Give developer Sandor Scher this: He had a bold vision, and he put his money behind it. Unfortunately for Scher, that epic dream — to knock down a block of historic North Beach hotels to build a 22-story luxury condo and hotel — was not shared by the voters who had to approve it. By the time the dust cleared on the November ballot, Scher and his allies had blown more than $700,000 trying to persuade voters to let him demolish buildings along Ocean Terrace to erect a 250-foot tower as a start; Mayor Philip Levine had thrown his full support behind the plan; and Scher had invested $70 million in all the properties he hoped to renovate. But as returns rolled in, it became blindingly obvious that voters had enough of runaway development on the Beach. They had specifically passed height restrictions to prevent outsize project's like Scher's. By the end of the day, Scher, Levine, and the project's other backers had lost big at the polls, 55 to 45. That's one expensive misreading of the public's mood.