Local elections

Politics & News
1

This seems a little too specific for the LC thread. There are lots of elections around the country. Here in central Ohio, these are the big issues:

Ohio Issue 1 (State level)
This is the big one. A successful yes vote provides constitutional protection for abortion. A no vote doesn’t technically prohibit abortion, but will allow the already-passed-but-currently-on-hold Heartbeat Bill (which prohibits abortion if a fetal heartbeat can be detected) to go into effect. I’m optimistic this will pass, but if it doesn’t, I’m going to have to come to grips that I live in a state that’s more like Mississippi than it is like Michigan or Wisconsin.

There have been infinite ads and campaiging around this. From what I’ve seen, it’s mostly on the Yes side, but I don’t know if that’s just because of the targeted ads I receive.

Ohio Issue 2 (State level)
This legalizes the recreational use of marijuana. Haven’t really seen much discussion of this at all. A 2015 vote failed.

More local to me is our school board elections. Here, we’ve got two votes:
School board members
This hits close to home, as we have 3 kids on our local public schools. There are 6 people running for 2 spots. Three of them seem to be liberal, one is a moderate conservative, and two are extremist conservatives. Extremists in the sense of:

  • “We just need to get back to basics” (i.e., any discussion about students’ mental health concerns or inclusivity is off-limits)
  • Pro banning books if those books feature controversial topics (e.g., interracial or gay relationships).
  • “I will not support Black student organizations unless there are equal White student organizations.”

The extremists’ campaigns have a lot of money behind them, and at least one of them is going to end up on the board, which is exceptionally disheartening.

School levy
This is maybe the one that frustrates me most. The district has experienced significant growth in student populations, and a corresponding increase in total expenses. At the same time, their revenues have been fairly flat. (As I understand it, the combination is because of newly-built housing developments that bring with them new students to service, but–because of developer tax abatements–do not bring with them the necessary incremental taxes to provide those services.)

The district has been terrible in terms of communicating this to the public, which has resulted in people saying, “Why does the district need more money? Why can’t they just tighten their belt straps the way households have to do?” So the levy is likely to fail, which means that the district is going to fire a large number of teachers, absolutely gut their foreign language programs, AP and IB programs, and other valuable services.

What drives me bananas is how sort sighted this “vote not” attitude is. When we moved here ~15 years ago, we chose to move to this high-tax area precisely because of the school district and the services/opportunities it offered. We paid a premium to live here (in terms of housing price as well as ongoing taxes), and that premium still exists. If this levy fails, our school district immediately becomes just a run-of-the-mill district with no particular reason to pay premium prices to live here. These idiots voting no on the levy are going to be pikachu stunned when they can’t sell their house for 2022 (or even 2018) prices.

Predictions:

  • Issue 1 passes
  • Issue 2 fails
  • 1 extremist and 1 moderate conservative voted to school board while the 3 liberals split votes
  • School levy fails
  • Significant bitterness and drinking in the spidercrab household
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2

Seems like the problem is the abatements. The government absolutely should not be subsidizing houses in wealthy areas, that $ goes straight into developers’ pockets.

3

Absolutely. And for some reason, the school board does not seem to be able to advertise this very simple fact: Expenditures are increasing while revenues are flat. There’s even an easy-to-understand chart!

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But because there’s been no effective communication, people around here are all, “Dang government-run schools keep asking for more and more money to spend on administrators and DEI and extra bathrooms. Hurp derp”

Here’s the current plan for if/when the levy fails:

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And you know what’s going to raise the most fuss by far? Not the fact that our district is dropping most of its IB, AP, and language programs. No. It’s the fact that Jaxson’s parents are going to have to pay $600 a year for him to play football, rather than the $30 they pay now.

