State Issues Range From Growth to Gay ‘Marriage’

Oakland will select a new mayor, San Francisco will again decide whether to recognize gay couples as symbolically married and Inyo County will vote on the political fate of its Board of Supervisors in some of Tuesday’s less glamorous elections.

Around California, growth measures and traffic controls also are on the ballot in several locales. And in Yucaipa, near San Bernardino, two school board members face recall in a dispute over whether a set of reading books encourages Satanism.

Oakland’s mayoral candidates are both 43-year-old black leaders and liberal Democrats--state Assemblyman Elihu Harris and City Councilman Wilson Riles Jr., son of the former state schools chief.

Harris has campaigned against redevelopment plans for the city’s Jack London Square and a downtown shopping complex, while Riles most recently led the effort that stymied a costly plan to lure the Los Angeles Raiders football team back to Oakland.

Early in the campaign Riles voluntarily took a drug test--it came back negative--and attacked Harris for refusing a test. Harris, who had advocated drug tests for arrested juveniles, said the test was not necessary because he does not use drugs.

Harris, a state legislator since 1978, has raised more than twice as much money as Riles and appears to be the front-runner to replace Lionel Wilson, an architect of the fateful Raiders deal who lost the mayor’s office in the June primary after three terms. Wilson, who once considered Harris a political protege, has endorsed Riles, formerly the mayor’s political nemesis.

In San Francisco, the question of offering legal standing to gay couples who choose to register at City Hall is again on the ballot.

The so-called “domestic parters” law was rejected in past elections, but this time the measure provides none of the official benefits of marriage. Rather, it is regarded as a symbolic gesture.

Still it has been controversial, matching the moral sway of Roman Catholic church leaders against the city’s liberal political leanings.

Growth along the waterfront also is an issue in San Francisco. One measure on Tuesday’s ballot would encourage the large Mission Bay development in China Basin by waiving the city’s stringent growth controls.

Another measure would suspend waterfront development in San Francisco to allow more thorough planning.

On the east side of the Sierra Nevada, three members of the Inyo County Board of Supervisors face a recall driven by resentment of a water deal they negotiated with the city of Los Angeles. A fourth incumbent supervisor also is seeking reelection on the ballot.

Defeat of the incumbents would scotch the water deal with Los Angeles and could lead to new legal challenges to the city’s century-old practice of gathering water in Owens Valley.

In Yucaipa, a community of suburbs and horse ranches against the hills east of San Bernardino, two school board members face recall for approving a set of reading books called “Impressions” that some parents say is anti-Christian and unsuitable for children.

Alternative classes have been offered to children whose parents object to the books, but the issue has remained divisive, as it has in other small towns around the West.

State Supt. of Public Instruction Bill Honig went to Yucaipa last week to lend moral support to the school board and was jeered by parents, some of whom called him a “Satanist.”

Elsewhere in Southern California, the most divisive Orange County measure would raise the sales tax by a half-cent to pay for projects that, at least in theory, would ease traffic congestion.

In San Diego County, voters are confronted with two confusing growth-control measures. They were placed on the ballot in a miscalculation by the construction industry, and many developers now oppose the measures.

Developers feared that more stringent laws would be offered by slow-growth advocates and tried to beat them to the ballot with more moderate plans. But the stricter controls never materialized, and now the propositions--measures D and M--have no active supporters.

They are opposed both by some builders--who say they will cost too much--and slow-growth groups that call them “backward steps.”

The office of San Diego County sheriff also is up for grabs because John Duffy, who held it for 20 years, decided not to run after several years of controversy about jail overcrowding and a security system at his home.

Goleta north of Santa Barbara and three towns in Riverside County--Canyon Lake, Murrieta and Calimesa--will decide whether to incorporate as cities.

Around Northern California, Marin and Sonoma counties will vote Tuesday on whether to raise the sales tax to pay for measures to ease rush-hour traffic. Most of the money would be for freeway improvements--such as car pool lanes--but a sizable chunk also would go toward a light-rail line that could cross the two counties.

Marin and Sonoma pulled out of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in the 1960s, and thus do not enjoy the rail service that links many suburbs there with downtown San Francisco.

The question of urban growth in the nearby Napa Valley wine region also will be considered. Measure J in Napa County would require a public vote before any more vineyards or farm land could be rezoned to allow the construction of homes and stores.

In the Bay Area the fate of the San Francisco Giants will be decided by a set of complex ballot measures in five cities. The Giants want a stadium built in Santa Clara, but the five cities first must approve a utility tax and a measure that would provide 98 acres of land.

Elsewhere in the north, Sacramento County will vote on an advisory measure that asks if the County Board of Supervisors should push for building the large Auburn Dam on the American River.

In the Sierra foothills, Tuolumne County voters will decide whether to slap controls on growth of the Jamestown gold mine, which uses cyanide to extract the ore.