Any newcomer to the Point suspects at a glance that we vote liberal. And many Pointers themselves like to think the community is a little bit different. So each time an election's vote tallies come out, it's interesting to see how our votes correlate with nearby counties and thereby express our "different" values.
One thing is for sure: Pointers and residents of Brickyard Cove are different breeds.
Here are highlights of the October 7 results.
On whether Gray Davis should have been recalled, our vote was most similar to San Francisco's. We voted 76 percent against it, compared with SF's 79 percent. Brickyard Cove voted 65 percent against the recall.
Brickyard Cove's vote for a replacement governor was also different. Arnold got 30 percent while in the Point he got a more fitting 18 percent, which compared well with SF's 17 percent.
In fact, the only measure in which the Point broke with SF was in voter turnout. In the Point, 75 percent voted while just 59 percent did in SF. The only San Francisco districts to break 70 percent were Noe Valley, Upper Market/Eureka and Diamond Heights.
Could it be that paint in some of Brickyard's condos hasn't cured? Or is Victorian mold getting into our brains?
By the way, I'd like to thank George in the Contra Costa County Elections Department. (Workers there don't give last names.)
| State | County | Point | Brickyard Cove | Marin Co. | San Francisco | Alameda Co. | ||||||
| Recall | ||||||||||||
| Yes | 53% | 42% | 232 | 23% | 117 | 34% | 35050 | 32% | 52177 | 19% | 126713 | 30% |
| No | 43% | 55% | 770 | 76% | 226 | 65% | 72806 | 67% | 212763 | 79% | 295556 | 70% |
| Governor | ||||||||||||
| Schwarzenenegger | 45% | 35% | 182 | 18% | 103 | 30% | 31321 | 29% | 44665 | 17% | 98461 | 23% |
| Bustamante | 29% | 35% | 547 | 54% | 151 | 43% | 46784 | 43% | 149237 | 55% | 205643 | 49% |
| Huffington | 1% | 1% | 10 | 1% | 7 | 2% | 9955 | 9% | 2780 | 1% | 3214 | 1% |
| McClintock | 12% | 13% | 81 | 8% | 25 | 7% | 1204 | 1% | 13694 | 5% | 39776 | 9% |
| Camejo | 3% | 3% | 90 | 9% | 22 | 6% | 5539 | 5% | 14950 | 6% | 19289 | 5% |
| Prop 53 Infrastructure YES | 32% | 36% | 327 | 32% | 134 | 38% | 33173 | 30% | 75020 | 28% | 131890 | 31% |
| Prop 53Infrastructure NO | 56% | 53% | 570 | 56% | 189 | 54% | 64118 | 59% | 149061 | 55% | 255074 | 60% |
| Prop 54 Class by race... YES | 33% | 32% | 242 | 24% | 100 | 29% | 31948 | 29% | 48359 | 18% | 99280 | 24% |
| Prop 54 Class by race... NO | 59% | 61% | 696 | 68% | 236 | 68% | 69966 | 64% | 195989 | 73% | 310276 | 73% |
| turnout | 60% | 65% | 1351 | 75% | 431 | 81% | 143262 | 76% | 454929 | 59% | 642,416 | 66% |
Talk of the Point returns today after a two-month silence. Part of that was spent wrestling with new software. You see it reflected in the new search and notification functions. I hope you like it.
I had been using Radio Userland for content management. It worked well for basic posting. But there was no search, no notification, and none of the clever plug-ins I may yet incorporate here.
Then Karen Schneider kicked off her My Point with a competing software package, Movable Type--and she did so easily.
I decided to switch, but unfortunately I added a fatal complication: I tried to keep the old look and feel. Just replace a few Radio tags with Movable Type tags, right? Not! I finally gave up on the conversion and adapted one of Movable Type's off-the-shelf templates.
Don't count your kernels of brown rice just yet, but things seem to be moving forward at Kao Sarn, the Point's new Thai restaurant. Next Wednesday the city health department holds its final inspection. If the place passes muster, owner Joe Phoonpirom says he could be open about three weeks later.
Long ago, before the summer solstice, Joe and his wife Pat hoped for a July opening. They said so at the Stroll in May, as they stood outside the site and happily met so many future customers. Afterwards, they turned to the dark, powerless, permit-less space. Their nightmare began with a 12-week wait for PG&E to install power. So much for a July opening.
Those who know that Kao Sarn occupies Annie's Cafe old space may wonder what took so long. That may have been what Joe and Pat thought. After all, it shouldn't be so hard for a new restaurant to follow the tail of and old one, should it? The fact is that there was nothing left of Annie's when the Kao Sarn signs went up. The place had been stripped down to bare wood.
Among Point restaureurs, Joe might be the most soft-spoken and diffident. And I have a hunch the food will be worth the wait.