Go back to Election '94 pageSAN FRANCISCO -- San Francisco voters rejected a $196 million bond measure that would have paid for a new jail designed to ease overcrowding and avoid huge fines.
It marks the second time in recent years that voters have rejected the city's plan to build a 1,500-bed jail in San Bruno to replace a dilapidated facility there. The San Bruno jail is the target of a federal lawsuit by inmates who say that overcrowded, unsafe conditions in the jail violate their constitutional rights.
Voters also rejected a measure that would have set the stage for city officials to levy a tax on downtown business to raise money for the Municipal Railway System.
Unless the final vote tally produces an upset, people who receive welfare in San Francisco have been given a choice by voters -- rent a hotel room or lose their monthly check.
By a surprisingly tight margin that could still be shifted by thousands of untallied absentee ballots, the electorate appeared to back Proposition N, which would require homeless General Assistance recipients to spend most of their $345 monthly grant on a hotel room. Failure to rent a room would be grounds for losing the grant.
The proposition was sponsored by Mayor Frank Jordan. It is believed to be the first such program in the nation.
Go back to Election '94 page