Politics
By MARTIN RICARD Nov. 4 — When Steve Kirkendoll was 4 years old, in 1960, he remembers sitting on his mother’s lap and watching on TV as black people in the South got hosed down and bitten by police dogs just for trying to register to vote. Kirkendall is 52 now. And after what he saw tonight, he said, he can now sit his 4-year-old granddaughter on his lap and tell her what happened on Nov. 4, 2008, when the…
By OAKLAND NORTH STAFF Nov. 4 – Cheering, honking, weeping mobs overtook the streets of North Oakland tonight when Barack Obama became the next president-elect of the United States. When the news hit at 8 p.m., the city went wild. From the Democratic Election party held at the Oakland Marriott, to neighborhood block parties, the excitement spilled out into the streets.
Nov. 5 – Measure NN, which would have increased taxes to expand the city’s police force, won 54 percent of the vote, but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to pass.
By BAGASSI KOURA Nov. 5 — Measure WW, which raises up to $500 million for East Bay Regional Parks through government bonds, passed overwhelmingly with 71 percent of the vote. Measure WW was introduced by park officials in August. The money raised will replenish dwindling funds that have been levied since 1988 by Measure AA, the last bond issue aimed at East Bay parks. Measure AA raised $225 million for the park system, less than half the amount allotted for Measure WW.
By MAGGIE FAZELI FARD Nov. 5 — After months of debate that shoe the spotlight of controversy on the incredible, edible egg for the first time since cholesterol-free diets came into fashion, California voters passed a ballot measure to give confined chickens and other farm animals a little more breathing room. Prop. 2, known as the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act, won by a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent. Prop. 2 will prohibit the “cruel confinement” of California’s…
By SAMSON REINY Nov. 5 — Measure VV, which will raise about $14 million dollars a year for AC Transit, passed with nearly 72 percent of the vote.
by BAGASSI KOURA Hundred of foreign students at Berkeley International house who gathered around big TV screens cheered and hugged each other to celebrate Barack Obama’s victory. Some of the students watched the elections results at the I-House, a residential house for international students at UC Berkeley. Dozen of others took part in a panel discussion on the election that took place at the IHouse’s auditorium.
By ANNA BLOOM Nov. 4 — It seemed more like a sporting event than Election Day to Lewis McCutcheon, who had a front row seat as voters flocked to the Church of the Good Shepherd Baptist. McCutcheon, who works at the Children’s Hospital and Research Center valet parking lot that abuts the church on 52nd and West Street, said this morning’s crowd was clapping as they came out of the polling place.
By MAGGIE FAZELI FARD Nov. 4 — When Clara West woke up this morning, she really wanted to wear blue jeans and a denim shirt, complete with fringe hanging off the sides and arms — her “protest clothes,” she calls them. A Berkeley baby, West says protest is in her blood; if there were ever a day to demonstrate, today, Election Day is it.