True, anti-progress candidates won their elections, but as they spin their victory in similar manner as they ran their elections, be aware of the total election results. Not all the people in the margins were fooled.
San Mateo County Elections Shape the Future Race Tracker, 11/4/14, Pacifica City Council, page 4.
| Candidate Name | Votes By Mail | Early Voting | Election Day | Grand Total Votes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SUE DIGRE (20.21%) * | 3,322 | 20 | 1,916 | 5,258 | |
| MICHAEL "MIKE" O'NEILL (17.20%) * | 2,859 | 27 | 1,590 | 4,476 | |
| JOHN KEENER (16.70%) * | 2,699 | 13 | 1,634 | 4,346 | |
| ERIC RUCHAMES (14.04%) | 2,328 | 12 | 1,313 | 3,653 | |
| VICTOR A. SPANO (12.93%) | 2,152 | 16 | 1,196 | 3,364 | |
| MATT DOUGHERTY (10.67%) | 1,597 | 9 | 1,170 | 2,776 | |
| THERESE M. DYER (8.25%) | 1,383 | 12 | 751 | 2,146 |
Anti-progress, including anti-highway improvement candidates:
Sue Digre 5,258
John Keener 4,346
Matt Dougherty 2,776
Total 12,380 (47.58%) - 4.84%
Pro-progress, including highway widening candidates:
Michael "Mike" O'Neill, 4,476
Eric Ruchames, 3,653
Victor A. Spano, 3,364
Therese M. Dyer, 2,146
Total 13,639 (52.42%) + 4.84%
Total votes: 26,019. Estimated voters: 8,673 (3 city council candidates), but some people could have voted for only one or two candidates. Difference between pro-progress and anti-progress candidates: 1,259 (4.84% pro-progress). Also note: there were four (4) pro-progress candidates with only three (3) seats to fill, which gave the anti-progress candidates an additional advantage.
Related Fix Pacifica article - Bob Hutchinson, 11/17/14, "Still a pro-highway widening mandate."
Posted by Kathy Meeh
39 comments:
This sharing a brain crap could break the Internet. Kathy and Hutch, knock it off.
Compare Ian Butler's analysis in the Trib to this one and you'd think there were two different elections. You guys looking at the same numbers?
What a bunch of whining babies.
Your favorite candidates lost the election -- so what, it happens all the time, in every city and town throughout this country.
Are you ever going to suck it up and move on or are you just going complain about it endlessly?
No need to answer; I suspect I know.
It's a rare thing indeed to see an entire article trolling. Usually trolling is kept to the comment section.
I don't believe for one second you really believe this is how democracy works Bob, but I appreciate your sense of mischeviousness. You had me going for a second there!
113, oh brother, now facts (actual election statistics) are "trolling", and 101 wants analysis to stop. Oh stop, please stop! No, remember the dirty trick were all yours.
And 113, you may think the 47.58% of votes you gained (including those you gained by fooling some people again) was a mandate, but clearly it is not. NO MANDATE to interfere with highway widening and progress in this city period!!!
I must have missed the bit in the ballot which stated "Any vote not for Digre, Keener or Dougherty shall be counted as a vote for highway 1 widening."
Oh hang on - you got me again! Lol you guys really know comedy. Can't believe I bit again.
Put up Butler's analysis. How's he see it?
232, why? You or he may submit an article if either of you choose to do so.
Ian Butler does not represent mainstream interests, and his tactics during the campaign to my knowledge were reprehensible. Not interested.
To widen or not to widen is a false argument........
There is a group of people in Pacifica who do not want to un-choke PCH 1 traffic because it serves their "no development" agenda (particularly in the Quarry).
Don't get sucked into their endlessly provocative and circular arguments. They want a fight because it affords them the advertisement they need to advance their cause. They are very good at this propaganda tactic.
Don't fall for it.
It is NOT about the minutia of the widening.
It IS about preventing any development that Pacifica desperately needs to stay functional.
Stay the course. Let them argue with themselves and keep our majority on council accountable to saving this city.
