It's time to vote, again
June ballot features mainly incumbents and three major ballot measures.

May 26, 2008

by Marion Softky
Almanac Staff

Welcome to the second of the three elections in 2008. With the excitement of California's Presidential Primary well behind, California voters in the June 3 primary will fill out the ticket for the November ballot.

On a relatively short ballot, voters in South San Mateo County will help select party candidates for Congress, the state Senate, and state Assembly; weigh in on three San Mateo County supervisors, one judge, and some party central committee members; and vote on two state and one local ballot measures.

Absentee voting started May 5, before some South County residents received their ballot information pamphlets. More than one-third of San Mateo County's 358,960 registered voters have signed up to vote by mail, according to Chief Elections Officer Warren Slocum.

Legislative candidates

Three incumbents face no opposition within their own party for the 14th Congressional District, the 11th state Senate district, and the 21st Assembly district.

Veteran Democratic Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, D-Menlo Park, however will face three opponents in November: the three candidates running unopposed in their party primaries. They are Republican real estate agent Ronny Santana; Green Party candidate Carol Brouillet, a nonprofit director and activist; and Libertarian Brian Holtz, an engineer and author.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, a Democrat from Palo Alto, will face Republican Blair Nathan in November.

Assemblyman Ira Ruskin of Redwood City will face Republican financial consultant Annalisa Yenne of Menlo Park in November.

Supervisors

Three county supervisors — Adrienne Tissier of Daly City, Mark Church of Millbrae, and Rose Jacobs Gibson of East Palo Alto — are running for another four-year term, which will start in January 2009. Supervisors Church and Jacobs Gibson face challengers; Supervisor Tissier, this year's president of the board, is running unopposed.

San Mateo County is one of the few counties in California where supervisors must live in a district but run at large. So all county voters vote on each supervisorial contest.

Ms. Jacobs Gibson, who is running for a third and final term, is facing a challenge from fellow East Palo Alton, John Bostic, a retired community college administrator who has served on the East Palo Alto City Council and is now a board member of the Ravenswood School District.

Ms. Jacobs Gibson, the first African-American to serve on the board, said she hopes to continue her work on eliminating disparities in health care, providing affordable housing, and promoting green building and green business. She also said she wants to focus on improving the community of North Fair Oaks in cooperation with its residents.

Mr. Bostic wants to focus more on strengthening the tax base and services in developing communities such as East Palo Alto, North Fair Oaks and Daly City. In a statement, he called for empowering the 150,000 county residents living under the poverty line, and improving health care for those who can't afford it.

Supervisor Church is facing a challenge from Demetrios Nikas of San Mateo. Mr. Nikas did not return a phone call. There is no information on him in the sample ballot pamphlet or on election Web sites.

Ballot measures

South County voters will see three ballot measures: San Mateo County's Measure O to raise money to improve county and city parks; and two competing measure that claim to tackle abuses of eminent domain.

Propositions 98 and 99 are opposing measures to curtail the power of eminent domain to take private property for private rather than public uses.

Proposition 98, backed by property rights and taxpayers groups, would be far more sweeping. It would prohibit rent control and drastically limit the ability of local governments to regulate private property. It is opposed by a wide range of government agencies, environmental organizations, and the League of Women Voters.

Proposition 99 would simply prohibit government from using eminent domain to acquire owner-occupied residences to be transferred to a private person or business. It has broad support from organizations that oppose Proposition 98.

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