S.F. Growth Measure Too Close to Call

The fate of Proposition L, the city’s grass-roots anti-growth measure, remained unclear Friday. It was trailing by seven votes with many absentee and provisional ballots left to count.

“It’s definitely too close to call,” said Christiane Hayashi, communications manager for the city’s Department of Elections. There were nearly 30,000 absentee and provisional ballots left to verify and count.

Proposition L was trailing with 130,059 in favor and 130,066 opposed at last count, according to the Department of Elections.

With all precincts reporting Wednesday, the department posted numbers on its Web site showing Proposition L passing by a narrow margin. But those numbers did not take into account the absentee and provisional ballots.

By Thursday night, the department had counted 62,232 of these ballots, and had about 20,000 absentee ballots and 10,000 provisional ballots left to verify in an operation involving more than 100 people, Hayashi said.

Election office workers have been counting ballots around the clock, but it is a long process, said Daniel Murphy of the Department of Elections.

“We have to have them checked three or four times before they’re opened and then they go through three or four people’s hands,” he said. “We’ve got to sort them and stack them and line them up according to precinct, and that’s what’s taking so long.”

Murphy said officials hope to finish counting by Sunday night, but the department legally has 28 days after the election to finish.

The proposition, which would halt dot-com and other office development in certain rapidly gentrifying city neighborhoods, faced a competing measure and a $2.3-million soft-money opposition campaign by developers and business.

Frank Gallagher, spokesman for the No on L campaign, defended the spending.

“This is a very serious issue,” he said. “Nothing less than the future of San Francisco is at stake here.