Oh, brother, it's "Baby's First Election Analysis."
Only on Fix Pacifica can your candidates not get elected and yet have "won" the election at the same time.
Gonna be quite a shock for folks around here when the new council meets in January and Fixies realize their "winners" are at home watching Matlock reruns.
Mary Ann spoke in Half Moon Bay yesterday, turns out she is already clashing with Keener. Says he is out of control already. Called him an idiot.
Moonlighting! Not Matlock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QTVtAsVrEg
337, okay the city council vote will be 3-2, rather than 4-1. And exactly ditto all of Mike Bell's 3:28 comment: "...keep our majority on council accountable to saving this city."
337, the underlying "alternative" Gang of No plans to disincorporation this city do not appeal to those of us who are mainstream. What other rationale would some of you possibly have for rejecting an efficient highway and a balanced city economy?
"Mary Ann spoke in Half Moon Bay yesterday, turns out she is already clashing with Keener. Says he is out of control already. Called him an idiot."
Sure. Sure she did. Uh huh. Tell me another one.
It's unfair for Mary Nihart to pick on John Keener. He is eager to roll up his sleeves and get to work, Advocating for his constituents on the heady issue of Ridge Destruction at Harmony (call is Disharmony). It's time we have someone on Council who will stir and shake up Mary Ann! Its a New Order! She needs to take heed of the anti-highway one mandaters!
"337, the underlying "alternative" Gang of No plans to disincorporation this city"
Are you for real?
As soon as the Highway 1 widening moves to the engineering build design in the current form, I'm joining MaryAnn's Facebook as one of her most enthusiastic fans!
Does Mary Ann know that? Hey, people, if Kathy falls off the radar, you know who to thank, oops, I mean investigate. Ditto for Hutch if he starts waving a big ole Mary Ann banner. Don't you mess with her political future!
Don't know if 344 lies, but I'd expect friction between the Queen of Opaqueness and Mr. Public Forum. I think John is tougher than he looks and more than smart enough to find a way to air the place out.
410, yes city disincorporation was an idea floated quite a bit last year, though John Maybury and others.
The city has run high debt and deficit for at least 10 years, and those who have worked so hard to create funny city bookkeeping and prevent responsible city economic development are accountable. Same Gang of No are against highway widening efficiency. What other end result "alternative" goal could there be?
I'm all for a balanced city economy.
Regarding the highway, I live in Manor, therefore it's actually not in my back yard, but I still get called a nimby.
I'm against the widening because I like my veterinarian and don't want him to have to move or shut down. My wife loves the Tea shop. I love that I can pull in to Rockaway south bound without going through the lights. I like that Pacifica isn't Daly City, that we can walk open trails that have such great views. I've seen bobcats and coyotes. I like that the town is where the madness stops and the coast begins.
I'm from a tiny island at the end of the earth and people (very) often ask me what on earth I'm living here for. I always say the same thing: look around, Pacifica is special and the equal of any small coastal town anywhere, from Ireland to New Zealand.
Sometimes you like a place enough that you don't want it to change too much. That doesn't make you a liar, or a cheater or even a nimby. It makes you invested.
4:09
Nice post Mary Ann.
Run Keener run!
Kiwi, you come from a really drop-dead gorgeous place. Pacifica doesn't hold a candle to it, but it's home now, isn't it? Doesn't make you a nimby--other than on here which is its own tiny little island. More like another planet. Tiny, little planet.
Kiwi 444, try driving through town more often, maybe you'll better understand the traffic congestion issue.
Good point, some Pacificans also think we live on "a tiny island at the end of the earth". Reality, we're part of a powerful metropolitan region. When I visited Ireland many years ago, most of the roads were 2-lanes. Ireland is a much older culture, more rural and more isolated except for tourists. I recall those coastal towns not being much like Pacifica.
The businesses affected by highway widening in Pacifica will be compensated by the State, and may relocate. Economic development will help save this city, as Mike Bell 328 stated; part of that equation is highway widening (both for existing traffic congestion, and to accommodate future quarry development).
