San Leandro Focus

I was proud to serve as chairperson of the Yes on Measure N campaign. Here is an update on the election results: On Saturday, March 7th, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters released a large amount of additional votes yesterday. The YES vote for Measure N now stands at 61% (55% is required for passage). At the end of election night the support for Measure N was at 59%. The additional votes were most likely mail ballots dropped off at the polling locations on election day and/or mail ballots received by the Registrar's office right before and after election day. Late mail ballot voters are supporting Measure N at level above 60%. How many more ballots remain to be counted? I don't know as the Secretary of State has not updated its document showing the number of unprocessed ballots statewide by county. Based upon what Alameda County reported on Friday (250,000 unprocessed ballots) and new ballots released yesterday (96,000 ballots), there may be 154,000 ballo...

In an editorial in opposition to Measure N, a school bond for the San Leandro Unified School District, the editor recognized that the school district had significant facility needs. The editor, however, opposed Measure N asserting that the size of the bond measure, $198 million, was too large. Combined with earlier debt approved by San Leandro voters, the total debt if Measure were adopted would equivalent to $58,000 per student. The $58,000 per student statistic is meaningless as school districts are limited by law as to how much bond debt they can issue based on the assessed value of all property in the district. The San Leandro Unified School District will be under the limit and in compliance with state law even with the passage of Measure N. The statistic is also highly misleading. It is based on the false assumption all bonds, past and present, adopted in San Leandro schools are just for the 9,000 students in the school district today. The classrooms and facilities tha...