and tolerant of gay concerns — Cox opposes Trump who has nonetheless endorsed him. Not as insane on the issues as most Republicans, but no match for Newsom with his piles of money from Big Democrat who will crush the upstart papist.
Vote 3rd party for Governor.
Lieutenant Governor: A purely ceremonial post contested by a pair of interchangeable hack Democrats. Who cares?
Secretary of State: Padilla is a machine Demo but narrowly preferable to Republican Meuser. Padilla.
State Controller: It seems like Betty Yee has been in office forever. And she has in one capacity or another. A long time member of the San Francisco Democrat machine, Yee, a career officeholder, had "served" on the State Board of Equalization at a fancy salary prior to her election as State Controller. If you're as estranged from the Democrats as we are, vote for the other person (Konstantinos Roditis) as a No vote on Democrats.
State Treasurer: Fiona Ma has not distinguished herself as a SF supervisor but, as a CPA she’s at least qualified for this job, as is her CPA Republican opponent. No real diff between the two. Ma by a nose.
Attorney General: We’re for Becerra because mercy tends to be more likely with a Democrat than it is with a Republican retired judge like Bailey. Becerra.
Insurance Commissioner: Poizner over Lara because Poizner is registered Independent and is more likely to be independent of the rapacious industry that preys on all of us.
State Board of Equalization: Party Democrat off the San Francisco Board of Supervisors versus a Republican realtor. No choice.
United States Senator: De Leon will be a marginal improvement over Diane Feinstein. De Leon.
2nd District Representative: Incumbent Huffman vs. Dale Mensing, Republican grocery store clerk out of Garberville. Mensing!
State Senator: Veronica Jacobi vs. incumbent Mike McGuire. Jacobi has real credentials as an engineer and a business owner. McGuire voted for SB 901 that protects PG&E while shifting more costs to ratepayers and wildfire victims, relieving the power monopoly of the consequences of its negligence and generally weakening environmental protections into the non-bargain. McGuire abstained on limiting open carry, and on giving farmworkers the same rights on overtime pay as other workers and preventing deportation of immigrants for minor drug offenses. He voted to weaken requirements to reduce methane pollution (84 times more potent than carbon dioxide). Vote for Jacobi.
State Assembly: Matt Heath is a Republican who cites fatherhood as a reason for voting for him. Dude! Anybody can do it. It qualifies you for nothing, but incumbent Wood? Vote for Daddy as a protest against Wood.
Vote NO on all the incumbent judges who are all Democrat-appointed, life sinecure holders who have the arrogance of revealing nothing of themselves on the ballot, appearing thereon for mere re-anointment by us saps. Vote No on all of them.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction: Anyone in full possession knows that the public schools need to be totally re-structured, having become an immovable blob of entrenched interests that prepares no child for life in a crumbling society, especially the children of the large majority of parents. Most of you will have noted that the wealthy abandoned the public schools years ago, a clear case of the rats leaving a ship they knew had sunk. Of the two guys running for Superintendent? Thurmond seems more in touch with the entropic morass schools have become. Thurmond.
Supervisors
Third District: Haschak v. Pinches
Fifth District: Williams v. No one
Pinches for Third District Supe because he's frugal, creative, truly independent, although Haschak, improved lately as a candidate, seems to be tardily more familiar with the issues. He did well in the recent debate with Pinches in Willits. And we certainly agree with Haschak’s opposition to the recent pay raises for the County’s bigwigs as they prioritize themselves over the County’s line workers, and not for the first time. Haschak’s major downside, in our opinion, is his financial support from outside Democrats of the large type, including endorsements by the Demo machine that controls the Northcoast — Wood, McGuire, Huffman et al. County admin desperately wants Haschak because they see him as another Yes vote for continued featherbedding and mutual congratulation sessions in lieu of the public's business. Sensible people will vote Pinches.
Williams for 5th District Supervisor, although so far it's unclear why he wants the job, employing “job” in its loosest sense, at least the way the incumbents are doing it. There’s a cavernous disconnect between what the present County leadership says it’s doing and, objectively, actual results. The bi-monthly meetings are festivals of delusion, Potemkin-like affairs heavy on managerial self-congratulation that do not coincide with reality, kinda like meds time in an asylum. Candidates Haschak and Williams, if they think there isn’t massive dysfunction at the top, if they think the present functioning of the supervisors is acceptable, will be more of the same. Pinches has always been about getting ‘er done and unafraid to buck the management which, in theory, works for the elected supervisors.
Fort Bragg City Council: Lindy Peters, Ruben Alcala, Tess Albin-Smith, Bobby Burns, Jessica Morsell-Haye, Mary Rose Kaczorowkski, (Three seats up) Incumbents Cimolino and Turner are not running. We like Alcala, Albin-Smith and Lindy.
Point Arena City Council: Incumbent Barbara Burkey is the only candidate running for two seats. We think she can easily fill both or all the seats for a town that seems to exist solely to fund a couple of expensive part-time managers.
Ukiah City Council: Jim Brown and Maureen Mulheren (incumbents) with Chon Travis, Ed Haynes, Matt Froneberger and Juan Orozco running for three seats. Incumbent Kevin Doble is not running.
