I must take exception to a recent letter to The Bee and The Sun-Star that asserts Jack Mobley has more and broader local support than Adam Gray in the state Assembly race. This is simply not true.
DANVILLE, Ky. Vice President Joe Biden will take the stage today to debate Rep. Paul Ryan in a matchup that Democrats hope will restore some of the momentum they've lost since President Barack Obama's widely panned performance in last week's debate. Republicans, meanwhile, want to bolster their standing, which polls indicate has improved since nominee Mitt Romney's strong showing against the president.
MERCED Supervisorial candidate Jim Pacheco is back in Merced, but still in the hospital after suffering from an inflamed pancreas last month.
MERCED The Merced Irrigation District has three seats open on its board of directors, which will be decided in November's election. Positions will open up in three of the five divisions in the county. Terms are for four years.
My first taste of the democratic process came in 2000. My second- grade class was to hold a mock version of the presidential election, and my fellow classmates and I knew very little about the candidates and their platforms, and we lacked a good understanding of the issues at hand.
Republicans have always been known as a war hawk party. They love to start wars, and send our young men and women to fight their battles for them. The drums of war are again beating louder, by GOP hawks John McCain and Mitt Romney.
For too long, we have paid too little attention to what has been happening to our country, state, county and cities. We have relied on the mainstream media to keep us informed. Well, it's time for all of us to start getting involved at every level.
If you are a conservative, this fall you can choose between a pro-choice, gay friendly, Harvard Law School graduate (Barack Obama) or a pro-choice, gay friendly, Harvard Law School graduate (Mitt Romney).
DENVER -- President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney -- who has struggled to find momentum -- will offer voters starkly different prescriptions for fixing the ailing economy as they duel tonight in their first and perhaps most critical debate.
FRESNO About this time two years ago, incumbent Democrat Jim Costa's relatively unknown Republican opponent came out of nowhere and turned a sleepy congressional race into a down-to-the-wire barn burner. Now, Fresno attorney Brian Whelan, Costa's Republican opponent this time around, says history is poised to repeat itself, only with a better ending.
Merced County voters know who will be representing them in Districts 2 and 4 for the next four years, but the race in District 1 is still too close to call.
Democrat Cathleen Galgiani and Republican Bill Berryhill will face off in November for the 5th Senate District seat.
In the race for the 21st Assembly District, the sole conservative candidate, Republican Jack Mobley, secured the most votes.
In the 16th Congressional District, Fresno attorney Brian Whelan was ahead of two other Republicans in early voting to win a spot in the November runoff against incumbent Fresno Democrat Jim Costa, who was well ahead of everyone in the primary.
Two incumbents in the Merced County Board of Supervisors races both led their elections, but one of them, John Pedrozo, could face a runoff if Tuesday's unofficial election results don't change. Though some absentee votes still need to be counted, numbers have District 1 Supervisor Pedrozo leading his race with 49.2 percent of the vote, and District 2 incumbent Supervisor Hub Walsh beating his challenger, Casey Steed, with 61.2 percent of the vote.
Merced will have a new mayor, but it isn't clear who will take the seat. With the race neck-and-neck, the city will have to wait before it can be certain whether former Councilman Stan Thurston will be its next mayor. Thurston was leading Tuesday night in the race with 2,006 votes, or 32 percent.
The Merced City Council is getting a makeover with two new faces winning seats in Tuesday's election.
Bring more jobs and businesses to the city of Merced and bolster public safety.
Those were the main issues candidates agreed on in their race for Merced City Council this year.The four-year terms of council members Noah Lor, John Carlisle and Michele Gabriault-Acosta ended this year, creating three spots on the City Council.Gabriault-Acosta is termed out for her City Council position but she is running for mayor in the November election.Lor and Carlisle are running for re-election this year. Other City Council candidates are Mike Murphy, Tony Dossetti, Charles Bolin, Richard Cervantes, Carl Pollard and Alex Gallardo Jr.Seven candidates running for three spots on the Merced City Council in the Nov. 8 municipal election dropped by the Sun-Star editorial board over the past two weeks to discuss the city's budget woes, prior decisions made by the council and bringing jobs and businesses to the community.
As Merced voters prepare to head to the polls next week, two political groups are pouring thousands of dollars into the Merced City Council campaigns — and they're both strongly supported by the same man.
Jim Abbate, whose company, Alia Corp., operates McDonald's restaurant franchises throughout Merced County, has donated thousands of dollars to local political action committees. One group, Citizens for the Betterment of Merced County, is supporting Richard Cervantes, Tony Dossetti and Mike Murphy in the local races. The second group has taken a decidedly negative approach.A last-minute surge of cash from labor unions to Merced City Councilman John Carlisle is ensuring a battle to the end in his campaign for re-election.
Former City Councilman Stan Thurston wants the city to operate like a business. And if he's elected mayor, he's going to demand changes in the way the city does business.
We continue part two of a series profiling Merced mayoral candidates for the November election. Reporters Ameera Butt and Mike North sat down with Councilwoman Michele Gabriault-Acosta and former councilmember Stan Thurston. Acosta lost in her 2009 campaign against Bill Spriggs. Thurston sat on the city council from 1995 to 2003. Both agreed on the importance of public safety, tightening the city’s financial purse strings and a need for change in the city’s leadership. And both highlighted some differences in city retirement plans within their platforms.
