ELECTION results from across the country

CALIFORNIA: <br><br>_San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a $100 million bond issue to pay for solar power in public buildings. They also authorized city supervisors to underwrite renewable energy

Wednesday, November 7th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

CALIFORNIA:

_San Francisco voters overwhelmingly approved a $100 million bond issue to pay for solar power in public buildings. They also authorized city supervisors to underwrite renewable energy projects in homes and businesses without voter approval.

_San Francisco measures to create a publicly owned utility and seize Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s local transmission lines and power plants were too close to call with some 9,000 absentee ballots still uncounted. PG&E spent more than $1 million fighting the measures.

_Voters in Carson, a Los Angeles suburb, decided not to secede from troubled Los Angeles Unified School District. With 772,000 children, the Los Angeles school district is the nation's second-largest after New York.

COLORADO:

_Voters rejected a proposal to let the state spend $50 million to create a prototype for a monorail that would link Denver and some Rocky Mountain resorts.

_Voters in the western Colorado city of Montrose upheld a 7-month-old ban on smoking in public places. Many restaurants said they suffered financially because of the ban.

CONNECTICUT:

_Hartford Democrat Eddie Perez, a community activist and former Trinity College official, won election as Hartford's first Hispanic mayor.

_Waterbury voters chose state lawmaker Michael Jarjura to replace Republican Mayor Philip Giordano, who has been charged with sexual assault involving minors and violating the civil rights of the alleged victims.

FLORIDA:

_Miami Mayor Joe Carollo lost his bid for re-election. Former Mayor Maurice Ferre and Manny Diaz, an attorney for Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives, will go into a runoff Tuesday to decide the city's next mayor.

_Miami Beach voters said the city should provide employee benefits to gay and heterosexual domestic partners.

GEORGIA:

_Atlanta elected its first female mayor. Former city administrator Shirley Franklin got 50.25 percent of the vote to succeed term-limited Mayor Bill Campbell. Franklin needed more than 50 percent to avoid a runoff.

IOWA:

_About 50 voters in newly incorporated Vedic City elected Bob Wynne, running unopposed for mayor. Wynne helped found the community of followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who brought Transcendental Meditation to Iowa.

MAINE:

_Portland residents voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution supporting the creation of a single-payer system of health care. The measure, based on a Canadian system, drew fierce opposition from health insurers, who mounted a television ad campaign against it.

MASSACHUSETTS:

_Boston Mayor Thomas Menino easily won re-election against City Councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen in a nonpartisan contest.

MICHIGAN:

_Detroit voters elected Kwame Kilpatrick, the 31-year-old state House Democratic leader and son of a congresswoman, to succeed Mayor Dennis Archer, who did not seek a third term.

_Voters in Traverse City and Kalamazoo rejected amendments that would have prevented city officials from enacting policies protecting gays from discrimination. In Huntington Woods, voters upheld a city ordinance banning anti-gay discrimination.

_In Dearborn, 16-year incumbent Mayor Michael Guido defeated Abed Hammoud, an assistant Wayne County prosecutor. Guido was elected to his fifth term as mayor.

MINNESOTA:

_Political novice R.T. Rybak defeated Minneapolis Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, who was the first black and first female mayor of the city.

_State Sen. Randy Kelly had a 403-vote lead in the race to succeed St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, who plans to run for U.S. Senate. Kelly declared victory, but his opponent, City Councilman Jay Benanav, said he would wait to decide whether to concede or pay for a recount.

MISSISSIPPI:

_Larry W. Presley, a retired Tupelo police officer, and Steve Brooks advanced from a field of 14 to a runoff for Lee County Sheriff. The winner replaces Presley's brother, former Sheriff Harold Ray Presley, a cousin of Elvis Presley, who was killed in shootout.

_Faye Peterson was elected Hinds County district attorney, becoming the state's first elected black female prosecutor. She had been named interim district attorney to fill a vacancy when Ed Peters retired. She defeated former Assistant District Attorney Bryan Buckley in the election.

NEW JERSEY:

_Jim McGreevey coasted past GOP challenger Bret Schundler to become the state's first Democratic governor since 1989. McGreevey succeeds acting Gov. Donald DiFrancesco, who is finishing Christie Whitman's term. Whitman now heads the Environmental Protection Agency.

