Some folks have been asking me for my advice on the ballot. Hopefully you have all sent in your ballots by now, and I apologize for taking so long to do this. But if that mail in ballot is still sitting on the table because you can’t find the time to do the research, here’s what I suggest. Most of these choices have been made after our last Conversation in the Garden where we discussed these choices at length and I even had my mind changed on a few things. And if you haven’t mailed in your ballot yet, you can hand deliver it to most libraries rather than mail it at this time.

Governor – Gavin Newsom

Lieutenant Governor – A toss up –  I heard that Ed Hernandez voted against the people in his district when that gas explosion burned down an entire neighborhood. He is in the pockets of the Sempra, whereas Eleni is in the pockets of developers – so pick your poison – at least they are both Democrats.

Secretary of State – Alex Padilla

Controller – Betty Yee

Treasurer – Fiona Ma

Attorney General – Xavier Becerra

Insurance Commissioner – Ricardo Lara

Board of Equalization – Both are bad – Even though Schaefer is a Democrat, I learned that he is a wife beater – no man who beats women will ever get my vote, so I left this one blank.

Senator – I was leaning toward Feinstein just because the situation in DC requires someone with power and experience, but she never met a war she didn’t love, so I voted for de Leon – time for a younger energy – they are the ones who are going t have to live with the decisions made.

US Representative – 53^rd District – Susan Davis – only because we need every Democrat we can get. But someone seriously needs to run against her – she’s not fighting for ordinary people.

State Assembly – 79^th District – Shirley Weber – I wish she would broaden her focus beyond education – but she’s doing a bang-up job in that area.

Judicial

Corrigan
– No

Kruger – Yes

Irion – Yes

Haller – No

Huffman – No

Benke – No

Aaron – Yes

Dato – Yes

Guerrero – Yes

Miller – No

Fields – Yes

McKinster – No

Slough – Yes

Thompson – Yes

Ikola – Yes

Goethals – Yes

Superior Court 37 – Matt Brower

Superintendent of Public Instruction – Tony Thurman ( Tuck is in the pocket of Charter Schools)

San Diego Community College District A – Maria Nieto Senour

San Diego Community College District C – Craig Milgrim

San Diego Community College District E – Sean Elo (If Alvarez runs for County Supervisor next election, I’d vote for him if I was in his district, but he shouldn’t be taking this job on the Board of Education just to fill the time when he has other plans. I’ve heard great things about Elo.)

San Diego Unified School District – District B –Kevin Beiser (But really, Kevin, stop being a politician and concentrate on the students)

San Diego Unified School District – District C – Michael McQuarry

County Board of Supervisors – Nathan Fletcher (If I hear that anyone I know voted for Dumanis – we are not talking – ever!)

Propositions

Prop 1 –  Yes – But then we need to pay attention to how this money is spent

Prop 2 – Yes – But then we need to pay attention to how this money is spent

Prop 3 – No

Prop 4 – Yes

Prop 5 – No (a break for the wealthy who don’t need it, not for most of us)

Prop 6 – No (Tell DiMaio to crawl back in his unrepaired pothole and stop putting all of us at risk just to score points with his no taxes for the common good  base)

Prop 7 – Yes (Just stop the pain of figuring out how to change my car clock every six months)

Prop 8 – No (Opposition is spending billions to oppose this – must be a reason to make that investment. Whatever happened to truth in advertising?)

Prop 10 – Yes (Another one with the opposition spending lots of money to propagate lies. Don’t believe the investor/real estate elite who don’t want any restrictions on pure greed. We need some kind of control on rent increases because the scarcity of affordable housing is giving landlords free rein to throw hardworking renters into the street. Besides, this just gives cities the power to make the regulations – it’s still up to each community to decide what’s best.)

Prop 11 – No (Emergency workers make minimum wage as it is – now you want them to work through their breaks? Just hire more workers and stop being greedy pigs)

Prop 12 – Yes (Do unto the animals as you would have done unto you. I can’t believe how the opposition gets away with outright lies on this one too!

County Measures A, B & C – No (These are all underhanded bullshit efforts to keep Republican control of the County no matter who we elect.)

County Measure D – Yes (If we had this in place this year, we wouldn’t be stuck with Stephan Summers as DA and Gore as Sheriff.

City Measure E & G – No on both (Let’s use this precious land to solve the homeless crisis which continues to get worse because we need VERY affordable housing, and until we get it, we shouldn’t be building soccer stadiums and river parks – and BTW convention center expansions too – Housing the poor and vulnerable needs to be a priority. Let’s get people housed and then you can do this other stuff. And let the City be the developer, and hire local workes at living wages.

City Measure J – Yes (Transparency is always a yes)

City Measure K – Yes (This one’s for you Zapf)

City Measure L – Yes  (Sounds good to me)

City Measure M – Yes (Don’t know much about this – but others I respect have recommened a yes)

City Measure N – No (Just because I’m not too happy with SDPD these days)

School Measure H – Yes (I’m conflicted on this because there is value to experience, but 12 years is long enough to let in some new blood.)

Measure YY – Yes (As long as this doesn’t involve giving guns to teachers)