Voters Approve Transportation Tax, Housing Bond, Pension Deal

Vote-counters are still working around the clock to tally last minute, provisional and mailed ballots. But preliminary results from Santa Clara County polls show important victories for housing, transportation and workers rights.

Measure A, a $950 million affordable housing bond, barely secured the two-thirds threshold to pass. The region-wide measure would fund housing for the homeless, disabled, military veterans and first-time buyers.

“We are thrilled with the results so far,” county Supervisor Cindy Chavez, who helped spearhead the Measure A campaign, said in a prepared statement.

A countywide half-cent sales tax for transportation upgrades held a formidable lead with 70 percent of the vote. Measure B would drum up revenue for the Valley Transportation Authority to finish the BART extension to San Jose, improve local highways and upgrade public trains and buses.

The South Bay Labor Council’s “Opportunity to Work” initiative claimed more than 63 percent approval Wednesday—well beyond the simple-majority needed to pass. Measure E requires employers in San Jose to offer extra hours to part-time workers already on payroll before hiring new staff.

Seeing Measure F headed for a win prompted Mayor Sam Liccardo and police Chief Eddie Garcia to exchange a celebratory high-five Tuesday night. The ballot measure would restore city employees’ pension and healthcare benefits that got cut four years ago as part of a reform plan.

About 62 percent of voters approved Measure F, which proponents say will end a years-long political battle between the city’s elected officials and its public safety unions. Though the settlement reverses some of the reforms voters approved in 2012, it promises to still save the city $3 billion over the next three decades. In the short-term, it could also help the city fill vacancies in its police force.

Measure G, which stands to generate $13 million a year by upping the city’s business license tax for the first time in 30 years, held a strong lead with 65 percent approval Wednesday. Unlike the other business-related measure on the city ballot, this one garnered support from labor and business groups alike.

In Los Gatos, voters passed a proposal to raise the short-term rental tax for hotel guests and other visitors. Measure T finished Tuesday with more than 80 percent approval.

Cupertino’s Measure C and Measure D—dueling proposals to renovate the tumbledown Vallco Shopping Mall—both failed.

Measure M in Sunnyvale narrowly lost the simple majority needed to win, which would have vested residents with the final say-so anytime the city wants to sell public land or extend, renew, swap or transfer a lease. Measure N, also in Sunnyvale, was supported by 77 percent of residents and extends an existing utility tax to new communications technologies.

Santa Clara gave its City Council members a raise with Measure O while setting a two-term limit for office with Measure P. The city also approved Measure Q, which requires a four-fifths council approval to fill a vacancy, and Measure R, which requires a two-thirds vote from residents before the city sells public property.

Gilroy and Milpitas both approved setting urban growth boundaries in Measure H and Measure I, respectively. Morgan Hill’s Measure S proposal to cap the population at 58,200 passed with 78 percent of the vote.

Mountain View’s Measure V trumped a competing rent control proposal in Measure W. The winning measure ties annual rent hikes to inflation and prohibits no-cause evictions on apartments built after 1995.

As for the state initiatives, here’s a look at the results as of Wednesday afternoon.

Proposition 51 (school bonds): Passes, 54 percent

Proposition 52 (hospital fees): Passes, 70

Proposition 53 (revenue bonds): Fails, 51 percent

Proposition 54 ( transparency): Passes, 64 percent

Proposition 55 (tax extension): Passes, 62 percent

Proposition 56 (tobacco tax): Passes, 63 percent

Proposition 57 (early parole): Passes ,64 percent

Proposition 58 (bilingual education): Passes, 72 percent

Proposition 59 (campaign finance): Passes, 52 percent

Proposition 60 (condoms in porn): Fails, 54 percent

Proposition 61 (Rx drug pricing): Fails, 54 percent

Proposition 62 (overturn death penalty): Fails 54 percent

Proposition 63 (gun control): Passes, 63 percent

Proposition 64 (pot legalization): Passes, 56 percent

Proposition 65 (plastic bags): Passes, 55 percent

Proposition 66 (speeds up death penalty): Passes, 51 percent

Proposition 67 (plastic bag ban): Passes, 52 percent

This article has been updated.

10 Comments

  1. I think you made a mistake. Measure M currently is losing, not winning. We need to see how the final counts come out and see if the No holds up.

    • As of 6:37 on 11/9/16 the ROV website says only 61% of the ballots have been counted. Is SCC going to be the last in the state to count all the ballots AGAIN?

  2. I’m curious how we’re going to fund measure F if Trump comes through on his promise to cut fed funding from sanctuary cities.

    • Thats easy, just stop being a sanctuary city that’s how the Federal Government has been getting locale government to comply with every other stupid idea they have come up with in the last 8 years.
      Just wait till they start raiding the pot farms again. Maybe they can bust all the local and state politicians under RICO.
      OOOOh I like it!

    • > I’m curious how we’re going to fund measure F if Trump comes through on his promise to cut fed funding from sanctuary cities.

      Well, ummmm. maybe San Jose could stop being a sanctuary city. That might work.

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