Proposition Discussion Results

[mikz]

Yesterday hopeforyou, kineticphoenix, riseorbleed, tgeller and I went through the propositions, with the occasional bit of peanut gallery input from jensolo. (I'm a bit miffed that only one of the three people who said last night was preferable actually turned up, since it was an impossible date for other people. Ah well.)

All of us have had major foo in our lives in the last week or so

Comments

(nods)

[gtonizuka]

I voted the same way on the California initiatives; a lot of the new energy bills seemed like cons by private companies under scrutiny.

[brooksmoses]

Isn't Proposition 7 the one that pretty much all the major environmental groups are opposing? (Hmm. I can check that: Yes, it is. I'd be pretty inclined to vote no on it, then

[mikz]

I was kinda hoping you'd show up the other night, actually. This is good reason why

[sexyjoodles]

I have looked into Proposition 7 quite a bit since I own a solar power company. At first when we as a industry heard about it around 9 months to 1 year ago, I was excited about the idea of increasing the RPS. Unfortunately, when I started to dig into the details it became clear that there were parts of the proposal that were not very good and in fact made it seem less likely to me that the RPS would be achieved. The main problem that I have with Prop 7 is that it changes compliance with the RPS from being based on installed renewable projects and moves it to allowing compliance using signed contracts which may or may not ever get installed. In addition, it puts a cap on how much utility costs can increase to pay for the additional renewables but adds in that all renewable projects need to have all labor paid at prevailing wage. This makes solar more expensive and less likely to be installed. There are also other administrative issues such as shifting certain responsibilities from the CPUC to the CEC which do not make a lot of sense

[mikz]

I can't think of a knowledgeable source on this topic that I'd trust more than you, so I'm convinced now. =) It's also very nice to hear from you, and to know that you still ready my LJ occasionally. I hope life's treating you and yours very well.

Re: Democracy - you do it differently from us

[mikz]

When I first got here I thought all this direct democracy was a great idea, but I'm no longer convinced. A lot of these things pass because they sound like good ideas but are badly implemented; the most visible example in my view is Proposition 65, which is frivolous at best and a legal headache for many. I'm more comfortable with the idea of smart people weighing out the pros and cons of bills and having staff to do the grunt work of finding out what's true. The trouble is, many people put in those positions aren't very smart, either, but I think that's still better than millions of people who are easily swayed by sound bites

Re: Democracy - you do it differently from us

[dawnd]

If I don't have good voter guides (stuff like this, or guides put out by groups I'm in alignment with, for instance), I have several "rules of thumb" for voting on propositions

Re: Democracy - you do it differently from us

[mikz]

These are pretty good rules of thumb. The thing I would add to (1) is claims that a proposition is a con, or 'follow the money'-if they don't have better arguments against than that, I take them with a grain of salt. I agree with the school funding exception for (2), and I would add any public transport project as well, because it is desperately, desperately, desperately needed-we're fucked if we don't break out of this car culture soon. I couldn't agree more strongly with (3), and (4) and (5) make sense, as does (6) for the most part... questioning the need for spending is one thing, but if a 'no' argument is just whinging about having to pay for services, it's far from convincing.

[tiger_spot]

Good heavens, you SF types have a lot of lettered initiatives. We only got four.

[brooksmoses]

What did you end up deciding on C and D? I haven't found anything very descriptive at all on those....

[tiger_spot]

(For the peanut gallery, C and D in Santa Clara County are about VTA planning. C is an advisory vote about the plan; D would eliminate the need for voters to approve future plans and set up some sort of committee instead.)

I voted no on both of them, on grounds (for C) that there is no plan so I can't possibly approve of it and (for D) that I was filling in a lot of no bubbles anyway so I might as well fill in one more (and a general default sense of change is bad).

I don't think either of them are particularly important.

[lostlo]

As a member of the VTA Riders Union, thanks for your no votes on C and D. D was an attempt by VTA to have less input from the public... which trust me, they don't need. They're already sinking a fortune into the BART extension they can't afford, by cutting back local bus service drastically. They really screwed over the disabled this year with the service change, and I had to start walking to work b/c they no longer come CLOSE to following a schedule.

I'm such a hippie for public transit, it really pains me to get worse service for higher fares in the BAY AREA than I did living in a crack neighborhood in central Florida.

Sorry, that turned into a rant. I just meant to say thanks!

[dawnd]

Thanks for the roundup. Have noted this post for future reference.

[dawnd]

Oh, and my sense is vote no on the Children's Hospital act. I've heard the vast majority of money goes to private hospitals, not public ones.