Election 2018: Environmental measures were big winners in California, Bay Area races

The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Across California and the Bay Area, environmental groups had one of their best elections ever. They won nearly every major race they contested, securing billions of dollars for parks, beaches, water projects and public transportation, and at the same time helped kill plans to develop Silicon Valley hillsides and a proposal to change the way the state spends money from its greenhouse gas auctions.

“People want open space and parks, they want clean air and clean water,” said Deb Callahan, executive director of the Bay Area Open Space Council, a coalition of more than 50 parks agencies and land trusts. “And clearly people are willing to pay for it. There’s an understanding that you need to invest in priorities.”

The biggest victory statewide for conservation groups was the passage of Proposition 68, a $4.1 billion parks and water bond that voters easily approved 56-44 percent.

The measure only passed in 27 of California’s 58 counties, but it won by huge margins of 65 percent or more in most Bay Area counties and 61 percent in Los Angeles County, which easily offset “no” votes from the Central Valley and counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino, where it narrowly failed.

California voted to make housing and economic growth more expensive.......