live report by Jessica Chandler
Doug Chan trailing behind Ed Jew, Ron Dudum, and Jaynry Mak in District 4’s tight race seems relaxed and happy tonight. Supporters packing Dragon Lounge, a local bar at 24th and Taraval, are leaving early, feeling that with rank voting the results are still fully unknown.
By Tim Redmond
Nobody’s talking much about D-21 and D-10, and for good reason; They were foregone conclusions. Michela Alioto-Pier and Sophie Maxwell have cruised easily to re-election. So the new board will have four of five incumbents returning: Daly, Maxwell, Alioto-Pier and Dufty. Only the open seat, D-4, will send a new representative to City Hall.
By Tim Redmond
And there was just a huge whoop of happiness when word flashed across the screen at City Hall that Chris Daly has 49.9 percent of the vote, and is virtually guaranteed re-election.
There’s more: The School Board looks like Jane Kim, Hydra Mendoza and Kim-Shree Maufas. John Rizzo has displaced Johnny Carter, adding another badly needed reformer to the Community College Board.
In District 4, it’s still a toss-up — Ron Dudum is narrowly ahead of Ed Jew and Jaynry Mak, and this one will go into overtime.
live report by James Woodard
As early numbers roll in, Pat Kernighan is being cautiously optimistic at his election night party being held at Sushi Zone on Ninth Street in downtown Oakland. Supporters of Kernighan, including Oakland City Council President, Ignacio de la Fuente, are calling her a woman of action and someone who works hard for Oakland, whether or not everyone likes her position.
Live report from Sarah Phelan
The booze flowed freely and the jumbo shrimp glistened on the napkins of a crowd of adoring fans at Bevan Dufty’s celebration at Lime. Well in the lead to be reelected as Supervisor in District 8, Dufty appeared to be cock of the walk, with his newborn in his arms and his child’s birth mother at his side. He told the crowd, “I’m ready to make my move” and then mumbled something about the SFPD, clearly aimed at the members of the SFPD in the audience. Then he acknowledged the presence of fellow Supervisor Sean Elsbernd in the crowd and lauded him for his “bravery in supporting gay marriage, when he has to drive west of Twin Peaks on his way home.”
By G.W. Schulz
I showed up at Marie Harrison’s beautiful Bayview-Hunter’s Point home on Quesada Street early at around 7 o’clock. A handful of supporters began to appear along with her husband, son, daughter-in-law and a few others.
If you’ve never seen Harrison’s block, go there. It will change your entire perception of the southeast neighborhoods if you haven’t seen the strip of stunning homes and meticulously maintained gardens that split Quesada complete with veggies and big flowers.
By Tim Redmond
The big news of the night is that Mayor Gavin Newsom is taking a serious beating. The two candidates he invested the most time and political capital in — Rob Black and Doug Chan — are both going down to a clear defeat. In District 4, Chan has pretty much dropped off the map, with Ed Jew, Ron Dudum and Jaynry Mak locked in a close struggle for first place. This race will almost certainly come down to the IRV runoff.
“The mayor may be popular, but he has no coat tails,” Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told me.
The bigger story is how little impact big money has had in district elections. If Daly pulls it out, and it looks like he will, and Chan loses, which is almost certain at this point, then it’s a sign that downtown really can’t buy district races.
By Tim Redmond
Just got the word that the Democrats are being hammered all over the state, which is terrible news. Prop 90 is ahead by two points, but L.A. hasn’t been counted yet, so maybe there’s hope.
Here in SF, we just got new numbers on D8: Dufty’s a 65.3, which means he’s a clear winner. Alix Rosenthal is at 29.9. That seems to be the only race in which the progressives aren’t winning.
By Tim Redmond
The results are starting to roll in, and it’s a night for local progressives to remember. Chris Daly is well ahead in District 6, with 46 percent of the vote (to 41 percent for Rob Black). The School Board race is shaping up as a progressive victory, too, with Jane Kim in first followed by Hydra Mendoza and Kim-Shree Maufas. Dan Kelly has dropped to fifth place, and it appears his career on the School Board is over.
With the exception of the Parking Tax, all the progressive measures are passing, even Prop. H, the tenant-relocation bill that had a serious campaign against it.
The only downer is that Bevan Dufty is well ahead in District 8.
By Steven T. Jones
D8 challenger Alix Rosenthal have been watching the returns from our home with friends, waiting for some numbers before we headed down to her party at the 500 Club. The first big jump on the numbers puts Dufty at 65, Rosenthal at 30, and Starchild at 5. We’ve always know it would be an uphill battle and it’s not looking good, even though we expect Alix to gain ground as the half of the ballots that remain are counted. Alix has run hard in an exhausting race, but is still holding strong and feeling good about her underdog run at an incumbent with a ton of Establishment support. “It’s been an exhilarating experience We gave him a run for his money and made him a better supervisor for District 8 and the rest of the city,” Alix just told me.
