Opinion Piece By Donna Westfall – June 6, 2018 –
First the good news. Measure A passed with 63.88% of the vote. Term limits shall be enacted for the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors. The term for office will be limited to three terms.
Now the other news:
Both Chris Howard and Gerry Hemmingsen will retain their seats on the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors: Howard with 66.10% over Jake Smith 33.64%; and Hemmingsen with 51.75% over closest runner up, Dave Mason with 25.50%. The current dynamic with Sup. Lowi Cowan (the Gang of 3) will in all probability continue the dysfunction this Board is known for.
All of the other offices with only one contender running resulted in a shoo-in.
Assessor – Jennifer Perry
Auditor/Controller – Clinton Schaad
Clerk/Recorder – Alissia Northrup
District Attorney – Katherine Micks
Sheriff – Erik Apperson
Superintendent of Schools – Jeff Harris
Superior Court Judge – Bob Cochran
Governor – there will be a runoff in November between – Gavin Newsom (D) 33.35% and John Cox (R) 26.18%.
Senator – there will be a runoff in November between 84 year old, Dianne Feinstein (D) and Kevin de Leon (D). Feinstein has 43.9% and looking at her sixth term. Feinstein, former San Francisco Mayor, has flip-flopped on a number of key issues during her terms in office, but both are steadfastly for gun control.
California Attorney General – Anthony Becerra (D) with 45% vs Steven Bailey (R) with 25%.
Superintendent of Public Instruction – Marshall Tuck with 37.1% vs Tony Thurmond with 34.3%. Can anyone in that office turn around the dismal education our children are receiving in public schools?
Assembly – Jim Wood, (D) incumbent with 67.4%.
Congressman – Jared Huffman (D) incumbent with 70.2%
State Senate – Mike McGuire with 75.9%. He’s been a tireless worker and the only politician outside of Del Norte County that bothered to attend Supervisor 5th District, Bob Berkowitz’s Daily Town Hall Meeting.
For those of us unhappy with the state of affairs shaped by the majority of the Democratic Party, creating the State of Jefferson is looking more and more attractive.
THE PROPOSITIONS:
#68, 69, 71 and 72 – As of four hours ago, with 94.8% of the vote in – have passed while #70 did not.
68 – This means that bond funding for parks was approved.
69 – diverting funds for transportion will no longer happen
70 – requiring supermajority vote to govern future climate change spending will not happen.
71 – ballot measures that are passed will take effect 5 days after the Secretary of State certifies the results.
72 – Excluded rain water capture systems added to properties after January 1, 2019, from counting as new construction. This means that the taxable value of the property would not increase for those wanting to capture rainwater.
Keep in mind that if the candidacy of Gerry Hemmingsen is successful, he received at this point 546 votes of a possible 3141, or 17% of his voting constituency. Not very impressive for a representative. Also, there are still 700 some odd ballots yet to be counted County wide as of late this afternoon. Too close to call according to election officials, as 39 votes in the 700 can put him at less than 50% of the cast votes. Slim possibility of a run off in the fall if some kind of move for votes occurs in those 700 ballots. In spite of the greater margin of victory, Chris Howard didn’t do all that much better in the eyes of his district’s voters. Only a bit over 32% of the registered voters turned out. Pretty sad.
Well if that’s how you want to look at it I guess it looks pretty bad for Hemmingsen’s challengers too: Mason got 10.3%, Phillips got 4.5%, and Daley got 4.4% of the registered voters in Distric 4 whereas Hemmingsen’s final tally puts him at 20.3%. It’s even more pronounced in District 3 where the voters spoke even more clearly to a tune of 28.9% of registered voters supporting Howard and 14.5% supporting Smith.
Just an observation, but what I find amazing, and frankly sad, is since this post has been up no one but no one has made any comment about this TRAIN WRECK.
However, with that being said I am quite pleased, that even though we could be looking
at gridlock, Cox won over Allen. And, there will be another opportunity to flush Feinstein in November.