Sara Rubin here, with a suggestion to check your mailbox to see if you’ve received a mail-in ballot yet. If you’re a registered voter in Monterey County, odds are good that it has already arrived. Various opportunities to return that ballot open tomorrow, Oct. 5, with dropboxes all over the county. You can drop it in any mailbox, or you can bring it to a polling place and vote in-person—early, or on Election Day, Nov. 3.
But that’s the easy part, thanks to processes in California and at the Monterey County Elections Department that make it easy to vote. The harder part is deciding who and what to vote for.
That’s where our editorial board steps in to make endorsements with our recommendations. You may agree with us on some, all or none of our suggestions, but any which way, I encourage you to participate in this election and vote.
One beautiful thing about local elections is that there are opportunities for you to meet many of the candidates, as well as proponents and opponents of ballot measures, and talk to them one-on-one or in a group setting. In addition to candidate forums that have already occurred, more are coming. The candidates for Monterey City Council focus on housing tomorrow at 6:30-8:30pm at Monterey High School; candidates for Salinas City Council converge at Hartnell College from 6-8:30pm on Wednesday. Many candidates are walking their neighborhoods, and may have already knocked on your door. I encourage you to ask them questions about what matters to you.
You can read our endorsements for candidates in the coming edition of the Weekly on Oct. 8. In this week’s cover story, we focused on a long list of local and state ballot measures. Many are important opportunities for local governments and schools to raise revenue. We heard from opponents that they worry governments won’t spend the money on the right priorities. This is where continued engagement comes in—you can participate now and in the future by casting a vote for the candidates who you believe will make responsible decisions, and then show up to weigh in as they deliberate about budgets. Elections matter, but so do the tedious discussions in the in-between times.
Some measures deal not with revenue but with policy issues, such as allowing public campaign financing in California and reforming the recall process into a two-step process (we recommend yes on both propositions 4 and 5, respectively).
In Salinas, Measure H is one of the most exciting elections to watch, a referendum on whether to keep or eliminate a suite of renter protection ordinances including rent stabilization. It’s energized thousands of tenants and their supporters to get involved in the process. While our board ultimately disagreed with them on those policies, the energy and activism driving their efforts—especially when they have been outfundraised 14-to-1—is a David vs. Goliath story we will continue watching closely.