Live report from Tim Redmond
I just spoke by cell phone to a Daly campaign staffer. The campaign has been monitoring the returns at the precinct level, checking the tags as they’re printed out of the machines before they go to City Hall. According to those reports, Daly is 950 votes ahead in the 27 precincts they’ve counted. That’s very good news.
The big news on the School Board is that Jane Kim is now in first place, followed by Hydra Mendoza and Dan Kelly. Kim is almost guaranteed victory. It’s possible that Kelly won’t make the final cut, and three new members will join the board.
Live report from Amanda Witherell
Slim’s is hosting a party for local ballot measure Prop A, the bond for SF schools. The bar is aswirl with San Francisco’s school crowd — those that are of age, at least, meaning current board members and hopefuls.
Live report from Sarah Phelan
Krissy Keefer, the candidate for Congress, District 8, rose amid a flurry of Peruvian pan pipes at Café Boheme, dressed in bright green, to address the crowd of her supporters. Her platform had been: US out of Iraq, impeach Bush, stop global warming. With Democrat Nancy Pelosi leading at 77 percent — looks like she may be the next Speaker of the House – Keefer had this to say:
“The most important thing now is to see if measure J passes. Pelosi has to look at what her district wants — impeachment for Bush. Her district was against the Iraq war from the start.
It’s time for Nancy Pelosi to take the interests of San Francisco and put them at the center rather than the margins. People from SF will be watching.”
By G.W. Schulz
District 10 incumbent Sophie Maxwell was winning by a large margin when I showed up at the Fanatics Sports Bar near Third Street and Cesar Chavez. About 75 supporters were around at that time among tables spread with confetti and food.
A group of large TVs were showing results on the walls, with former mayor Willie Brown flapping his jaw as a commentator on one of them.
Still no more results from here, but Chris Bowman, a Republican political consultant with a knack for calling races early, says Daly, Dufty and Alioto-Pier are headed for re-election. District 4, he says, is a “wild card”; with Ed Jew, Ron Dudum, Jaynry Mak and Doug Chan all neck and neck, it’s anybody’s to win or lose.
By Tim Redmond
Still very early, but it looks like this:
The leaders in the race for school board are Hydra Mendoza, Jane Kim and Dan Kelly. Interesting that Kelly, an incumbent, is in third for three slots, and that’s just the early votes. This bears watching. For now, though, good news for Jane Kim.
All the incumbents are way ahead in the Community College Board race. That will change, I think.
Big surprises in district four: So far, Ed Jew, who wasn’t even on my radar for this race, is ahead, but it’s very close: Ron Dudum is right behind him. Jaynry Mak and Doug Chan are well behind.
The only proposition that is behind (an d not far behind) is the tenant protection measure, H. It’s trailing 51-48. That’s not bad for early absentees.
By Tim Redmond
Well, the very, very early results are in and it looks surprisingly good for Chris Daly. Daly didn’t even run an absentee voters campaign, and the absentees are always conservative, but Black leads Daly just 784 to 700.
Bevan Dufty is well ahead of Alix Rosenthal, 1571 to 513.
By the way, the Dems just took the House.
By Tim Redmond
Not a whole lot going on here yet, no results yet and it will be a while. But nationally, the Democrats have picked up nine in the house. Good news so far.
The race that I find the most interesting is the Rhose Island Senate contest, where Lincoln Chaffee, a popular liberal Republican who opposed the war, lost anyway. People were so mad at Bush and the GOP that they voted against a Republican who had soaring popularity ratings.
Says something.
live report by Jon Beckhardt
The energy at Harry Ha’s restaurant on Irving isn’t exactly captiviting. Janry Mak’s core campaign has yet to show at the election night party being held there. “It’s hard to know,” one supporter, who refuses to give his name, says of Mak’s chances of becoming a Supervisor. “They say we won’t know the results until Friday. That’s San Francisco politics.”
By Tim Redmond
Well, so far, with East Coast results trickling in, the Democrats have picked up three seats in the Senate. The GOP has picked up nothing. Nada. Looking good for the Democrats.
The House is a little slower going. So far, the Democrats are up two.
By Tim Redmond
So, the folks at sfist posted an item earlier today about the door-hangers with the Guardian logo and the Guardian slate on them. Sfist got it wrong, then apologized, but I want to clear up any confusion here:
The Guardian doesn’t do slate cards.
We do endorsements, based on our own independent analysis of what’s best for the city, the state and the country. When we’re done, some of the candidates inevitably decide to quote from our endorsements or use our headlines or our logo to promote their campaigns. That’s fine with me — political campaigns use newspaper quotes, headlines and logos all the time. Even if it wasn’t fine with me, I don’t think there’s anything we could do to stop it.
