In addition to candidates for President, the Senate, the House, and state-wide offices, California voters face a bewildering array of ballot propositions. While the major “props” on such matters as elimination or reform of the death penalty, or the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, have garnered most the attention, there are another group of lesser-known initiatives that also require consideration. Below, The Review’s suggestions for how to vote on six of these more obscure propositions.
Proposition 68 – The Legible Parking Meters Act of 2016
PROVISIONS: That every parking meter in the city of Los Angeles shall be retrofitted with bright LED displays, to make them legible in fucking sunlight for once.
PROS: You can’t read the fucking things in glare-y sunlight, which is what we fucking have here all the time. This would provide each meter with a bright set of lights, rather than that horrible black-against-gray thing they have now.
CONS: It costs too much. Or just use the Flashlight app on your stupid smart phone or something.
Recommendation: Vote YES.
Proposition 69 – The Efficiency in Stoppage and Reduction in Freeway Annoyance Act of 2016
PROVISIONS: Will make it illegal to stop more than three (3) feet behind the car in front of you at stop lights, in traffic jams, etc.
PROS: Horrible drivers who stop five, ten feet OR MORE behind those in front of them drive many of us crazy. It takes us by surprise if we’re looking ahead, down the road. And it’s just timid and stupid, if you really want to know. This will make it illegal.
CONS: Who cares? Grow up.
Recommendation: Vote YES
Proposition 70 – The Deserted Street Jay-Walking Enforcement Rollback Act of 2016
PROVISIONS: Permits jay-walking across streets when there is no car within one hundred (100) feet on either side of the pedestrian.
PROS: Obnoxious cops give out pricey jay walking tickets even when there is no traffic whatsoever on the road, street, or boulevard jay-walked across. That’s ridiculous. Many blocks are really long, and expecting people to shlep all the way to the corner, wait for the light (in the presence of NO TRAFFIC), cross, and then shlep all the way back to their destination, sucks.
CONS: The City will lose money with fewer tickets handed out. People will fail to honor the 100-foot provision and just cross whenever and wherever the fuck they feel like it. Anarchy will ensue and L.A. will turn into N.Y.C.
Recommendation: Vote YES
Proposition 71: Bond Issue to Fund Development of a Decent Chinese Restaurant in the S.F. Valley
PROVISIONS: Measure would authorize sale of state bonds to underwrite creation and development of a really good Chinese place—meaning, Szechuan/Hunan/Cantonese/Mandarin, and not with inflated prices, either—within the Toluca Lake-Valley Village-Studio City-Sherman Oaks-Encino-Tarzana axis. Delivery to homes optional.
PROS: Amazingly, in a community famously full of Jews, it is impossible to find first-rate Chinese food in the San Fernando Valley–a densely-populated area with too many gastro-pubs and so-so Italian places. We mean, come on. Public service and benefit to the community mean nothing if they don’t mean finally enabling the public, and the community, to obtain really yummy Twice-Cooked Pork and Dry-Fried Beef.
CONS: It is not government’s role to develop or assist in the operation of private enterprises, with the exception of bestowing tax breaks, employment incentives, agricultural subsidies, “enterprise zones,” commodity price supports, and waging wars for the benefit of the “defense” industry. Not for nothing is the proposed restaurant a Chinese one, since this dangerous alliance between the government and private enterprise would, in fact, be Chinese as fuck.
Recommendation: Vote YES
Proposition 72 –The Multiple-Packages Post Office Customer Abatement Act of 2016
PROVISIONS: Would forbid customers at U.S. Postal Service offices from hogging a window with ten or twenty or fifty envelopes, boxes, and/or other packages from their Ebay or Etsy or Pinterest home businesses. Or, okay, would require such customers to mail packages within a strictly-enforced window of time, e.g., 9:00 am to 10:30 am.
PROS: Right? Some bustling entrepreneur wheels a dolly stacked with packages of whimsical mugs or hand-made bead necklaces and you think, “FUCKING FUCK. A whole window shut down for the next half hour.” This would (somehow) prevent that.
CONS: The Post Office needs all the customers and packages it can get. Why are you in line to begin with? Not to get stamps or “mail a letter.” It’s TO SHIP A PACKAGE. So enough with the hypocrisy already.
Recommendation: Vote YES
Proposition 73 – The Peter Thiel Independent Duchy Enablement Act of 2016
PROVISIONS: Would require every adult in the State to give Peter Thiel one hundred dollars ($100), such monies to be used to enable him to purchase an island somewhere, legally establish it as an independent duchy, fund its government, and equip its army and navy.
PROS: Would rid the State of Peter Thiel.
CONS: Fuck him. Let him use his own money.
Recommendation: Vote NO
Bryan Jones
http://tinyurl.com/p7mmo9f
