2018 Midterm Election Briefs

Oakland’s Measure Y is about just cause evictions. Under the city’s current ordinance, landlords are prohibited from evicting tenants without just cause.

Measure Q is Berkeley's response if Californians approve Proposition 10 this November, which would repeal the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Quick reminder: Costa Hawkins is a 1995 law that largely prevents cities and towns from having rent control.

Oakland’s Measure AA creates a 30-year parcel tax to fund early childhood education and college readiness programs.  

Measure F limits how much hospitals, medical clinics and other health care providers in Palo Alto can charge patients and insurers for care. Under the measure, medical providers can’t charge more than 15 percent above the reasonable cost of care provided. What’s reasonable cost?

The cost of rent is on the rise in Berkeley. This is making it hard for low and middle income residents to afford to stay in the city.

If you live in Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Alameda, San Pablo, El Cerrito, Albany, Emeryville, Piedmont, El Sobrante, and Kensington, listen up. You’ll be voting on Measure FF this November.

Affordable housing is on the ballot everywhere this election, and wine country is no exception.

Measure A is about the renewal of a one-eighth cent sales tax increase in Santa Clara County, keeping most of the county’s total sales tax at 9%.

In the upcoming November election San Mateo County will consider a half-cent transportation sales tax, also known as Measure W.

Measure W is a vacant property tax in Oakland, aimed at reducing homelessness and illegal dumping.

Voters around California are weighing dozens of ballot measures that would impose taxes on marijuana businesses in different cities and counties. Oakland’s Measure V is unique, however, because it could lead to lower tax rates for marijuana businesses.

San Francisco’s Proposition E would redirect a fraction of the city’s hotel taxes to support the arts. The Board of Supervisors unanimously put this measure on the ballot, and it wouldn’t require a tax increase.  

Proposition D is known as the Marijuana Business Tax Increase. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors put the measure on the ballot to add another tax onto cannabis businesses operating in the city.

There's been a lot of debate recently about how tech companies should handle our data, and whose job it is to regulate it. San Francisco's Proposition B, also called the Privacy First Policy, is one approach to the problem. It aims to protect people from having their personal information abused by companies.

Proposition C would create an additional tax on San Francisco businesses with gross receipts, or revenue, of more than $50 million a year to fund homeless services.

If you were asked to name a piece of San Francisco infrastructure that’s still in use after over a hundred years, what would you guess? The Golden Gate Bridge? Coit Tower? Nope! But if you guessed the Embarcadero Seawall, you’d be correct!

Proposition 12 has to do with the caging of farm animals.

Alright, let’s say you are a paramedic and you work for an ambulance company. When you take a lunch break, are you still on-call? Can your company make you respond to an emergency?

This proposition would allow cities to expand their rent control ordinances by repealing the 1995 law known as Costa Hawkins.

The country’s two biggest dialysis companies collect about 3 billion dollars a year from California dialysis clinics. Dialysis is the medical process that basically does what your kidneys should be doing, cleaning out toxins in the blood. Not only does the treatment cost about 90,000 dollars a year, but it can be a particularly grueling process for patients, who need the lengthy routine procedure.  

Proposition 6 is all about repealing the new gas tax, and making it harder to raise gas taxes in the future.

Proposition 4 is the Children's Hospital Bonds Initiative. It would authorize $1.5 billion dollars in “general obligation” bonds to award grants to children's hospitals for construction and renovation.

As a kid, you might have learned the phrase “spring forward, fall back,” in order to help you remember how daylight saving time works.

Proposition 5 would amend the controversial 1978 law known as Proposition 13, which freezes property tax rates as homes appreciate over time.

Proposition 3 is one of the handful of state bond measures we are voting on this November. This one has to do with water. And it may sound familiar.

Proposition 2 deals with funding a housing program for people who have mental health issues. Back in 2004, Californians voted in favor of something called the Mental Health Services Act. It charges a one percent income tax on people who make a million dollars or more, to fund mental health services in counties across the state.

Proposition 1 is the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. If passed, it would authorize the sale of $4 billion in bonds to finance a bunch of existing low-income housing programs, build new, state-owned housing and match local housing trust funds dollar-for-dollar as they pilot new programs. One-quarter of this $4 billion would help veterans purchase homes, mobile homes and farms.

The votes are in — or, most of them anyway, with some mailed-in ballots yet to be counted. And California voters have weighed in on state and local propositions as well as many elected offices.

Fifty years ago, Napa Valley winemakers and community members wanted to protect the valley from housing and commercial development.

They declared agriculture — which in Napa Valley basically means grapes — the “highest and best use” of the land.

This paved way for the growth of the wine industry that currently coats the valley floor, and the tens of billions in profit the valley churns out each year.

But now some winemakers and environmentalists feel Napa Valley has reached its limit.

San Jose’s Measure B, and the counter-amendment Measure C, would affect housing development and zoning.

Measure B would rezone the Evergreen Hills area in San Jose to allow for large housing development on what is now undeveloped hillside.

The zoning change wouldn’t just apply to this site, but many sites like it that are currently zoned non-residential.

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