And if the NIMMBY shoes don't fit, don't wear them. That's up to you.
Meeh wrote: "What other end result "alternative" goal could there be?"
None. By George, you've stumbled upon their secret scheme -- there's absolutely no other goal they could be angling for. Municipal disincorporation absolutely has to be their end game!
Congrats, Ms. Meeh on cracking their code with your Enigma Machine.
Here's the thing I don't get:
Fix Pacifica has been bleating for years that we need to improve our local economy. Well, now the economy has picked up and as a result we have more traffic in our town as more people come here and travel through it.
So now Fix Pacifica complains about the traffic and wants a freeway to direct all those potential visitors out of our town as fast as possible.
WTF?!
Kathy, when I moved here I lived off Oddstad and drove that section every day, so I do get it. I still drive it every day and absolutely see how it's gotten a little worse every year.
But I've also seen those old artist's impressions of 380 down Mori Ridge into that giant loop, and the highway over Montara Mountain and what it would have done to Linda Mar beach. To me they look like the worst parts of coastal southern California, but that's because I like small towns where you're not in a hurry.
I understand your frustration at how long this process is taking, but I do hope you appreciate that just because some Pacificans (which I count myself as) don't want it widened, their opinions shouldn't be disqualified or run down. They love Pacifica too. They really do.
Will Bob Hutchinson and Kathy Meeh please, please start an "I Support Mary Ann in 2016" Facebook page? PLEASE???
I would like everyone in this town to know that Mary Ann Nihart has the strong and unequivocal support of both Bob Hutchinson and Kathy Meeh and that they stand in her corner.
In fact, I think they should get a leg up on the competition and begin writing letters to the Tribune to this effect.
Kiwi 444, try driving through town more often, maybe you'll better understand the traffic congestion issue.
Kiwi, there's not much to understand.
When school is in session, there's morning congestion and, for a period of half an hour, your commute will take about five minutes longer than usual. For some reason this state of affairs represents the end of civilization as we know it to some people.
Caltrans has stepped in and said, hey, we'll add an extra lane in each direction along this short stretch. And you might think, okay, that sounds reasonable, but then you see the Caltrans plan and notice that instead of adding 24 feet to the existing roadway (2 lanes @ 12' each), Caltrans adds 80 feet.
At this point, being the reasonable person you likely are, you're going, hey, now waaaaait a second, this doesn't sound right -- it's a little overkill. But the thing is, there's no one in an official capacity who's willing to listen to you; Caltrans is ramming this through without entertaining alternatives and the Pacifica City Council has outright refusesed multiple requests from citizens to talk about the project -- just talk about it!
The majority of people in town, upon hearing all this, get a bit upset about how this is all playing out, and that disapproval resulted in a good showing for city council candidates who are against the project and an absolute ass-kicking was meted out to those for it.
And there you have it in a nutshell.
I do see it each morning - now I'm travelling south at 8:15 and can't believe how rude people are, turning right at Vallemar, doing a U-turn and sending their kids to press the pedestrian button if they don't get instantly across. I guess it's part of the 'me first' generation thing. If they could see what they're causing back to Crespi (and beyond!) I'd hope they'd stop doing it. It's so selfish and happens every single morning. That intersection is ruled by the school.
Time to lighten things up a bit on this thread with a little protest number Neil and I came up with whilst hangin' on the tour bus between gigs. It goes something like this:
♪ Don't widen the road ♫
♪ Just narrow the cars ♫
♪ It'll lighten the load ♫
♪ And heal all the scars ♫
Don't forget to tip your waitress. G'night everybody...
Truth Police,
Traffic backs up on mornings when there's school and you end up going a little slower through the Vallemar area. The solution proposed is a $55 million project that increases the width of the roadway from 64 feet to 144 feet -- 12 feet wider than an 8-lane interstate highway. Despite this massive increase, the project adds only one lane in each direction. If you find yourself wondering how this could possibly be, just repeat the phrase "Caltrans... Bay Bridge" a few times.