Travis is certainly the most exciting council candidate in some time but, having been busted by the Ukiah PD for meth possession in 2011 (which he claimed was planted on him), excitement isn't enough to doggedly sort out the business of running Ukiah. Haynes and Orozco for sure; Haynes especially will be an asset for good government on a weak and fiscally irresponsible council, second in general dereliction only to the County Board of Supervisors. Orozco is the only candidate for Prop 10 (rent control) while Brown and Mulheren opposed it as interference with private property, but had no prob giving CostCo about $6 million in infrastructure freebies. Mr. O has also argued for sensible garbage rates for one-can pick-ups who shouldn’t pay the same high rates as Ukiahans who generate much more detritus. Ukiah is not a wealthy community. Orozco would be a voice for citizens currently not represented.
Willits City Council: Incumbent Larry Stranske, Greta Kanne and Jeremy Hershman are running for two seats. Incumbent Ron Orenstein is not running. We support Kanne based on input from people we consider grounded. Stranske definitely deserves re-election. Willits’ city government seems to cook along competently enough given the dearth of complaints about it.
Coast Hospital Board: Incumbent Kevin Miller, John Redding, Jade Tippett, Amy Beth McColley, and Jessica Grindberg are running for 3 long term seats (Incumbents Kitty Bruning, and Peter Glusker are not running). Also, Karen Arnold and Rex Gressett are running for incumbent Tom Birdsell’s short term seat (appointed incumbent).
People we trust, including Dr. Glusker who is retiring from the board, recommend Arnold, Redding and Grinberg. No, we don’t care if Redding’s a Catholic and generally conservative. We're of course partial to our ace Coast Correspondent, R. Gressett, but want him to focus on his journalo-responsibilities.
Statewide Ballot Measures
Proposition 1 — Authorizes Bonds to Fund Specified Housing Assistance Programs. Legislative Statute. YES. With many Americans now sleeping in their cars and on the streets, it’s past time for an effective federal housing programs of the New Deal type, but some money at the state level is better than no adequate money at all levels.
Proposition 2 — Authorizes Bonds to Fund Existing Housing Program for Individuals with Mental Illness. Legislative Statute. YES, although we desperately need to re-institute state hospitals. The pure numbers of people driven insane by our present social-political order need more than fiscal bandaids.
Proposition 3 — Authorizes Bonds to Fund Projects for Water Supply and Quality, Watershed, Fish, Wildlife, Water Conveyance, and Groundwater Sustainability and Storage. Initiative Statute. YES. Water quality and quantity is deteriorating faster than it can be intelligently managed, but Prop 3 is a step forward but its downside is cheap water for water-profligate corporate farms, but this one contains the good and the bad.
Proposition 4 — Authorizes Bonds Funding Construction at Hospitals Providing Children’s Health Care. Initiative Statute. YES
Proposition 5 — Changes Requirements for Certain Property Owners to Transfer their Property Tax Base to Replacement Property. Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. NO. Pedaled by the real estate industry under the guise of breaks for empty nesters left rattling around in big houses who, if 5 passes, get a tax break on a smaller place. The prob is while real estate sales would undoubtedly increase as people downsize, property tax incomes to local jurisdictions would fall, not that we’re happy with the management of our property taxes here in Mendocino County. This prop would do nothing to ease the housing shortage as its funders, the real estate combines, suggest.
Proposition 6 — Eliminates Certain Road Repair and Transportation Funding. Requires Certain Fuel Taxes and Vehicle Fees be Approved by The Electorate. Initiative Constitutional Amendment. NO. Not a good time to roll back the gas tax, onerous as it is, with infrastructure crumbling throughout the state.
Proposition 7 — Conforms California Daylight Saving Time to Federal Law. Allows Legislature to Change Daylight Saving Time Period. Legislative Statute. YES
Proposition 8 — Regulates Amounts Outpatient Kidney Dialysis Clinics Charge for Dialysis Treatment. Initiative Statute. YES. Years ago, I accompanied a friend to one of these blood-washing joints in Santa Rosa. My friend had been blackballed from several for complaining about conditions which, in the place I saw, were demonstrably poor. Syndicates of greedy doctors own these most lucrative businesses which, in the advanced countries of the world, are part of single-payer medical systems where they rightly belong. Imagine your kidneys owned by faceless collections of medical exploiters, and that’s what we presently have. Don't let them dump responsibility for their most expensive and/or troublesome patients onto emergency rooms. Yes.
Proposition 9 (On July 18, 2018, Proposition 9 was removed from the ballot by order of the California Supreme Court. It was the Divide California into thirds initiative.)
Proposition 10 — Expands Local Governments’ Authority to Enact Rent Control on Residential Property. Initiative Statute. YES. Doesn’t go nearly far enough and, in the spine-free political context of elected Mendo, unlikely to be initiated anywhere on the "progressive" Northcoast.
Proposition 11 — Requires Private-Sector Emergency Ambulance Employees to Remain On-Call During Work Breaks. Eliminates Certain Employer Liability. Initiative Statute. NO. Corporate-owned ambulance services are behind this one as a way to chisel free work out of first responders.
Proposition 12 — Establishes New Standards for Confinement of Specified Farm Animals; Bans Sale of Noncomplying Products. YES. Seems common health sense to us unless you’re indifferent to the chicken on your plate spending its short life getting shot up with chemicals in a cage so small the thing can’t even turn around. And then you eat it. Yes.
And, as a public service, we're also providing some other perspectives, previously published on this website:
Rod Jones (Fort Bragg): https://www.theava.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Rods-Nov-Prop-Guide.pdf
Jim Shields (Laytonville): https://www.theava.com/archives/89201#11
Eric Kirk (Redway): https://www.theava.com/archives/89239#23
Here’s the bad news: there is no way to vote for any third party for governor or any other office as none are on the ballot and no write-ins are permitted either in this final round of the “open primary” system. What kind of an election is that? good question!