SF Voters take stand against guns, recruiting at schools

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SAN FRANCISCO

MEASURES: Voters take stand against guns, recruiting at schools

Cecilia M. Vega, Chronicle Staff Writer

 

Wednesday, November 9, 2005

 

 

 

 

 

San Francisco voters took a stand Tuesday against military recruitment on public

school campuses, voted to keep firehouses open and approved the nation's

toughest ban on handguns by making it illegal for city residents to possess

them.

 

Proposition H, which requires city residents who already own guns to turn them

in to police by April 1, was winning 58 percent to 42 percent with 98 percent of

precincts counted.

 

The measure also makes it illegal to buy, sell, distribute and manufacture

firearms and ammunition in the city.

 

Only two other cities in the country -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago -- have

similar bans.

 

" San Francisco voters are smart and believe in sensible gun control, " said

Supervisor Chris Daly, who was among the four board members who placed the

measure on the ballot. " If Prop. H gets some handguns out of San Francisco and

mitigates some of the violence, then it's a win. "

 

Prop. H opponents said a ban on handguns will not reduce crime, because

criminals aren't likely to turn in their guns.

 

They also said the measure will be subject to costly legal challenges in court.

 

" It's not a solution (to gun violence), " said Mike Ege, a board member of the

Coalition Against Prohibition. " Most people don't like guns, but they don't want

the opportunity to access them taken away, because sometimes bad things happen

to good people. "

 

San Francisco voters also supported Prop. I, a symbolic measure that makes it

city policy to oppose, but not forbid, military recruiting in public schools.

Fifty-nine percent of voters approved the measure, while 41 percent rejected it.

 

Prop. F, which was backed by the city's politically powerful firefighters union,

also won, with 58 percent of voters supporting it and 42 percent opposing it.

 

The measure ends the brownouts that have closed San Francisco firehouses on a

rotating basis due to budget cuts.

 

Opponents said that the closed firehouses do not pose a threat to public safety

and that the measure's estimated cost of $6.6 million annually is money that

could be used for other city expenses.

 

San Francisco voters also had their say on a number of other measures.

 

Prop. A, a $246.3 million bond measure to make capital improvements in the San

Francisco Community College District, passed with 64 percent of voters approving

it and 36 percent rejecting it.

 

Prop. B, a $208 million bond to pay for major street and sidewalk improvements,

fell short of winning the necessary two-thirds majority. Only 57 percent of

voters approved the measure.

 

Prop. C, which would have given the city's Ethics Commission more independence

in setting its own budget and limited the mayor's power, also lost when 59

percent of voters opposed it and 41 percent voted for it. The commission is

responsible for enforcing local campaign and lobbying laws.

 

Prop. D, which would have rescinded the mayor's ability to appoint all seven

members to the board that oversees the Municipal Railway and instead allow the

Board of Supervisors to nominate three members, lost. Sixty-four percent of

voters opposed it, and 36 percent favored it.

 

And Prop. E, which changes the election date of the city's assessor-recorder and

public defender from the statewide primary election in June to the municipal

election in November, won with 70 percent approval.

 

Also on the ballot was Prop. G, which limits automobile access inside Golden

Gate Park and removes obstacles in creating a southern entrance to the parking

garage under the Golden Gate Park Concourse, between the M.H. de Young Museum

and the California Academy of Sciences. The measure won with 67 percent

approval.

 

E-mail Cecilia Vega at cvega.

 

 

 

 

" Just as nightfall does not come at once, neither

does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight. And it is in such

twilight

that we all must be aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become

unwilling victims of the darkness. "

William O. Douglas