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4

Just looked at my local ballot

The first two slots are uncontested Democratic judge appointments

The only contested race is for city counsel where this guy (a “law and order” candidate) is running against the incumbent Democrat:

There are also two proposals related to municipal debt limits that seem like easy yeses

5

We’re having the same problems here. Funding is all screwed up. The state legislature redid how funding is appropriated to school districts to make it more fair. They added in a regionalization multiplier for districts along the I-5 corridor because of course it’s more expensive to live in the Puget Sound region than it is to live in Yakima, WA. Every district got a multiplier EXCEPT my district - the fucking capital of the state. The district north of us and south of us got a regionalization multiplier, as well as every district along the I-5 corridor, but somehow they just conveniently forgot about us.

Our budget was initially short almost $18MM last year but they got it down to about $6MM and cut some programs. They’re short again and the most preferred way of saving money is closing 3 schools (my daughter’s is included) and redistricting.

All of the conservate crazies think the district is wasting money on DEI stuff, but it’s really the legislature overlooking us and some changes they made to the levy process and how much a municipality can raise.

When people start bitching about the funding for DEI, I want to just tell them I’m very upset that my tax dollars are going to high school football, something my daughter will never get the benefit of and isn’t writin’, readin’, or 'rithmetic.

6

Jesus christ. No field trips, no hiring new teachers, no dean of students.

Wtf is going to happen when a bunch of teachers quit over this belt tightening and a hiring freeze is in place. 50 kids a classroom?

7

At the start of this year, all of the local dominoes were in place to replace Senate President pro Tem Toni Atkins, who is termed out of the legislature this year.

The current District 4 County Supervisor Nathan Fletcher was her anointed Dem replacement for SD39.

Janessa Goldbeck, a veteran and LGBT activist (one of the founders of VoteVets, etc) was his anointed Dem replacement on the Board of Supervisors.

All was right with the world until March and then:

Suddenly it was a mad scramble to pick up all the dominoes that had fallen. Now Akilah Weber, who is finishing her first full term in the Assembly, is running for the senate seat. There are three candidates for her assembly seat, one of which is backed by Labor, and another who is expected to earn the CDP’s endorsement. Because The party and Labor endorsing different candidates has always gone SO well.

There was a special election primary in June for the now-vacant Supervisor seat, which was won by sitting San Diego City Council member Monica Montgomery-Steppe, who jumped in the race against a lot of Dem pressure. Goldbeck’s mistake was getting endorsed by the firefighters and police unions, which is a death knell for any Democrat around here.

So today is the Special election to officially replace Nathan Fletcher on the Board of Supervisors, which Steppe is expected to win easily. I will send pics from the election night party later. I don’t live there, but it’s basically going to be a networking-fest, and we need to be there for my candidate to see and be seen.

8

people are going to say this 1000% of the time regardless of any facts or communication

what district are you in? i’d like to research. fwiw, i’ll make a prediction that the levy will pass.

9

https://www.dublinschools.net/home

10

That is a pretty substantial levy (8 mills). Anyhow, I’ll reiterate my prediction that it will pass. The anti-tax grumps are a loud minority.

11

i’ve taken 2 first time voters to the polls today to vote yes on issue #2 (and #1), and i’m taking another from the gym in a couple hours.

1 time pls

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12

have fun out there today, voters

13

Decent-sized crowd at my local polling place.

14

Y’all living in the stone age having to vote in person. Washington has been doing it right for like 2 decades now.

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15

I think the main problem is taxes in Dublin are already very high, something like $10-12k per year for a $400k house (which is like a normal 3br there). As you note, this doesn’t bring in enough money because lol developers are the only people dumping money into these local races and get it back times 100 with bullshit tax abatement and TIF deals.

16

Timed myself. 7 minutes from parking lot going in to parking lot leaving

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17

Just learned that before this year, Mississippi governor has not been selected by popular vote for over a century

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18

Is there any analysis or betting markets pointing to likely winners in the races where polls have closed?

19

Beshear up to 97% on PI. Was hovering around 75% most of the day before first precincts dropped. Cocaine Jr trailing all of the down ballot Nazis significantly.

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20

https://twitter.com/Redistrict is usually a pretty good source for election night updates. He says Beshear is in really good shape aorn.