UPDATED: Tuesday, April 5th, 2011 — As of today four thousand ballots have been received at City Hall, according to Burbank City Clerk, Margarita Campos.
The Burbank General Election is just around the corner — on Tuesday, April 12. In the primary a few weeks ago, I dropped my ballot off at City Hall on Election Day. This time, I decided to handle my mail-in ballot differently.
My mail-in ballot was little ragged when I retrieved it from my mailbox late last month. Chalk up another negative for this controversial mail-in ballot system . Luckily, most of the damage was to the outside envelope. Yesterday, I marked my ballot, tucked it into the secrecy sleeve, and put that into the yellow return envelope. Oh, I affixed a first class stamp to that return envelope as well.
I dropped my envelope/ballot into the mail slot at the post office on Olive Avenue last night. No, it did not feel the same as dropping my ballot into the ballot box at the polls. At the post office I can only hope that my ballot gets to City Hall by Election Day. We’ve all heard of cases where a postcard or letter has taken years to get to its destination in the U.S. Mail. No such worry or concern at a polling place.
I’ve heard the issue of this controversial mail-in ballot is coming back to the Burbank City Council for a review soon. I say, yippee to that.
Dirty tricks & a big fundraiser
I got another report of disappearing Bob Frutos campaign signs over the past few days. Janet Strong, a resident in that 1800-1900 block of North Screenland Drive, e-mailed me to say Frutos’ signs were vanishing from the yards there. “It is sad that these type of dirty tricks are being played out. Very sad.” Bob Frutos said in an e-mail response about the stolen campaign signs.
A fundraiser/meet and greet for Frutos on March 23 drew some of B-town’s movers and shakers. The affair was at the elegant home of Burbank Civil Service Board member, Mary Lou Howard.
Around 75 or so attended attended the affair on a stormy night; among them: Police Commissioner Hagop Hergelian, Police Commissioner Nate Rubinfeld and wife Alma, Police Commissioner Jim Eitter, Dave and Pat Augustine, ex-State Assembly candidate Sunder Ramani, Bob Hope Airport Commissioners Charles Lombardo & Don Brown, and newly re-elected City Councilman, Gary Bric.