Holding the fort
Three pieces for today. Let's get started.
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Richmond
MEN ROB BANK:
Two men robbed a Mechanics Bank branch on West Cutting Boulevard on Friday.
The robbers walked in and ordered everyone to the floor about 11:10 a.m. Moments later, a customer entered the bank, and the gunman ordered him to the floor as well, said police Lt. Enos Johnson.
Instead, the customer dashed out the door and through the parking lot.
Afterward, the robbers left with cash in a Lexus. Nobody was hurt.
-- Karl Fischer
Richmond
MAN HOSPITALIZED AFTER SHOOTING:
A 25-year-old man was listed in serious but stable condition after an early morning shooting, police said.
At 12:20 a.m. Friday, police were called to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond by a report of a shooting victim, Lt. Mike Gormley said.
The man said he was walking in the 200 block of South 12th Street late Thursday night when he heard three or four shots fired and was hit in the torso, Gormley said.
The man managed to flag down a passing driver, who gave him a ride to the hospital.
No information was immediately available on a suspect.
The shooting took place about a block from the site of a gun battle Wednesday afternoon that left at least two young men wounded and forced a lockdown at nearby Nystrom Elementary School for the third time this school year.
Anyone with information is asked to call the police department's homicide section at 510-620-6612.
-- George Kelly
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The area around Nystrom Elementary is a magnet for violent crime, but nothing seems to be getting done about it. Was "Safe Streets Now" supposed to have that fixed? Will "Youth Corps" fix it? Would "Gun Free Zones" have been the fix?
Anybody in power care to comment?
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Election snafus left many hustling
Erroneous mailers directed voters to wrong precincts and consolidation resulted in crowded polling stations
By Sean Aronson
TIMES CORRESPONDENT
When schoolteacher Mary Oshima arrived at work on Election Day, she didn't know she'd be helping people search for a place to vote.
But when at least 20 voters showed up at Grant Elementary in Richmond on Tuesday only to find their polling place had moved, Oshima started making phone calls. She tried the city of Richmond; no answer. She tried the Contra Costa County Elections Department; no answer.
"One woman was just going to give up and leave, but I said, 'No, you have to vote,'" Oshima said.
Finally she typed the woman's address into the Elections Department Web site and found the right location.
"You feel like you're being disenfranchised," Oshima said.
The problems at Grant were among a series of snafus that left people confused and angry Tuesday.
Problems started with mailers carrying erroneous voter information -- including instructions sending people to vote outside their cities -- and ended with the county still counting a large number of provisional ballots at week's end from people who voted in the wrong places.
With Richmond election results so close -- the mayor's race and final seat on the City Council were each decided by fewer than 200 votes -- some said the confusion could have altered the outcomes.
"I think precinct consolidation and changing of polling places is an unintended way of limiting the voters' participation, which may have had an impact on the results," said Antonio Medrano, an unsuccessful candidate for the West Contra Costa United School District board.
The county Elections Department changed the polling place for 29 of 472 precincts, notifying voters less than a month before the election, said County Clerk Stephen Weir.
The election board also sent notices Oct. 20 to many Richmond residents indicating they would have to vote in other towns such as San Pablo, El Cerrito and even Walnut Creek. It was an error in printing, Weir said.
Cecelia Valdez, 62, a San Pablo resident and former president of the Latina/o Democratic Club of West Contra Costa County, said some people in San Pablo were told they would have to vote in Lafayette. She received a notice to vote in Richmond.
"I contacted (Richmond City Councilman) John Marquez about it, and he called Steve Weir," Valdez said.
The elections office received more calls of confusion stemming from mailings between Oct. 21 and 23 that outlined changes in polling places, Weir said.
Then, on Oct. 27, the department sent another mailing correcting the earlier one instructing people to leave their cities to vote.
"Our job was to admit to the problem and to fix it -- and we did that," Weir said.
The Elections Department ran television announcements and sent news releases to inform people of the mistake.
Richmond City Clerk Diane Holmes also posted a "voter alert" on the city Web site on Oct. 27, telling voters: "If you received a white card instructing you to go to another city to vote, please destroy the card. You will receive a yellow card with the correct information for your polling place for the Nov. 7 election."
"We received a lot of phone calls about the precinct changes in the morning of the election, and we referred everyone to the county offices," Holmes said.
At Wilson Elementary School, three precincts were combined into one, meaning 1,700 registered voters were eligible to vote there. Lines were out the door all day, and poll workers were exhausted.
The same was true in Pinole. At Ellerhorst Elementary School, two precincts were combined with a potential voting population of 800. There were long lines, not enough pens and no spaces in the booths, said Maria Alegria, Pinole mayor pro tem.
"People were sitting on the floor," Alegria said.
There are still about 40,000 absentee ballots to be counted countywide. Weir estimated that 1,700 of those were from Richmond. Another 9,000 provisional ballots remained to be counted, 900 from polling places in Richmond.
County officials said updated results, including absentee ballots, would not be available until later this month.
"I'm ready to be part of a blue-ribbon committee to tackle these issues," Alegria said. "Let's get this voting issue straightened out."
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The word RIDICULOUS easily comes to mind for this. Considering the foibles of previous elections, we'd think that this sort of nonsense would've been stamped out. Sounds like a lot of problems at the county level, and with more problems than Richmond itself.
At the Tazer, we wonder if this will affect the races for mayor and council. Might it be that our previous rant was premature?
Anyone out there with stories of voting irregularity, please feel free to comment.
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Richmond
MEN ROB BANK:
Two men robbed a Mechanics Bank branch on West Cutting Boulevard on Friday.
