Despite record-breaking spending by its supporters, a controversial ballot measure that would have allowed developers to build Mendocino County?s largest commercial development without county permission was headed toward apparent defeat late Tuesday.
Almost 61 percent ? 10,492 ? of voters opposed Measure A, with early absentees and most inland precincts counted. There were 6,728 votes in favor of the measure, accounting for about 39 percent of the early ballots.
More than 70 percent of the county?s 49,000 registered voters use mail-in ballots. It?s not yet known how many voters turned in their ballots at the polls, delaying their count.
But, with the overwhelming early landslide, both supporters and opponents of Measure A proclaimed the measure dead.
?I think this is it,? said Potter Valley farmer Guinness McFadden, a spokesman for the campaign against Measure A.
?It?s a pretty insurmountable number,? agreed Measure A spokesman Brian Sobel. ?We certainly are extremely disappointed with that result.?
Measure A would have allowed Ohio and Texas developers to build up to 800,000 square feet of commercial buildings on 80 acres just north of Ukiah.
It would have forced the county to rezone the former Masonite plant property from industrial to mixed-use and to adopt the developers? plan for the site. The plan proposes a mix of businesses and homes, but is not fixed. The developers so far have promised only to locate several big-box retailers on the property.
Proponents say the development would have created jobs and boosted the local economy.
Opponents called it an attempt to skirt the planning process and said it would have placed the county?s economic future in the hands of out-of-state developers.
Ohio-based Developers Diversified Realty and Texas developer David Berndt had invested $888,000 into the ballot measure as of last week, shattering the previous spending record for a Mendocino County ballot measure.
Opponents of Measure A, Save Our Local Economy, raised just over $92,000 to defeat Measure A.
?I would say this is probably the most expensive? ballot measure in the county?s history, said Sue Ranochak, Mendocino County?s assessor-clerk-recorder.
The prior record was set in 2004, when agribusiness corporations spent almost $688,000 in a futile effort to defeat a proposed ban on genetically modified crops. Measure H proponents spent just over $145,000. Despite the expensive opposition, Measure H won.
McFadden expects the yes on Measure A campaign to be closer to $1.5 million when the final expenditures are filed.
The defeat of yet another high-expenditure campaign by a large corporation is no surprise to longtime residents.
?They think they can roll us over like a cow county with a bunch of yokels who don?t know anything,? McFadden said. ?It doesn?t work in Mendocino County.?
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