The Assembly this week unanimously approved a bill that would create a pilot project in Alameda, Los Angeles and Sacramento counties requiring installation of ignition interlock devices (IID) on any vehicle owned or operated by someone convicted of a drunk-driving offense.

“A restricted license still allows a person to drive drunk,” said Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angles, the author of Assembly Bill 91. “Since we have the technology that can help prevent drivers from getting behind the wheel after drinking, we should be using it. Not only would this legislation help reduce the likelihood that innocent people will be harmed by drunk drivers, it also promotes sober driving habits.”

An IID links into a vehicle’s ignition system so that a driver must blow into the device in order to start the vehicle; it won’t start unless the driver’s alcohol level is below the limit of .08 blood-alcohol content. Courts now have the discretion to require the devices’ installation, but aren’t mandated to do so.

States where IID installation is mandatory for first-time offenders have seen significant decreases in repeat DUI offenses, Feuer said: New Mexico’s drunk-driving recidivism has declined by more than 60 percent since it enacted an IID mandate for first-time offenders, while West Virginia saw a drop of more than 70 percent.

California taxpayers won’t pay the cost; offenders would be required to pay for the IIDs. The pilot project would go from July 1, 2010 to Jan. 1, 2015, and the Department of Motor Vehicles would have to report to the Legislature by mid-2014 on the project’s effectiveness.

The state Senate now takes up the bill.

Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele won’t run for re-election next year, and some heavy hitters are exploring bids to succeed her – including at least two names well-known in statewide political circles.

“I’m getting up there (in age) and you do begin to feel it after a while,” Steele, 72, said today. “In your head you don’t feel old but the rest of your body does. I’ve been there a long time and I’m just tired, you need a lot of energy and stick-to-it-iveness.”

Steele, who has held the District 2 seat representing Hayward, Newark, Union City, a chunk of Fremont and unincorporated Sunol on the board of supervisors since 1992, named four people who have talked to her about seeking her seat:

Nadia Lockyer, executive director of the Alameda County Family Justice Center and wife of state Treasurer Bill Lockyer, of Hayward;

California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board member and former state Sen. Liz Figueroa, D-Sunol;

Hayward City Councilman Kevin Dowling; and

former Alameda County Sheriff Charlie Plummer of Hayward.

“You don’t even file (candidacy papers) until February, so there can be a huge fallout or there can be even more,” Steele noted, adding that of the four people she named, “as far as I know, they’re all serious. … It’s going to be quite a race.”

Steele didn’t mention his name, but Union City Mayor Mark Green – who ran against Steele in 1998 – seems to be in the race too. Green, Lockyer and Figueroa have already formed campaign committees for the race — Lockyer, in fact, just filed her paperwork this week — while Dowling has converted his city council campaign committee into a “Friends of Kevin Dowling” committee. I don’t see anything under Plummer’s name.

Comments from some of the would-be candidates, after the jump…
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Guy Ashley, spokesman for the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, said voter turnout for today’s special election looks rather bleak.

“The polling places have had very light traffic,” he said based on reports from the field, noting he had visited a few polling places in North Oakland and Berkeley earlier this afternoon and hadn’t found any with more than 100 votes cast. “I went to one in Berkeley, on the UC campus, that at 1 p.m. had had 13 voters.”

Remember, Alameda County has about 760,000 registered voters at about 405 polling places. Things probably will pick up somewhat after 5 p.m. when people are getting out of work, and Ashley reported they’ve got about 130,000 mail-in ballots already in hand. But those 130,000 ballots amount to a 17-percent turnout rate.

“We’ve been saying 30 percent all along, and I think that’s probably going to be on the high end,” Ashley said.

No major logistical snafus to report, at least. “The biggest issue is that we’ve consolidated precincts anticipating a low turnout on election day, so there are some folks who go to their old polling place and find it’s not functioning,” Ashley said, noting signs were posted to re-direct wayward voters to the correct polling sites.

Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty

Wedded bliss, or the prospect thereof, is no longer just a Contra Costa trend.

Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty of Dublin married Rhonda Gibbons on Feb. 14 in Jack London Square in Oakland. Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson presided.