The robbers walked in and ordered everyone to the floor about 11:10 a.m. Moments later, a customer entered the bank, and the gunman ordered him to the floor as well, said police Lt. Enos Johnson.
Instead, the customer dashed out the door and through the parking lot.
Afterward, the robbers left with cash in a Lexus. Nobody was hurt.
-- Karl Fischer
Richmond
MAN HOSPITALIZED AFTER SHOOTING:
A 25-year-old man was listed in serious but stable condition after an early morning shooting, police said.
At 12:20 a.m. Friday, police were called to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond by a report of a shooting victim, Lt. Mike Gormley said.
The man said he was walking in the 200 block of South 12th Street late Thursday night when he heard three or four shots fired and was hit in the torso, Gormley said.
The man managed to flag down a passing driver, who gave him a ride to the hospital.
No information was immediately available on a suspect.
The shooting took place about a block from the site of a gun battle Wednesday afternoon that left at least two young men wounded and forced a lockdown at nearby Nystrom Elementary School for the third time this school year.
Anyone with information is asked to call the police department's homicide section at 510-620-6612.
-- George Kelly
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The area around Nystrom Elementary is a magnet for violent crime, but nothing seems to be getting done about it. Was "Safe Streets Now" supposed to have that fixed? Will "Youth Corps" fix it? Would "Gun Free Zones" have been the fix?
Anybody in power care to comment?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Election snafus left many hustling
Erroneous mailers directed voters to wrong precincts and consolidation resulted in crowded polling stations
By Sean Aronson
TIMES CORRESPONDENT
When schoolteacher Mary Oshima arrived at work on Election Day, she didn't know she'd be helping people search for a place to vote.
But when at least 20 voters showed up at Grant Elementary in Richmond on Tuesday only to find their polling place had moved, Oshima started making phone calls. She tried the city of Richmond; no answer. She tried the Contra Costa County Elections Department; no answer.
"One woman was just going to give up and leave, but I said, 'No, you have to vote,'" Oshima said.
Finally she typed the woman's address into the Elections Department Web site and found the right location.
"You feel like you're being disenfranchised," Oshima said.
The problems at Grant were among a series of snafus that left people confused and angry Tuesday.
Problems started with mailers carrying erroneous voter information -- including instructions sending people to vote outside their cities -- and ended with the county still counting a large number of provisional ballots at week's end from people who voted in the wrong places.
With Richmond election results so close -- the mayor's race and final seat on the City Council were each decided by fewer than 200 votes -- some said the confusion could have altered the outcomes.
"I think precinct consolidation and changing of polling places is an unintended way of limiting the voters' participation, which may have had an impact on the results," said Antonio Medrano, an unsuccessful candidate for the West Contra Costa United School District board.
The county Elections Department changed the polling place for 29 of 472 precincts, notifying voters less than a month before the election, said County Clerk Stephen Weir.
The election board also sent notices Oct. 20 to many Richmond residents indicating they would have to vote in other towns such as San Pablo, El Cerrito and even Walnut Creek. It was an error in printing, Weir said.
Cecelia Valdez, 62, a San Pablo resident and former president of the Latina/o Democratic Club of West Contra Costa County, said some people in San Pablo were told they would have to vote in Lafayette. She received a notice to vote in Richmond.
"I contacted (Richmond City Councilman) John Marquez about it, and he called Steve Weir," Valdez said.
The elections office received more calls of confusion stemming from mailings between Oct. 21 and 23 that outlined changes in polling places, Weir said.
Then, on Oct. 27, the department sent another mailing correcting the earlier one instructing people to leave their cities to vote.
"Our job was to admit to the problem and to fix it -- and we did that," Weir said.
The Elections Department ran television announcements and sent news releases to inform people of the mistake.
Richmond City Clerk Diane Holmes also posted a "voter alert" on the city Web site on Oct. 27, telling voters: "If you received a white card instructing you to go to another city to vote, please destroy the card. You will receive a yellow card with the correct information for your polling place for the Nov. 7 election."
"We received a lot of phone calls about the precinct changes in the morning of the election, and we referred everyone to the county offices," Holmes said.
At Wilson Elementary School, three precincts were combined into one, meaning 1,700 registered voters were eligible to vote there. Lines were out the door all day, and poll workers were exhausted.
The same was true in Pinole. At Ellerhorst Elementary School, two precincts were combined with a potential voting population of 800. There were long lines, not enough pens and no spaces in the booths, said Maria Alegria, Pinole mayor pro tem.
"People were sitting on the floor," Alegria said.
There are still about 40,000 absentee ballots to be counted countywide. Weir estimated that 1,700 of those were from Richmond. Another 9,000 provisional ballots remained to be counted, 900 from polling places in Richmond.
County officials said updated results, including absentee ballots, would not be available until later this month.
"I'm ready to be part of a blue-ribbon committee to tackle these issues," Alegria said. "Let's get this voting issue straightened out."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The word RIDICULOUS easily comes to mind for this. Considering the foibles of previous elections, we'd think that this sort of nonsense would've been stamped out. Sounds like a lot of problems at the county level, and with more problems than Richmond itself.
At the Tazer, we wonder if this will affect the races for mayor and council. Might it be that our previous rant was premature?
Anyone out there with stories of voting irregularity, please feel free to comment.
posted by Plunda Claus @ 3:26 PM
2 Comments:
At November 13, 2006 12:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
So how do we know that McLaughlin and Lopez won? Might be that Anderson is still mayor and Booze won city council
At November 13, 2006 3:06 PM,
Anonymous said…
With somewhat over 2,000 provisional ballots as yet not counted, it's anyone's guess who the winners will be!
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