_Democrats won a majority in the Assembly for the first time in 10 years and gained five seats in the Senate, which will now be evenly divided, 20-20.

_Atlantic City Mayor James Whelan outpolled City Councilman Lorenzo Langford 4,202 to 4,145, but with more than 1,500 unopened absentee ballots, the count was to continue Wednesday.

NEW YORK:

_Billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg, a Republican, beat the city's elected public advocate, Democrat Mark Green, in the race to succeed term-limited Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

_Democrat John C. Liu won a New York City Council seat to become the first Asian-American chosen for a major elective office in the city.

_Democratic mayors Gerald Jennings in Albany and William Johnson in Rochester easily won third terms. In Buffalo, Democratic Mayor Anthony Masiello ran uncontested.

_Jeanine Pirro won a third term as Westchester County District Attorney despite criticism by her Democratic challenger of her husband's conviction on federal tax fraud charges.

NORTH CAROLINA:

_Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican, defeated former City Council member Ella Scarborough.

_In Raleigh, Republican incumbent Paul Coble conceded to ex-councilman Charles Meeker, a Democrat, in a mayoral runoff. Only 962 votes separated the two, and absentee and provisional ballots remained to be counted.

OHIO:

_Jane Campbell, a county commissioner, became Cleveland's first female mayor. She defeated Raymond Pierce, who was a deputy assistant education secretary in the Clinton administration.

_Mayor Charlie Luken defeated challenger Courtis Fuller. Luken had been criticized for his handling of the city's rioting sparked earlier this year by the police shooting of a black man.

PENNSYLVANIA:

_Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy, a Democrat, easily won a third term against Republican James Carmine, a philosophy professor.

_Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, once called ``America's Deadliest D.A.'' because of her zeal for the death penalty, won a landslide victory over three little-known challengers.

_City Controller John Brenner, 33, was elected to succeed York Mayor Charlie Robertson, who dropped out of the race after he and eight other men were charged in connection with the shooting death of a black woman during the city's 1969 race riots.

_Republican J. Michael Eakin beat fellow Superior Court Judge Kate Ford Elliott to give the GOP its first majority on the state's highest court in three decades.

SOUTH CAROLINA:

_Spartanburg Mayor James Talley sought a third term against literally everyone else in town. He botched the petition to get his name on the ballot, meaning the election depended entirely on write-in votes. Any of the city's 23,000 registered voters could have won.

TEXAS:

_Former Austin city councilman Gus Garcia defeated a large field of challengers to become the first elected Hispanic mayor of Texas' capital city. Garcia will serve out the term of former Mayor Kirk Watson, who resigned to run for attorney general.

_Houston Mayor Lee Brown, a Democrat, narrowly led Republican city councilman Orlando Sanchez. Since neither got more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held within the next month.

_Voters narrowly approved a measure to prevent Houston from offering health benefits to partners of gay and lesbian municipal employees.

_Voters approved the creation a fund that will let Texas borrow money for new and improved roads needed for growing population. Eighteen other proposed amendments also were approved, including a measure to build roads in poor border communities known as colonias.

VIRGINIA:

_Democrat Mark Warner defeated Republican Mark Earley in the race to succeed term-limited Gov. Jim Gilmore.

_Republicans expanded their majority in the House of Delegates, picking up a dozen seats in districts redrawn this year by the GOP-controlled Legislature.

WASHINGTON:

_Rivals in Seattle's nonpartisan mayoral race were County Councilman Greg Nickels and City Attorney Mark Sidran. With 98 percent of precincts reporting, Nickels had 54 percent of the vote to Sidran's 46 percent, but tens of thousands of absentee ballots remained uncounted.

_Democrats, who have shared power with the Republicans in an unusual 49-49 tie for the past three years, ousted Republican Rep. Joe Marine of the Seattle suburb of Mukilteo to take control in the Legislature. Democrat Brian Sullivan outpolled Marine, 55 percent to 42 percent.

_Voters approved increasing the state cigarette tax to $1.42 1/2 per pack, giving Washington the highest cigarette taxes in the nation. The tax would boost the price of a pack of brand-name cigarettes over $5 in some places.