A few years ago, some of the progressive campaigns got together and decided to reprint the entire list of Guardian endorsements as a door hanger “slate card.” Again: Fine with me. Again: Nothing I could do if it wasn’t. Once or twice since then, as a matter of courtesy, the campaigns have called to let me know what they’re doing. I always say the same thing: Please, out of courtesy, make it clear that the card you produce is neither paid for by nor produced by the Bay Guardian. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t.
In this case, I guess, there was some confusion, leading some to wonder if we “sold” our endorsements. We take our endorsments more seriously than anything else we do; just ask anyone who’s been through the process or anyone who’s ever worked here. We don’t control what individual campaigns do with our endorsements. But we aren’t involved, make no money off it, don’t control content, don’t decide where the doorhangers go and many times (like this year) didn’t even know it was happening.
Hope that clears things up.
The Chris Daly campaign just issued the following statement:
Almost 20 percent of the polling places in San Francisco’s District 6 are experiencing problems and irregularities in the early hours of Election Day, according to Supervisor Chris Daly’s campaign.
According to the Daly campaign, at least 10 out of 52 precincts have experienced problems ranging from late openings to voting machine failures to incomplete ballots. In one case, a precinct did not open until almost 90 minutes after the official 7 AM opening time, preventing many voters from casting their ballots. At the same time, the Department of Elections was telling the Daly campaign that the precinct was open. In another instance, witnesses saw a voting machine that was not turned on.
The Daly campaign encourages all media outlets to remind voters that the polls are open until 8 p.m. The campaign encourages all voters within District 6 to vote throughout the day.
By Tim Redmond
It’s a beautiful day, no rain in sight. I was driving my kids to school this morning through the Castro, and Alix Rosenthal was winning the battle of the people with street signs, if that matters. Polling places in Bernal Heights, where there is no supervisorial race, were pretty busy, which means turnout in D6, D4 and D8 should be high, too.
Robert Haaland is predicting Daly 51, Black 39, which would be nice. The reality is that there are more Daly voters than Black voters in the district, and if the Daly campaign can get them to the polls, he’ll win handily.
By G.W. Schulz
For locals familiar with the small town of Pacifica, nestled quietly off Highway 1 a few miles south of the city, major commercial development isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. It’s mostly a residential town with a Safeway, a Taco Bell, and not much else comprising its business community as far as chains go.
Over the years, various developers have targeted a patch of empty land near the beach that once served as an 87-acre rock quarry (known as Rockaway Quarry) until its owner grew old and Pacificans began using the now naturally outgrown tract as a network of unmarked trails.
An East Coast developer named R. Donahue Peebles bought the quarry last summer for $7.5 million and has pledged to build 350 exclusive hotel suites, 130 single-family homes, more than 200 town houses, live-work lofts and apartments, and an untold number of stores, such as the Gap and Trader Joe’s.
But Peebles is up against one thing that has stopped developers in the past: a 1983 city ordinance that requires any developer to receive voter approval before including a housing element in the quarry’s future. Pacifica has so much residential property as it stands that its early hope was to attract some commercial businesses to help fortify city coffers with new tax revenue. But Peebles stands to make a hefty chunk of change if housing is included in the development; he’s told the business press in the past that single-family homes on the property could range anywhere from $3 million to $8 million.
Peebles has so far shrewdly declined to submit an official plan to the city, but through a series of public meetings has been promising a mixture of housing and commercial elements, both designed with New Urbanism concepts.
When we first reported this story a few months ago, records we’d obtained from Pacifica’s City Hall showed Peebles had already spent $163,000 attempting to overcome the 1983 law with Measure L, which Pacifica residents will vote on today. Since then, we’ve learned that Peebles has spent $1.3 million, and critics are now complaining about two push polls residents have received in recent months. (One reported question: “Would you prefer this project or the big-box store it’s currently zoned for?”)
We noted that Peebles had hired a costly public relations firm (two staffers worked as communications hacks for both the Democratic AND Republican parties; only big money consulting gigs can truly ease partisan woes) and a group of Sacramento lawyers known for their success at carrying ballot measures. Tens of thousands more went to professional petition circulators. Peebles is no virgin to development battles. He’s played a role in erecting major hotels and commercial office buildings inside cities on the East Coast where cronyism and pay-to-play politics are a fact of everyday life.
And Peebles isn’t the first developer to take on Pacifica’s 1983 law. Just a few years ago, a publicly traded Texas developer named Trammell Crow spent nearly $300,000 in an attempt to build 165,000 square feet of retail space, over 300 apartments and townhouses and a town center. The effort was easily defeated by voters. Some concern over how development at the quarry would impact the area ecologically still exists today.
Rain or shine, opponents of Measure L say they’ll be taking a walk along the quarry this evening after an election party.