For a while, we thought it was something in the water in Contra Costa County.

In the past few months, Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Alamo; Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch; and California GOP Vice Chairman Tom Del Beccaro of Lafayette, each announced their engagements to their respective partners. (No, not to each other.)

According to a press release from Haggerty’s office, he and his bride met at a sports event in Livermore in which both of their sons were playing. This is nearly a Brady Bunch union: Haggerty has three children and Gibbons has two.

The newlyweds are spending their honeymoon in Hawaii.

Haggerty has served on the five-member Board of Supervisors for twelve years and was re-elected to a fourth four-year term in 2008. He represents the cities of Fremont, Livermore, Pleasanton, the eastern-most portion of Dublin and unincorporated east Alameda County on Board of Supervisors.

Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson is coordinating the planning for a big Inauguration Day bash, most likely at the Oracle Arena, so a large East Bay crowd can gather to watch Barack Obama sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

“We’re almost sure we’re going to have the contract for the arena that day,” Carson told me a few minutes ago, just hours after about 25 representatives from various faith congregations, community groups and local agencies had gathered for their first meeting to plan the event. “Everybody is saying, ‘What can I do to help?’”

They’re also planning a series of other community events in the 10 days leading up to the Jan. 20 inauguration, including an event Sunday, Jan. 11 at Oakland’s new Cathedral of Christ the Light near Lake Merritt, and another on Sunday, Jan. 18 at Beebe Memorial Cathedral on Telegraph Avenue. Other institutions have set tentative dates as well.

“We know that we are in the middle of… very volatile times in the community, and even with a new administration, it’s going to be difficult locally for us for years to come. This gives us an opportunity to find new friends, to recommit to communicating across those lines to see how we can leverage our resources and infrastructure to help people,” Carson said today. “Barack’s campaign on some level was kind of indicating we as a country need to do that.”

Tickets for Oracle Arena event – likely to start pretty darned early on Tuesday, Jan. 20, as the president is traditionally sworn in at noon, meaning 9 a.m. PST – might cost a nominal fee, if only to control their dissemination, Carson said; as many as 17,000 people might fit into the arena for such an event.

That’s all we know for now; I’ll provide more details as they become available.

Carson, like Rep. Barbara Lee and Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, is a protégé and former aide to Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums during Dellums’ Congressional tenure. Swanson and Dellums had endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary, while Lee and Carson backed Obama; all of them supported Obama in this month’s general election.

Alameda County is asking voters and poll workers who took part in the Nov. 4 election to participate in an on-line survey at the Registrar of Voters website, www.acgov.org/rov,

The department will use the results to improve serrvices, according to Registrar of Voters Dave Macdonald.

The survey features 10 questions about voting methods, polling place operations and effectiveness of pollworkers.

Inspectors who run polling places, poll workers, precinct coordinators who provide support to polling sites, and personnel who staff return centers were election supplies are returned after the closing of the polls are also asked to participate in a survey.

For more information, call 510-272-6933.

Before long, election officials will beam results directly into implants embedded into our foreheads.

In the meantime, sign up for Alameda County’s email blast service of the results of a select group of races to your cell phone. Click here to sign up.

Races include Alameda County results for: President, Pleasanton Mayor, Berkeley Mayor, Oakland City Council at Large, Berkeley City Council District 4, San Leandro City Council District 2 and Measure V V.

If it works well, Registrar Dave Macdonald says he will expand the service in future elections.

For those who are counting, the score in the East Bay contest to possess the most high-tech election gadgets in the East Bay is:

Contra Costa County: 1

Alameda County: 2.

Both counties launched GIS-based mapping results in the last election but Alameda County is the first to send emails to your Blackberry.

Voters are still confused about how much postage to put on their vote-by-mail ballots.

Here’s the low-down:

If you live in Contra Costa County, it will cost 59 cents to mail your ballot.

In Alameda County and Solano County, a single, first-class stamp will the do the trick.

Why is it different in each county? Because each county designs its own ballot. That process includes the selection of the card stock used for the ballot, which contributes to the weight of the ballot. Other factors include the font size used for the words on the ballot, which will determine the size of the ballot. Some counties have more ballot measures than other counties.

