Newswire
About two years after voters narrowly rejected a measure that would have abolished term limits for the Mesa County Sheriff, the electorate is weighing in on a similar set of issues through a mail-in ballot process. At question is whether term limits should be extended for the offices of district attorney, coroner and sheriff. Each office holder is limited to serving two, four-year terms before having to leave their post.
St. Helena Unified School District officials are considering asking voters next year to extend a 25-year school facilities bond passed in 1997, possibly until 2045. Last Thursday trustees gave Caldwell Flores Winters, a consulting firm, the go-ahead to put together a more detailed plan for how the bond extension would work.
Thousands of petition signatures will be submitted here by voters Thursday to qualify a ballot measure to stop a Bay Area wastewater agency - already under federal investigation - which plans to outsource jobs and local control to a French company with a poor environmental record.
The Arkansas attorney general’s office has cleared the way for signature-gathering by supporters of a proposed ballot measure requiring government agencies to verify that all those seeking public benefits in the state are legal U.S. residents. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on Wednesday certified the proposed constitutional amendment of Secure Arkansas, allowing the group to begin collecting the 77,468 signatures needed to put it before voters in the November 2010 general election.
A proposed Michigan ballot measure that would prohibit some types of mining and restrict others took a small step forward Wednesday. The petition form submitted by a group called the Michigan Save Our Water Committee was approved by a state election board. The group would have to collect more than 300,000 valid signatures of Michigan voters to get its proposal on the statewide November 2010 ballot.
In July, the Sequim City Council placed a Transportation Benefit District initiative on the ballot. It provides for revenues to be used exclusively for approved city transportation projects. A two-tenths of 1 percent increase in city sales-and-use taxes would be levied on certain items and services; the cost of a $10 purchase would increase by 2 cents. Necessities such as groceries, prescriptions, gasoline, rent, insurance and mortgages would not be affected.
Buying in bulk can help you save money. It works with commodities such as toilet paper and sugar ”” and with electricity, too. On Nov. 3, residents who live in Massillon and the unincorporated areas of the county will decide whether their communities should pool together as a buying group to purchase electricity in bulk.
Alameda Mayor Beverly Johnson, who had been an outspoken supporter of a ballot initiative by developer SunCal for a massive housing project on Alameda Point, now opposes it, according to local journalist Michele Ellson.
Given the final word yesterday on a controversial town sewering project, a strong majority of Barnstable voters stayed silent. A citizen ballot initiative seeking to overturn the Barnstable Town Council’s decision to extend sewering around parts of Stewarts Creek failed to produce the 20 percent of voters necessary to validate the election.
State officials have given the go-ahead for circulation of an initiative petition that would seek to severely limit insurers’ abilities to steer members away from certain health care providers. The petition by the group Missourians United for Choice in Healthcare would amend the Missouri Constitution to prohibit state-regulated health insurers from influencing the selection of a care provider through higher co-pays or reimbursements and from limiting a provider’s opportunity to offer services according to terms of an offered health benefit plan.