The polls are closed at the first Streetsblog Caucus Readers' Endorsement and the results are in. Below are your endorsements on the two ballot initiatives and one mail-in election that are within our coverage area. Don't forget to vote today, and Downtowners you have until November 28th to mail in your ballot on the Streetcar.
Without further ado, the L.A. Streetsblog Caucus Reader's Endorsement:
Measure J
Anyone who thinks that the 1960s to 1980s were a golden age of transit, walking and cycling in Los Angeles County should hope that voters reject Measure J. Anyone who is glad that LA county voters rejected transit taxes in 1968, 74 and 76, causing LA to miss out on the 80 percent federal funding for urban transit that helped build BART and the DC Metro, should hope that Measure J fails. - Occidental College Professor and L.A. Walks Steering Committee Member Mark Vallianatos
Proposition 37
You deserve to know what's in your food. Similar to nutritional labeling, consumers should know whether there are genetically modified organisms in their food. Many of the same companies who fought you knowing how much sugar and cholesterol was in your food, now want to keep you from knowing whether your food's DNA was created in a lab, rather than by nature. This hasn't raised the grocery bills in the 40+ countries who now require this labeling and it won't here. This was the same scare tactic they used to fight nutrition labeling. You have a right to know, vote YES on 37. - Professional chef Dawn Carey Newton
L.A. Downtown Streetcar Mail-In Vote
Have we not already spent billions and billions more on supporting a car-oriented infrastructure that has gotten us into this mess to begin with? The unending traffic, the incessant lack of parking, the unhealthy dependency on our cars, etc. If you ask me, downtowners spending $62.5 million, in addition to bond issuance costs, of course, is an absolutely tiny price to pay for the tremendous amount of benefits this new streetcar would bring. - Real estate agent and "DTLA Rising" writer Brigham Yen