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| Citizen growth initiative ahead of county measure |
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| Written by PI Web | |
| Saturday, 09 February 2008 | |
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Though there are still more than 23,000 votes to count, Measure E has emerged as the apparent winner in the battle of the Stanislaus County growth measures. The initiative, proposed by Modesto Councilman Garrad Marsh and former Councilman Denny Jackman, garnered 66.93 percent of the vote as of Tuesday, compared to 63.42 percent for the county-backed Measure L. A total of 2,448 votes separate the two measures so far. Text within Measure L says that whichever initiative gets a higher percentage of the vote will be approved as long as it also receives a majority vote. Measure E, if it becomes law as expected, would put to a vote any residential development larger than 10 homes in unincorporated areas of Stanislaus County during the next 30 years. It allows certain provisions for projects with vested rights and projects in unincorporated areas needed to meet state mandates. Its backers have waited a long time for Measure E to even go to a vote — they first hoped it would be ready for the November 2006 ballot. The opposing initiative, Measure L, would have called for the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors to select a 15-member commission that would spend two years drafting a 30-year general plan and various alternatives. The board would pick one of those alternatives, and that plan would come before county residents for a vote. Any approved general plan would have required a four-fifths vote by county supervisors to be amended. County supervisors requested in December that the initiative be placed on the ballot as an alternative to Measure E. Also on the ballot Preliminary results from this week’s Super Tuesday vote indicate that Stanislaus County residents overwhelmingly preferred Sen. Hillary Clinton to Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic race. Clinton received 59.3 percent of the vote, compared to 30.71 percent for Obama. Statewide, the race was much closer, as Clinton won 52 percent of the vote while 42.4 percent supported Obama. In the Republican race, Sen. John McCain received nearly 39 percent of the vote countywide, compared to 31.1 percent for Mitt Romney (who on Thursday suspended his campaign), 17.2 percent for Mike Huckabee and 3.3 percent for Ron Paul. McCain received a larger share of the votes in the statewide race, with 42 percent, compared to 34.2 percent for Romney, 11.6 percent for Huckabee and 4.2 percent for Paul. County voters made the same decisions as statewide voters on the seven propositions, voting down Proposition 92, which would have reformulated the way community college fees are set, and term-limits measure Proposition 93. Meanwhile, they favored statewide agreements with four American Indian tribes in Southern California, allowing the tribes to set up more slot machines and share some revenues with the state. In all, about 76,000 ballots were tallied Tuesday. There are 214,000 registered voters in Stanislaus County. However, the final results are far from complete, with about 20,000 absentee ballots still to be examined and 3,500 to 3,800 provisional ballots that need to be checked. State law requires the election to be complete by March 4, according to county Registrar of Voters Lee Lundrigan. Lundrigan said Thursday she thought the relatively high turnout at the polls for this election mostly had to do with the excitement about the presidential primary races. To reach Jonathan Partridge at the Irrigator, call 892-6187 or e-mail him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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