Measure seeks to name sewage plant after Bush

46FB5081.JPG Event on 4/28/04 in San Francisco. Phil Matier and Andy Ross for their column logo. Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle 46FB5081.JPG Event on 4/28/04 in San Francisco. Phil Matier and Andy Ross for their column logo. Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf, SFC Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf, SFC Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Measure seeks to name sewage plant after Bush 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Every San Francisco election has something that captures the nation's attention - and this year it's Proposition R, the proposed renaming of a sewage-treatment plant after George W. Bush.

It's not the first time voters have had a chance to slap the outgoing commander in chief. In 2006, San Franciscans passed an advisory measure, with 58 percent of the vote, calling for Bush's impeachment.

This year, Prop. R would rechristen the $220 million Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant near Ocean Beach in honor of Bush.

Some may think it a joke. It's not.

Public Utilities Commission spokesman Tony Winnicker says his shop has been advised by the city attorney that if the measure passes Tuesday, the name must change.

That means replacing the lettering outside the plant and reprinting all the informational brochures handed out to schoolchildren and others who take field trips there.

The estimated cost: about $50,000.

"The potential irony here is that this is a modern facility that protects the ocean and the environment every day," Winnicker said, "and I'm not sure that's the right legacy for President Bush."

No, but there would be no mistaking the smell.

The players club: Politics has long been the playground of millionaires. This election, however, the billionaires have taken over the table.

The biggest player this time out in California is billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, co-owner of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. The company has pumped $19 million into Proposition 10, the $5 billion state bond that would set up a rebate program for alternative-fuel vehicles.

According to Judy Dugan, research director of the nonpartisan Consumer Watchdog in Santa Monica, Pickens' company controls 70 percent of the compressed natural gas sold in the United States and would stand to make a fortune fueling the newly subsidized trucks and cars.

However, Yes on 10 spokeswoman Amy Thoma tells us that the way the measure is drafted, "there's no guarantee any one company or type of fuel will benefit."

Next up, the father and son tag-team billionaires John and Peter Sperling, who head up the for-profit University of Phoenix online college.

Peter Sperling has sunk $9 million into Proposition 7, which would require that California get half its electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Renewable energy is something near and dear to papa John Sperling, who is interested in investing in the emerging technology.

Then there's Orange County billionaire Henry Nicholas III, founder of the high-tech firm Broadcom Corp.

Nicholasspent $4.5 million to back Proposition 9, which would add crime victims' rights to the state Constitution and make it more difficult for criminals to be paroled.

Marsy's Law, as the proposition is known, is named after Nicholas' sister, a UC Santa Barbara student who was killed by her boyfriend in 1983.

Oddly enough, Henry Nicholas now finds himself on the wrong end of the law, having been indicted over the summer on federal fraud and narcotics charges that included allegations he provided prostitutes and drugs to customers. He's even accused of having slipped Ecstasy into the drinks of unwitting executives.

Nicholas has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Billionaire investor and liberal activist George Soros spent $1.4 million in support of Proposition 5, which would expand treatment programs for most drug offenders as an alternative to prison and make it harder to put parole violators back behind bars. And the aforementioned John Sperling has kicked in another $500,000.

And we haven't even begun to talk about all the $1 million contributors to both sides of the Proposition 8 same-sex marriage fight.

Lights, camera, hero! Three years after the teachers, nurses and firefighters kicked his backside up and down the state, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger may finally get one of his measures approved by voters.

And he's using a firefighter, of all people, as the closer.

At issue is Proposition 11, Arnold's bid to have an independent commission redraw the state's legislative district lines.

The Field Poll shows the measure ahead by 45 to 30 percent, with a big 25 percent still undecided.

Enter Luke Perisin, a firefighter from Orange County who cut a TV ad for Schwarzenegger's plan - thus giving the impression that firefighters across the state are behind the measure.

They aren't - at least, their union isn't.

But all you need is one guy on your side, because voters love firefighters - a lesson Arnold learned in spades when a negative TV campaign starring firefighters and nurses helped drive the governor's poll numbers into the toilet in 2005.

It's a lesson the governor is now using to his advantage.

Big bang: Supervisor Chris Daly's 2005 ballot measure to ban handguns in San Francisco had an even bigger backfire than we told you about last Monday.

The National Rifle Association and others successfully challenged the legality of the measure - and now the Board of Supervisors has been asked to sign off on a $380,000 settlement to cover the cost of the lawsuit.

It turns out that in addition to paying the NRA's legal fees on a case that Mayor Gavin Newsomand others said was doomed from the start, the city attorney's office spent $200,000 of its own on the lawsuit.

Assuming that supervisors sign off on the settlement Tuesday, that would bring the bill for the ballot stunt to $580,000.

But hey - it did make a nationwide splash.

And finally: Franco Gianelli went to a small copy store in Daly City the other day to fax a document, and quickly discovered just how bad the economy has gotten.

After Gianelli borrowed a stapler to fasten three sheets of paper together, the clerk asked him for 2 cents - to cover the cost of the staple.

EXTRA! Catch our Web page at www.sfgate.com/matierandross.