My fellow Californians and friends,
I haven’t seen a diary dedicated to CA propositions since this excellent one by LAForward on Oct 12. So, let’s talk about the Propositions.
I present the Props in order, summarize them as I understand them, and then give the old thumb’s up or thumb’s down. This diary is not meant to be definitive. It is meant to start continue a discussion for those of us who haven’t voted and are still figuring out the Props. If you have voted and understand the Props, please join in to help the rest of us.
Prop 1 Affordable Housing. $4 billion in bonds to fund affordable housing for low-income families, farmworkers, and veterans.
Supported by WVA, DAV, Habitat for Humanity, the Sierra Club, a host of other good-guy orgs. What’s not to like? Yes.
Prop 2 – Housing for the Mentally Ill. $2 billion in bond funding to provide supportive housing homeless Californians with mental illness.
Almost all mental health advocacy and service groups support Prop 2. One problem, the environmental angle of housing not addressed. Not a deal breaker in any way. Yes
Prop 3 — Delta Water Tunnels. 8 billion bond to fund water infrastructure. Giveaways to Big Ag. And negative environmental consequences.
Sierra Club gives a big thumbs down, and so should we. NO
Prop 4 – Children’s Hospitals $1.5 billion bond measure to upgrade tech and services for the poor.
I don’t even need to think about this. Yes
Prop 5 – Expand Prop 13 (1978). Anti-tax crusader Jarvis’s Prop 13 kicked of the Reagan Revolution.
Hell No.
Prop 6 – Repeal Increase in Gas Tax. This is just about getting Repubs to the polls.
Gas needs to be taxed more, not less. Our statewide urban planning needs more funding. No
Prop 7 – Daylight Savings
No opinion
Prop 8 – Regulate Dialysis Centers. Dialysis Centers are making a bit of a killing. Literally.
If you favor more regulation of the health care, yes. I do, so yes.
Prop 10 – Repeal the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which severely restricts cities and counties’ authority to expand or amending rent control laws.
This is a hard one. I am pro tenant, and pro rent control, but watching the haphazard approach taken by this state the past 40 years has greatly concerned me. The ol’ laboratories of democracy argument has just brought us more and more urban sprawl based on car culture. Either that, or rent-controlled San Francisco, which is just a mess as far as affordable housing goes. And the rent control is part of that mess.
We need a state wide, top down, bottom up decades long plan to deal with the further urbanization of our state.
So, I’m reluctantly voting no, though it is a very tough call for me, and can easily see how someone else could vote yes.
Prop 11 – Ambulance Drivers Always On-Call, overturning a California Supreme Court decision.
C’mon, let’s give these people a break. Literally.
No.
Prop 12 – An animal welfare measure. Mandate minimum floor space for pigs calves at hens at one square foot.
If you care about the ethical treatment of animals, vote yes. If you care about the quality of your food, vote yes. If you don’t care about either, don’t.
I care about both. Yes