Neither the U.S. Post Office or Contra Costa Registrar of Voters Steve Weir are particular about what kind of stamps you put on the ballot as long as it adds up to at least 59 cents.In fact, the post office loves it when you paste two first-class stamps on it; they make an extra quarter.

“You would be amazed at how many people place two first-class stamps on their ballot and could care less about the extra postage,” Weir said.   “Then, again, it is amazing how many (not many) place exact postage, a 42-cent plus two eight-cent Eisenhower stamps and a one-cent kestral stamp!   Then, there are those philatilists who place 10 stamps that make up $0.59.”

What happens if you don’t put enough postage of any variation on your ballot? Contra Costa County has a postage due account that will cover the cost, so it won’t get returned to the sender. But the ballot goes into a special pile for hand processing and it  will delay the delivery of your ballot to the election office.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has released a formula that determines funding levels for communities decimated by the foreclosure crisis, with an estimated $10.3 million directed to Alameda County and $8.2 million of that reserved for Oakland.

And Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, isn’t happy.

“Though I am pleased we were able to secure this much needed funding for our communities being devastated by the foreclosure crisis, I remain concerned about the overall California allocation,” she said in a release issued this afternoon. “Several of my colleagues and I have written a letter to HUD Secretary Steve Preston calling for a review of the formula and asking that it be adjusted to recognize the devastating impact of the foreclosure crisis in the state of California.”

Under H.R. 3221, the Foreclosure Prevention Act signed into law July 30, HUD will disperse $3.92 billion in CDBG funding nationwide with $145 million in funding going to California; the money is to be used to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed properties that have been vacant for more than 90 days, as a means of restoring home values and reducing blight and crime in hard-hit neighborhoods.

Yet, Lee notes, California is slated to receive $12 million less of this CDBG funding than Florida.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, Assemblymember Sandré Swanson and Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson are on board with Lee’s call for a re-examination of the funding formula. (It’s not surprising to see all of them on the same page, as Lee, Swanson and Carson all worked for Dellums when he held the 9th Congressional District seat Lee now occupies.)

“With regards to the issue of foreclosures, anyone familiar with this crisis knows that the city of Oakland and the county of Alameda have been hit extremely hard,” Dellums said in Lee’s release. “Many of Oakland’s neighborhoods have been devastated by this crisis, and I join my colleagues in expressing our disappointment in what appears to be a fundamentally flawed and unfair formula.”

Said Carson: “California has the second highest foreclosure rate in the country, second only to Nevada. The HUD allocation of $2 million does not adequately address the needs of working families in our communities who are struggling to hold onto their property.”

And Swanson agreed time is of the essence “in dealing with long-vacant foreclosed properties. Increasing blight attracts crime, bringing down property values, and straining local police services that are often stretched too thin already. Given the incredibly high rate of foreclosures in the State, it is imperative that HUD reexamines its funding formula to ensure that California receives the funds it needs to properly address this crisis.”

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, sent out a message a few minutes ago saying the Senate will remain in session until it passes a budget.

That’s bad news for Democrats with plane tickets to Denver, where the party’s national political convention officially starts Monday.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass says she won’t go to Denver, either, until the state passes a budget.

(P.S., If you’ve been having trouble finding a hotel room in Denver, try calling a Democrat in the state Legislature. You could get a killer deal.)

It’s unclear whether the prospect of watching Barack Obama’s nomination speech in person and quaffing all those free drinks will prove sufficient incentive to pass a budget, particularly for the Republicans whose convention doesn’t start until Sept. 1.

FYI, Perata is a delegate for Hillary Clinton.

Here’s what Perata had to say:

“For weeks, I have been clear: The Senate will continue to work until we have a budget. I have told Senate Democrats that they need to remain in town to do our business and should not attend the Democratic National Convention next week in Denver.

“The Senate will be in session through the end of the month, with session every day this week, the Senate on call over the weekend and session every day next week. With over 500 bills pending and a budget to resolve, we have a lot to do in the next 12 days.”