It's in her genes. That's what Michele Gabriault-Acosta tells people. And she's probably only half-joking. She's had eight years of Merced City Council experience and comes from a family long involved in city politics. Her mother was the first female mayor of Merced, and her father also sat in the mayor's chair in the late 1980s.
Meet Ken Riggleman Jr., Merced's version of Harold Stassen, the Minnesota politician who ran for president nine times between 1948 and 1988.
Incumbent Noah Lor wants to stay involved in city politics so he can continue to steer Merced in the right direction.
It's official: John Carlisle's running for Merced City Council.
Council candidate Mike Murphy joined Sun-Star readers for a question-and-answer session.
Is Carl Pollard really running for Merced City Council? It's a question we've been asking ourselves in the Sun-Star newsroom almost since the day he pulled his candidacy papers. After all, Pollard, a former city councilman, has no campaign signs around town, isn't running any kind of advertising and he's been very hard for reporters to reach. Not normal behaviors for a candidate in such a competitive race.
Among the eight city council candidates vying for a seat at Merced City Hall, Mike Murphy and Noah Lor lead the pack for financial contributions.
As of the Thursday deadline, Lor outdid the other seven council candidates, collecting $33,822.08 in campaign contributions. Nearly all of his campaign funds, $25,000 worth, was collected in the spring and came from single donations of less than $300 by people living in the Central Valley. The Merced-Mariposa Central Labor Council donated $1,000 during this period.
Merced's business community is supporting four newcomers for Merced City Council in November's elections.
Will he or won't he? Nobody seems to know whether Merced City Councilman John Carlisle will run for re-election -- maybe not even Carlisle himself, according to Councilman Bill Blake.
The latest two contestants for the Merced City Council race include a former gang member who spent years counseling young people away from gang life, and a former city councilman and advocate of South Merced.
When Richard Cervantes joined the city's Planning Commission five years ago, he said he knew he wanted to run for City Council.
But he said he didn't want to jump into politics without understanding the way it -- and staff -- worked.The Merced Business and Professional Women endorsed the following candidates for Merced City Council: Richard Cervantes, Tony Dossetti and Councilman Noah Lor. Councilwoman Michele Gabriault-Acosta is the endorsed candidate for Merced mayor.
City Council candidates Mike Murphy, Alex Gallardo Jr. and Tony Dossetti joined Merced Sun-Star reporters Ameera Butt and Mike North to talk about the upcoming election. Council hopeful Carl Pollard did not respond to requests for an interview.
Now that the candidacy filing period is over, prospects for Merced City Council are busy raising money for their campaigns.
Ken Riggleman is a familiar face at Merced City Council meetings, but you may know him better as the man with a working model railroad surrounding his house. Riggleman, 69, built a train track -- complete with miniature villages, airplanes and tunnels -- around his Alexander Drive home in 2007. Unlike his trains, however, Riggleman says the city of Merced has gone off its tracks.
Four candidates running for Merced mayor in the Nov. 8 municipal election dropped by the Sun-Star editorial board Monday to discuss bringing jobs to the community, the city budget and more.
Update: The Merced mayoral race is a four-way fight, featuring a rematch of 2009's battle between Michelle Gabriault-Acosta and Bill Spriggs. Also withdrawing mayoral candidacy papers was Councilman Bill Blake and former councilman Stanley P. Thurston.
The campaigning for Merced City Council is already going strong -- at least on Facebook.
"Off the 99" reporters Ameera Butt and Mike North talked with two of the mayoral candidates running in the November election in Merced: Mayor Bill Spriggs and Mayor Pro Tem Bill Blake. This is the first episode in a series highlighting mayoral candidates who have filed to run for mayor so far. Both discussed how to bring jobs to Merced, public safety and each candidate's political history and background. Next week, "Off the 99" will speak with Councilwoman Michele Gabriault-Acosta and former council member Stan Thurston.
Meet four of the Merced City Council candidates running in the Nov. 8 municipal election. In Part One of the radio show, incumbents Noah Lor and John Carlisle and candidates Charles Bolin and Richard Cervantes talked about Merced's economy, developer fees and ways to improve the city.
Off the 99's Ameera Butt and Mike North continue the discussion with Merced City Council candidates Noah Lor, John Carlisle, Charles Bolin and Richard Cervantes. Next week, the show will talk to the rest of the city council candidates running in the Nov. 8 municipal election.
If Secretary of State Debra Bowen was playing Scrabble, she'd have a heckuva time trying to form a word from the first seven letters selected in the state's randomized alphabet drawing. The drawing for this election cycle, held back in August, selected the letters F, Q, Y, K, O, C, and H. (A Scrabble cheats website says the longest word you can form from those letters is "Choky," for 16 points.)
How much does it cost to run a Merced City Council campaign? If you're Noah Lor or Mike Murphy, a lot.
The League of Women Voters of Merced County will hold several events designed for local residents to become informed about the candidates running in Merced municipal election in November.
