1:11 a.m. update final results The ballot counting is far from over. The Sacramento County Voter Registration and Elections Department still has to count tens of thousands of vote-by-mail ballots that were turned in to the polls Election Day, said Brad Buyse, Sacramento County’s campaign services manager. And there are thousands of vote-by-mail ballots sent to the county in the last three days that still need to be counted, Buyse said. Still, the elections department posted results late into the night on Wednesday. Here is where the following local measures stand: Measure B: Utilities Rollback The “no” side had 68 percent of the vote, with 93 percent of precincts reporting. Support fo

Too bad there’s not an instant replay for political endorsements since the Sacramento Bee recently made a highly questionable call by choosing Dan Lungren over Dr. Ami Bera in the 3rd District Congressional race. “By a slim margin,” the Bee argued, stating that Bera’s grasp of the nation’s and district’s “vast challenges” isn’t “as wide as it should be.” What are these “vast challenges” and what are the two candidates' positions about them? Lungren’s record on the economy and jobs is dismal: voting against the 2009 Recovery Act stimulus and unemployment extensions – job creators/savers – and recently voting against a $30 billion small business lending and tax breaks bill (more jobs help)

As a local small business owner who, like many others, has seen his activity decline during the past two years, I wrestle with changing my business plan, modifying my products and services, and generally reinventing my work, possibly for a different market niche. And I wonder what sort of outside help I’ll get, if any, from the public sector. With fears of a double-dip recession, continuing high unemployment in California (and locally), and evidence that small business employment is lagging, I wonder about the positions of local 3rd District Congressional candidates on whom we’ll be voting in November: incumbent Dan Lungren and challenger Ami Bera. Where do they stand on credit availabili

 Recently, 3rd District Congressman Dan Lungren sent a mailer to his constituents in which he rails against federal stimulus funding and, unethically, promotes his re-election campaign against challenger Ami Bera in the upcoming November election, a contest on which we reported here last January: Lungren, the career politician who defends the Washington D.C. status quo grid-lock, versus Dr. Bera, a newcomer to politics whose fresh, long-term views represent hoped-for solutions to the 3rd District’s most pressing problems. Why is this recent incident important? Aside from being about one of the major local and regional races on the November ballot, what Lungren is doing with his mailer, “p

Each season around this time, polls like Field and others publish early voter preference results and the pundits proclaim that political campaigns have started. In truth, these campaigns have been going for some time, albeit somewhat “under the media radar,” and so it is with the campaigns of incumbent Dan Lungren and challenger Ami Bera in the area’s 3rd congressional district. . As reapportioned in 2001, the 3rd district resembles an ungainly beast, stretching from part of Solano County in the west, south around downtown Sacramento and into the city’s eastern suburbs and on west, incorporating all of Amador, Calaveras and Alpine Counties, extending to the Nevada border in the Sierra mou

Make no mistake about it, I love serving my community. As a City Council Member and Mayor in the City of Elk Grove, I get to do what I love most – serve people and neighborhoods. During my tenure on the Council, we have accomplished much. Just a few of these accomplishments include: reforming our entire city government, bringing good jobs to the community, reducing crime, strengthening our neighborhoods, and much, much more. Though I call Elk Grove home, I am proud to announce my candidacy for Congress in Rancho Cordova – my native community (and now City!). That’s right. I was born and raised in Rancho Cordova. Yes, I am a Lancer. Yes, I played football. Max Miler was my coach! I helped