State and local candidates and issues

Below are articles about selected candidates. See Vote The Environment, Nov 2 for a more complete list of Sierra Club endorsements. Endorsements are not made in every race.

Barbara Boxer

U.S. Senator

Senator Boxer has spent her career working to safeguard the California coast from oil and gas drilling. She has consistently voted for the health and safety of our children and worked to protect our coast for future generations.

Boxer introduced the California Wild Heritage Act to protect additional wilderness in the state. Boxer is a true friend of the environment.

John Laird

27th State Assembly District

Sierra Club endorses John Laird for the 27th State Assembly District. This year John has been working on bills to preserve open space. The Sierra Nevada Conservancy, sponsored by Laird, has recently been signed into law. This bill establishes a broad conservancy for the Sierras, from Kern County to the Oregon border. Another of Laird's bills signed into law bans cruise ships from incinerating garbage and dumping graywater into state waters including the Monterey Bay.

If Laird is reelected and the Democrats retain their majority, he will serve as chair of the Assembly Budget Committee. In the 2003 session, Laird sponsored bills that strengthened the Williamson Act to preserve agricultural land, preserved federal funding of toxic clean-up programs at military installations such as Fort Ord, and strengthened underground storage tank regulations.

Jane Parker

Monterey County Supervisor, District 4

Sierra Club endorses Jane Parker because of her commitment to ensure a General Plan Update that manages growth, reduces traffic, increases affordable housing, and protects working farmland. The Club believes Jane will stand up to special interests. She will work to protect the quality of Monterey County's land, air, and water. Jane has a proven track record of increasing access to critical health care services.

Jane Parker is the former chair of the Monterey Peninsula College board. She currently serves as a vice president for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte.

Mark Stone

Santa Cruz County Supervisor, District 5

Mark Stone has helped local communities facing timber harvests understand and assert their rights during the review process. Mark used his influence as a Supervisor to help the Community of Lompico fight the dangerous logging plan directed at the pristine Lompico Creek headwaters, their primary community water source.

Mark's interest in local water resources led him to successfully defend the County's Water Resources Program from the budget ax, saving our ability to monitor and assess local water supply and quality.

Mark provided the mechanism for Felton residents to buy back their water system. Mark believes that only through public ownership of water sources can we set successful regional water policy.

Mark Stone has been an attorney for high-technology companies where he drafted and negotiated agreements. He is a former Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey and spent five years on the Scotts Valley School Board where he was the Board President for three years.

Ed Porter

Santa Cruz City Council

Sierra Club endorses Ed Porter because of his "green" track record on the City Council. He has voted to protect Arana Gulch greenbelt from being bisected by a bike road, opposes widening Highway 1, has supported recycling and waste reduction and installation of solar power on city facilities. Porter is a strong proponent of a green redesign of the former Dream Inn and supports bicycle facilities wholeheartedly. His responses to the Club election questionaire was more environmentally sensitve than the responses of the other candidates. In addition, Porter opposes an Eastern Access road through the Pogonip.

Colleen Corrigan-Armstrong

Capitola City Council

David Ross

San Lorenzo Valley Water District

Jim Nelson

San Lorenzo Valley Water District