Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks has made it official: He won’t be running for re-election in 2010.

In a newspaper column submitted to The Star on Thursday, Brooks stated definitively that he plans to retire from the Sheriff’s Department when his third term in office ends next year. He has said for months that he wasn’t likely to seek re-election, and had promised a final decision by June so that anyone looking to replace him could have a full year to campaign before the June 2010 primary election.

According to the secretary of state's office, counties are reporting a preliminary turnout of 23 percent, or roughly 4 million of California's 17.1 million registered voters.

Ventura County voters appeared divided today between rejecting six propositions designed to help close the state's budget shortfall, and not voting at all.

As expected, turnout was low for the election, in which Moorpark residents also voted for a new City Council member.

At Rio Del Norte School in Oxnard, only 45 people had voted by lunchtime "about 20 percent of the normal turnout," said Michael Ramey, the voting inspector at the site. At DeAnza School in Ventura, the turnout was even lower, about 27 people by early afternoon.

The polls open at 7 a.m. today as Californians — a few of them, at least -— vote on a series of measures that aim to fix some of the state’s multi-billion-dollar budget problems.

Experts are predicting very low turnout. Jim Becker, Ventura County’s acting clerk-recorder, said he expects between 30 percent and 40 percent of the county’s registered voters to cast ballots in this election.

That’s less than half of the 81 percent turnout in the November presidential election, but Becker said it’s fairly typical for a propositions-only special election.