Berkeley Candidates: Mayor, Council, School, & Rent Board

• Berkeley School Board: Beatriz Appel Leyva-Cutler & Judy Appel
• Berkeley Mayor: Capitelli #1
• Berkeley Council District 2: Darryl Moore #1, Nanci Armstrong-Temple #2
• Berkeley Council District 3: Ben Bartlett #1
• Berkeley Council District 5: Stephen Murphy #1
• Berkeley Rent Board: Judy Hunt, Leah Simon-Weisberg, Alejandro Soto-Vigil, & Igor Tregub

Berkeley School + City Measures

• E1: YES YES for Berkeley’s schools
• T1: YES to fix city infrastructure
• U1: YES YES to fund affordable housing with a tax on landlord’s rent receipts
• DD: NO NO to reject large landlords’ deceptive smoke screen that has worse policy
• V1: YES to let the city spend money it has raised in taxes
• W1: YES to use citizen redistricting commission set city council districts
• X1: YES to give matching funds to Mayoral/Council candidates
• Y1: YES to allow 16&17 year-olds to vote in school board elections
• Z1: YES to allow city to build homes for low-income families
• AA: YES to clean up rent control provisions
• BB & CC: NO, because Berkeley City Council reached a good compromise on minimum wage

BART, AC Transit, & Alameda County measures + candidates

Yes on AC, BART, & Alameda County housing, and elect Saltzman and Simon for BART:

• AC Transit Measure C1: YES YES to support bus service (AC Transit)
• AC Transit At-Large: Chris Peeples
• BART Measure RR: YES YES to keep BART safe and reliable
• BART District 3: Rebecca Saltzman
• BART District 7: Lateefah Simon
• BART Districts 1, 5, and 9: Contact me if you want my opinion
• Alameda County Measure A1: YES YES to build more affordable housing
• Contra Costa County Measure X: Contact me

Nov 2016 State Propositions

How I'm voting on the November 2016 State propositions

Lots of propositions, lots of decisions. Here are my choices for the state propositions: details are in the many pages below the jump. I’ll write up local measures and candidates in a separate post.

51: YES for K-12 & Community College facilities 52: Leaning YES to Use Hospital Fees to get Federal Funds for Medi-Cal -- Comments welcome! 53: NO NO to Statewide votes on local projects 54: NO to Over-Complicated Prescription of Legislative Operations 55: YES YES to have the 1.5% pay for for Schools & Healthcare 56: YES YES for Cigarette Tax to Fund Healthcare and Tobacco Use Prevention. 57: YES YES for Criminal Justice Reform 58: YES YES to Allow Bilingual Education 59: YES to Clarify that Corporations are not Human Beings 60: NO to a Badly-written measure about condoms in porn films 61: Leaning YES to Reduce Costs of Drugs - Comments Welcome 62: YES YES, a million times YES to Repeal the Death Penalty 63: YES to prohibit possession of large capacity ammunition magazines 64: YES on Marijuana Legalization 65: Leaning NO on Deceptive Plastic Bags Measure 66: NO NO NO - Don’t make it easier to impose death sentences 67: YES to Confirm Legislature’s Ban on Single-use Bags

How I'm voting, June 2016

Here's a summary of how I'm voting in the June 2016 primary. Since this is a relatively short ballot, I'll put it all in one post, starting with the bottom of the ballot and moving up to the top (I know, most people do it the other way, but I think my biggest value-add is the down-ballot races that you're less likely to research). 

On the local elections, I feel very strongly about Scott Jackson for Judge (Seat #1).

I also put some thought and research into the Alameda County Democratic Party Central Committee, 15th Assembly District (vote for 9 of 17): Brett Badelle, Elizabeth Echols, Bonnie Wheatley, Vincent Casalaina, Andy Kelley, Floyd Huen, Kate Harrison, Dianne Martinez, and Cecilia "Ces" Rosales.

On the state & federal elections, I’m voting Democrats. In contested races, I'm voting Harris (U.S. Senate) and I'm leaning towards Swanson over Skinner (Senate D9).

For details of these and lots of other races, see the rest of this post.

As always, thoughtful comments welcome, and I encourage you to sign in so I know who's commenting.

November 2014 recommendations

This is my summary of recommendations for the November 2014 election. This post will is evolving, and I'll update it as I research and decide my positions, and I'll probably take some of the races on or off the list. 

Most importantly: YES YES YES on Alameda County Measure BB: Crucial Transit Improvements

The whole list goes roughly from the bottom of your ballot to the top (races in italics are the ones I haven't settled on yet -- but I plan to!). If there's a race missing that you want more info on, post a comment!!

Berkeley Council: D-1 Maio, D-7 Barry, D-8 Alvarez Cohen #1 + Droste #2

For Berkeley elected officials, I'm simply going to quote my friend Nathan Landau, whose opinion I share on most things Berkeley. I also added campaign website links for each of the candidates we like: