Pico loses Assembly bid to Newark's Torrico Pico loses Assembly bid to Newark's Torrico (March 05, 2004)

But local schools win big as Props. 55, 57, 58 pass
by Jeb Bing

Mayor Tom Pico lost to Newark Vice Mayor Alberto Torrico in his bid for the Democratic Party nomination to the 20th State Assembly District in last Tuesday's primary, but the Pleasanton school district won fiscal relief with the passage of state Propositions 55, 57 and 58.

There were no contests for party nominations in the 15th and 18th Assembly Districts that also cover parts of Pleasanton. In the 11th Congressional District, Representative Richard Pombo was the only name for renomination on the Republican ticket, with no Democratic candidate running in the primary.

Pico's nine-month-long and hard-fought campaign to gain the Democratic nomination proved particularly troubling in recent days. Long viewed by polling organizations as the front-runner in a five-man race, and the candidate with the largest campaign war chest, Pico was hit by a four-page flier mailed to the district's 40,000 registered Democrats a week ago. Prepared by a pro-Torrico group called Moderate Democrats for California, it falsely accused Pico of traveling to Dublin, Ireland and China at taxpayer expense. Pico said he had never been to Ireland, a trip the organization confused with Dublin, Calif., which Pico frequently visits. The China trip was sponsored by a Silicon Valley business group, not taxpayers.

MDC mailed out corrections and offered its apologies, but Pico is convinced the flier cost him votes.

Then on Tuesday, he was faced with more lost votes as new touch-screen voting equipment broke down. At the Pleasanton Senior Center, an encoder used to allow voters to activate the screen, failed to work from the start. Voters had the option of casting provisional paper ballots or voting in another precinct. Some just walked away.

"I'm guessing that we lost well over 200 votes because of the problems voters had in Pleasanton," said Dan Carl, Pico's campaign manager.

With all 266 precincts reporting, Torrico received 33.6 percent of the votes cast with 10,480 votes to Pico's 29.8 percent, or 9,283 votes. Trailing in the five-man race were Dennis Hayashi, 6,931 votes, or 22.2 percent; Henry Manayan, 3,351 votes, or 10.8 percent; and Ash Bhatt, 1,058 votes, or 3.4 percent.

Torrico will face Republican Cliff Williams of Milpitas in the Nov. 2 general election in a district that historically votes Democratic.

As exciting as the Assembly race was for the 20 percent of Pleasanton that votes in the 20th District, the statewide bond and tax measures also generated widespread support locally. Educators, parents and others worked telephone banks and distributed leaflets urging Yes votes on Propositions 57 and 58, the companion measures that were the cornerstone of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to fix the state's fiscal mess he inherited when he won the recall race last Oct. 7. In Alameda County, voters approved Proposition 55 by a 62 percent margin, although the $12.3 billion school facilities bond measure barely won a majority of votes statewide. Voters in the county also approved Prop. 57 by a 55.1 percent margin with 146,332 votes, to 119,450 against, and Prop. 58 by a 63.4 percent margin, with 167,313 in favor to 96,794 voters against.

"This was great news for the Pleasanton district," said School Superintendent John Casey. "The benefit to us from Propositions 57 and 58 passing are that we can now move into the 2004-05 school fiscal year faced with only a minimal impact on personnel and programs. We still expect to be about $1 million short, but we can handle that. If these bond measures had failed, we would have seen a shortfall of at least $3 million."

"As for Proposition 55, what that will bring us is about $4 million from the state school building program to support modernization of our school facilities," Casey added. "Long range, as long as the economy continues to make a recovery, even as slow as it may be, we're now in a positive financial situation. By the 2005-06 fiscal year, we can now project that we'll have a positive budget situation and be over the fiscal hump."

In other races decided in Tuesday's primary, Alameda County Democrats chose Sen. John Kerry as their party's nominee for president with 112,558 votes, or 63 percent of those cast, against 29,495, or 16.5 percent for Sen. John Edwards. President Bush was the only candidate on the Republican ticket, drawing 44,500 votes or 93.5 percent of those cast.

In the U.S. Senate race, it was just the opposite, with Republicans choosing former California Secretary of State Bill Jones to oppose Sen. Barbara Boxer, the only candidate on the Democratic Party ticket, in November. Jones received 19,184 Republican votes in Alameda County, or 41.3 percent of those cast in a 10-candidate contest.

County voters also approved Measure A, with 70 percent of the votes cast favoring the half-cent increase in the county sales tax to fund county medical services, and Measure 2, with Alameda County voters supporting the nine-county measure to raise state-owned bridge tolls to $3 by a 55.4 percent majority of the votes cast.

Measure B, the 25-year, $496 million bond measure for the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District, also won voter approval in the district that includes Pleasanton with just under 60 percent of the votes cast.

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