East Contra Costa County voters are in for a snoozefest during today’s Primary Election as all but one County race is running unopposed while the State and Congressional Races should be landslides while the Community College Bond should be the only real excitement for the day.
Here is a breakdown of today’s Primary which I encourage you all to vote regardless of where you stand on an issue, candidate, bond measure or current elected official.
Contra Costa Community College Bond – Measure E
Vote NO! I am not supporting this bond measure and neither should you. It will double the amount of taxes to property owners who already pay in added taxes to the Community College District. They already have passed to prior Bonds and are now asking for a third. Currently, property owners pay $13 per $100,000 of assessed home property value from bond measures passed in 2002 ($120 million) and 2006 ($286.5 million). If Measure E is passed, property owners are now on the hook for $26 per $100,000 assessed value. Unfortunately, there are many “pet projects” within this bond which ballooned the cost” instead of focusing only on needs.
Contra Costa County (running unopposed)
- Assessor – Gus S. Kramer
- Clerk-Recorder – Joseph Canciamilla
- District Attorney – Mark Peterson
- Sheriff-Coroner – David Livingston
- Treasurer-Tax Collector – Russell V. Watts
Note: You also have two Board of Supervisors in John Gioia and Karen Mitchoff both running unopposed in Contra Costa County
Auditor Controller – Contra Costa
- Ayore Riaunda
- Robert Campbell
While I enjoy that Ayore Riaunda is making a big deal about where the 1% of one’s property tax dollars are being spent and wants more transparency—more people should be paying attention to this—Campbell has done a fine job given where the County was years ago before he took office. Despite Riaunda’s claim of lack of transparency at the Controller’s Office, I disagree and applaud Campbell for being transparent when asked questions. Campbell should be the vote today.
California State Assembly – District 11
- Jim Frazier – D
- Alex Henthorn – R
We endorsed Jim Frazier in the primary and it holds true on Primary Election Day. He is the clear choice given Henthorns lack of experience, failure to answer questions about his employment as well as a failure to even run a campaign—he appears more interested in getting his name out there than work to improve this District. I will not, and cannot encourage others to support any candidate who refuses to answer questions until after the primary. Henthron is an embarrassment to the Republican Party at this point in time.
United States Congress – District 9
- Karen “Matthews” Davis – R
- Jerry McNerney – D
- Antonio C. “Tony” Amador – R
- Steve Anthony Colangelo – R
This race could have been fun, but so many Republican groups have decided not to endorse a republican candidate until after the primary because they call them “all good candidates”. What that tells me is they are all interchangeable and none of them can make an impact. With three republican candidates splitting the Republican vote, McNerney will dominate the primary by a good margin. While we have endorsed Congressman McNerney for the Primary, if we had to pick a Republican to best serve the District it would be Steve Anthony Colangelo due to his small business experience.
United States Congress – District 11
- Mark DeSaulnier
- Tony Daysog
- Virginia Fuller
- Cheryl Sudduth
- Jason Ramey
- Tue Phan
- Ki Ingersol
This race will not be close, DeSaunier should take it by a large margin based on the poor campaigns of his opponents.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
- Tom Torlakson
- Marshall Tuck
- Lydia Gutierrez
This one is pretty simple, do you like where Tom Torklakson is taking the schools or do you want to back Marshall Tuck who is backed by education privatizers, Silicon Valley money, and others who are in favor of School Charters. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the June primary vote, a runoff election between the two frontrunners will take place in November.
County Superintendent of Schools, Contra Costa County
- Karen Sakata
- Linda Delehunt
This race comes down to appropriate experience and Sakata should emerge as the winner by a nice margin.
Governor
- Luis J. Rodriguez
- Alma Marie Winston
- Edumond G “Jerry” Brown*
- Janel Hyeshia Buycks
- Andrew Blound
- Rakesh Kumar Christian
- Glenn Champ
- Neel Kashkari
- Tim Donnelly
- “Bo” Bogdan Ambrozeqicz
- Akinyemi Agbede
- Richard William Aguirre
- Robert Newman
- Cindy L. Sheehan
- Joe Liecht
This is more of a formality as Governor Jerry Brown will become re-elected this November no matter how you slice it. It’s his to lose. The only question decided today is will Tim Donnelly or Neel Kashkari face Brown in November.
With polls opening at 7:00 am until 8:00 pm, its your civic duty to vote and you should. Unfortunately, its anticipated that 80% of the votes will have already be mailed in which means most, if not, all the races are already decided. The silly thing, the races were already decided months ago by the quality of the field.
Let’s hope November has a few better races and becomes more eventful than this snoozefest today.
By Michael Burkholder
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9 comments
Hey Burk. Way to be “Captain Obvious” as no doubt you are correct in these assessments, unfortunately a monkey could have picked these the same way. I agree, what a snoozefest. I think you can lump all GOP candidates as an embarrassment. What a weak field.
No on Measure E! I don’t want any new taxes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NO ON MEA
I wish we could recall John Gioria and Karen Skinner who are working on legislation to raise the Sales tax cap above 10%. These two should be run out of town.
I would much rather have read an objective article about what each candidate stands for and their potential solutions for some of the issues plaguing California and Contra Costa County. By sharing your personal opinions, you attempt to sway the vote and actually discourage people from voting. Unfortunately, you are further enhancing the a liberal agenda by offering your biases. If you were truly committed to getting voters to the polls, you would encourage them to make their own choices based on facts. Perhaps this may actually give residents a reason to go to the voter polls. I can’t help but think that discouraging voters may have been your intention. This article benefits no one and pushes voters away. Congratulations, you fail.
It was written as an opinion–the title sort of sums it up.
you all need to remember he is fraziers boy. How can someone endorse a guy who put foreigners on a jury to judge americans
Not sure what your issue is with an opinion piece? Seems self explanatory to me and the author even has his name and email attached. Seems like your more upset that the Republican Party has terrible candidates who have not ran any successful campaigns. Heck, one of the candidates apparently wont even answer questions so how is Mr. Burkholder going to inform the public? I don’t agree with the views of the Democrats in office but they are the better candidates because they are providing substance instead of talking point rhetoric. I’d also like to point out the article is spot on because NO ONE is going to the polls. Read other newspapers who are reporting record low turnout. Put out crap candidates, no one goes to the polls. Make it a close race, people show up.
No vote no Bitch. Simple
Thanks for writing that up Mike!
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