The scope of the project makes it a bitter pill to swallow and it's almost impossible to sell such overkill, so proponents have to resort to making it anything BUT the highway. Safety, NIMBIES, ambulances, only traffic engineers are allowed to comment, etc., and for the first and probably only time in their lives, they've become environmentalists! I haven't quite figured out how bulldozing a 144' swath through critical species habitat is good for the environment or how construction a highway without adding a bazillion pollutants is possible, but then again, I just discovered that city disincorporation is my raison d'être, so I'm learning a lot I didn't know here on Fix Pacifica.
Anyhoo, the arguments for the highway widening amount to little more than a series of little farts in the wind and they desperately needed bolstering via a pr campaign, so a group of misguided citizens took matters into their own hands and purchased two quarter-page ads that ran in the Tribune about a month apart and cost about $500 each. They made the most ridiculous claims one could imagine such as "Buses don't work" and that 99% of Pacificans supported the widening.
Now, when you eyeballs encounter the bold claim that 39,996 of 40,400 residents are agreeing on anything, it trips the ol' Bullshit Detector and sirens begin blaring in that part of your brain responsible for such thoughts as "How stupid do they think I am?" The net effect of the ads was what one would expect: unending mockery, and the proponents had managed the print equivalent of shooting themselves in the foot with a 12-gauge shotgun, reloading, and then shooting themselves in the other foot. What I'm trying to say here was -- and I'll use a technical industry term -- the ads were "poo-poo" and the $1000 might as well have been launched into the face of the sun for all the good it did. At least in the way they were hoping.
Those of us with a pulse wonder why Caltrans just doesn't try timing the lights. Caltrans says, "It won't work!" and that's good enough for the proponents. The pulse-havers wonder why Caltrans doesn't just try it just for shits-n-gigles before we spend $55 million United States dollars on a 3-year construction project. The real answer, of course, is that a $300,000 solution won't funnel much money to the 'trans and its fellow contractors, and then there are multiple agencies with a stake in this as well so it's HUGELY a political thing and it's not really about traffic at all.
So, Caltrans has no motivation to take a serious look at cheaper and simpler alternatives, but surely City Council will step in, right? Let's not mince words, shall we? They're spineless, plain and simple. Won't breathe a word about the project. W-what project? When about 100 residents came before them asking them to hold a public forum, the 2 1/2 hour agenda item ended with Council suffering a parliamentary seizure, totally unable to even move a freaking motion forward. Way to go, Council! High-fives all around. Our representatives in action looking out for our community. Unbelievable.
So yeah, in with the new anti-widening guy and out with the Little Dictator. But I guess the losers in the election really won or something? I tried to read the "results look back" post up top and couldn't figure out whatever in the world a "results look back" is.
Bye.
NIMBY Patrol, I think the City is just going to have to build the needed highway widening beside you, over you or through you, unless you move to one of those wide safety shoulders while they're building. Given you're ongoing commentary, and obsession with the 99% (myself included), I don't care.
It cost money to build such efficient, workable highway projects, and of course some of your friends run up the bill with their bogus lawsuits etc. The ongoing "poo-poo" comments on this tread (and likely others) are all yours, and your s@#t does stink. So when you said "Bye", 99% of us who seek city improvement hope it was goodbye.
"So now Fix Pacifica complains about the traffic and wants a freeway to direct all those potential visitors out of our town as fast as possible."
The hippies were complaining about how terrible traffic was back in 2006 during the quarry measure. Now they're saying traffic's not a problem.
A highway widening isn't a freeway. What I scratch my head about is why some hippies advocate an overpass rather than a widening? In effect, that is a freeway.
That's an extremely good point - an overpass is effectively a freeway. I'd hate to see an overpass.
I think that what we need is a "BIG DIG" like we did in Boston. A Big Dig underground expressway to channel the traffic just coming through here....through here. Then on top of it, we have community gardens, trails, interpretive center, contemplation rose garden, cows, and rustic two lane surface road on top.
Don't worry, be happy.
The highway widening will never happen.
My hair was big today. I really hate big hair. Wahh!
Hey, at least you have hair.
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