ELECTION

105 days ago - The battle between environmentalists and lawmakers over the future handling of Redwood City’s open spaces will be decided in the November election.

111 days ago - Thousands of small businesses would see a payroll tax break under a measure submitted Tuesday for the November ballot by Mayor Gavin Newsom.

111 days ago - Voters in November may decide what City Hall politicians could only fight about: whether to spend millions of dollars annually on a new kind of court designed to bring much-needed help to those arrested in the crime-plagued Tenderloin.

118 days ago - The San Mateo County Elections Office will start a mandatory manual vote tally Friday of 1 percent of the ballots from the June 3 election, according to the office.

125 days ago - Tax-weary voters have rejected Measure O, which promised to spruce up Peninsula parks but would have raised the county’s sales tax to among the highest in the Bay Area.

125 days ago - A first-of-its-kind primary produced a light turnout Tuesday, election officials said. The lack of a presidential or gubernatorial race, along with possible voter fatigue — Tuesday was the fourth election in San Mateo County in the last six months — contributed to a turnout of only 35 percent of the county’s 360,018 registered voters, Elections Manager David Tom said. By comparison, there was a 59 percent turnout for the Feb. 5 presidential primary.

125 days ago - The massive redevelopment of more than 770 acres of abandoned land at Candlestick Point and the Hunters Point Shipyard will provide housing, open space, retail and a possible 49ers stadium after voters gave the ballot box nod to the plan by approving Proposition G.

125 days ago - After a 65 percent showing for February’s presidential primary, voter turnout was expected to dip significantly for Tuesday’s election, according to Department of Elections Director John Arntz. He said Tuesday’s election appeared to be on par with the November 2007 polls, which drew 35 percent of The City’s 430,259 registered voters. Roughly 70,000 of San Francisco’s 166,894 absentee ballots had been collected by Tuesday afternoon, according to Arntz.

125 days ago - In a close race, termed-out city Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval was ahead of Superior Court bench Judge Thomas Mellon, a 14-year veteran, 44.00 percent to 42.41 percent of the vote, with 515 out of 580 precincts reporting. Then-Gov. Pete Wilson appointed Mellon to the seat in 1994. Superior Court judges preside over civil and criminal cases filed locally. Sandoval and Mallen challenged Mellon — the only of 22 Superior Court judges to face opposition this election — questioning his judicial temperament. Mellon had a publicized dust-up eight years ago with the Public Defender’s Office and the Sheriff’s Department about his courtroom behavior.

125 days ago - City workers who are enrolled in San Francisco’s Employees’ Retirement System, and who are convicted of any crime involving moral turpitude while on the job, will forfeit their ability to receive employer contributions to their retirement benefits following a majority voter approval of Proposition C Tuesday. Although this rule has been included in the San Francisco charter since 1966, it didn’t apply to all city-offered retirement plans — just some of them. Prop. C was written in order to fix those discrepancies, and cuts off the city’s matching contributions to those who transgress the community’s standards of morality, justice or honesty.

125 days ago - City employees hired after Jan. 10, 2009, must work 20 years before they can cash in on full retiree health benefits following approval of Proposition B, which was introduced by Supervisor Sean Elsbernd. Until now, city workers needed to clock five years before gaining access to employer-funded retiree medical insurance. Additionally, new hires will contribute 2 percent of their gross salaries to help pay for those benefits — a move aimed at offsetting The City’s looming $4 billion debt on medical insurance for retirees.

125 days ago - By the end of the year, Rep. Jackie Speier will have been on the ballot a total of three times. She’s now won two of those races handily — a result she hopes to replicate for her final election of the year in November.

125 days ago - Peninsula political heavyweights Jerry Hill and Gina Papan continued to fight late into the night for the Democratic nomination to the region’s state Assembly seat, with the pair near deadlock.