Your November Ballot Decoder Ring: What You Actually Need to Know

The Mayoral Race: Three Very Different Visions

Let’s cut through the campaign flyers cluttering your mailbox. Sarah Chen wants to expand the downtown streetcar system and has a detailed 20-page transit plan that actually includes funding sources. Her opponent Mike Rodriguez is pushing hard for affordable housing but his numbers don’t quite add up when you dig into the city’s current debt obligations. Then there’s newcomer Janet Walsh, whose main platform seems to be “common sense solutions” which translates to maintaining the status quo while complaining about property taxes.

Chen has attended 47 of the last 50 city council meetings as a private citizen. Rodriguez missed three council meetings as the current District 4 representative but has a solid track record on environmental issues. Walsh has never attended a public meeting that I can find in the records, which isn’t necessarily disqualifying but tells you something about her civic engagement level.

The real differentiator? Chen’s campaign is funded mostly by small donors and the transit workers union. Rodriguez has backing from the homebuilders association and some out-of-state PAC money. Walsh is largely self-funded, which means she’s either really committed or really wealthy. Spoiler alert: it’s the latter.

City Council Districts: Where Your Vote Actually Matters Most

District 2 is the race to watch. Incumbent Tom Bradley is facing challenger Maria Santos, and this one’s personal. Bradley voted against the new bike lane funding three times, while Santos literally organized the petition drive that got 2,400 signatures supporting it. Santos also pushed for the mobile home park preservation ordinance that’s kept rent increases reasonable for 180 families on the east side.

Over in District 6, we have two newcomers since Councilwoman Park is term-limited. David Kim promises to fix the pothole situation on Elm Street, which honestly should have been addressed two budget cycles ago. His opponent, Lisa Chen (no relation to mayoral candidate Sarah), wants to expand park programming but hasn’t explained how to fund it beyond “seeking grants,” which is politician-speak for “I don’t know yet.”

District 4 deserves a special mention because it’s essentially referendum time. The current rep is running for mayor, so we’re looking at three candidates for an open seat. Two of them have actual urban planning experience. The third owns four rental properties and keeps talking about “streamlining regulations.” You can probably guess which way that would go.

Ballot Measures: The Ones That Actually Change Your Daily Life

Measure A is the library bond that would fund renovations to our three branch libraries plus build a new one on the south side. It would cost the average homeowner about $84 per year in additional property taxes. The current central library’s roof leaks, the children’s section floods when it rains hard, and the south side has been promised a library for literally 12 years. This one’s pretty straightforward.

Measure B is trickier. It’s the parks maintenance tax that would raise $1.2 million annually for landscaping, equipment replacement, and programming. Sounds great until you realize the current parks budget is being raided every year to pay for other city services. Without fixing that underlying problem, this is just throwing money at a leaky bucket. The city council has failed to address this budget shell game for three years running.

Then there’s Measure C, the development impact fee increase. New construction would pay higher fees to fund infrastructure improvements. Developers hate it, obviously. But here’s what the mailers won’t tell you: the current fees haven’t been updated since 2018, and construction costs have increased 31% since then. The math isn’t political, it’s basic accounting.

The School Board Races Nobody’s Talking About

Three seats are up for grabs, and honestly, turnout for these races is usually terrible even though school board decisions affect property values and local quality of life more than most mayoral policies. District 1 has incumbent Rachel Martinez facing off against parent activist John Thompson. Martinez voted for the controversial boundary changes that moved kids from overcrowded Lincoln Elementary to the newer Rosa Parks school. Parents are still mad about the lack of community input on that decision.

The at-large seat is between current board president Susan Walsh and challenger Dr. Amanda Rivera, who runs the reading intervention program at the community college. Rivera has actual classroom experience and a doctorate in education policy. Walsh is a retired attorney whose main qualification seems to be showing up to meetings and not causing drama.

What’s not on your ballot but affects these races: the state just changed school funding formulas, and our district stands to lose about $340,000 annually starting next year. None of the candidates have detailed plans for addressing this shortfall, which is concerning given that we already cut the art teacher position last spring.

How to Actually Use This Information

Your sample ballot should arrive this week if it hasn’t already. The Secretary of State’s website has a tool where you can plug in your address and get your exact ballot, which is helpful because district boundaries are weird and you might be surprised by what races you’re actually voting in.

Two things I always recommend: first, vote the whole ballot. Those school board and local measure races are decided by tiny margins, so your vote legitimately matters more than in any statewide race. Second, if you’re still undecided on something, check the endorsement lists. Not because endorsements should decide your vote, but because they tell you which interests are backing which candidates.

The candidate forums are mostly done, but recordings are available on the League of Women Voters website through election day. The city clerk’s office also has all the campaign finance reports if you want to see who’s funding what. Fair warning: reading those reports is about as exciting as it sounds, but sometimes you find interesting patterns.

Questions about any of this? I’ll be at the farmer’s market Saturday morning with my usual stack of voter guides and probably too much coffee. Or shoot me an email if you want links to any of the documents I mentioned. Democracy works better when we all show up informed.