Water Bond Battle Already Underway
We recently attended the Southern California Water Committee board of directors meeting and were very pleased by that group’s early and unanimous support of the $11 billion water bond that will be on this November’s ballot.
Laer Pearce & Associates played a small but important part in getting the comprehensive water legislation passed last November, pulling together a coalition of important local business organizations and taking their pro-water message to Orange County’s Sacramento delegation. We’re proud that an OC senator, Tom Harmon, was the deciding vote in favor of the bond.
The toughest part of selling the bond to the voters will be growing resistance in the state to more bond debt – a legitimate concern that has been expressed by strange bedfellows: fiscally conservative Republicans and fiscally liberal state employee unions. But the state’s water infrastructure is clearly broken, and it must be fixed to protect the state’s economy. It was designed when the state’s population was only 16 million – now it’s 38 million, on its way to 50 million – and it’s crippled by endangered species rulings that restrict pumping. The bond contains precious little pork by Sacramento standards and will fund new storage and supplies, plus an ESA-required Delta repair, which must be done if we’re ever going to see a new canal.
A pro-bond campaign committee, the Alliance for Clean Water & Jobs, is already in place, with representatives from environmental and business groups, agriculture and non-public unions all allied for passage. Fundraising will be key because approval will require a multi-million-dollar TV ad buy. Some radical greens are using water as their main weapon in their effort to turn California back into a desert. If you have a different vision for the future of California, please give generously to the Alliance for Clean Water & Jobs when their fundraising efforts kick off.
Want more info? Give Laer a call at 949/599-1212.
Tags: Alliance for Clean Water & Jobs, bonds, delta, Environment, environmentalists, ESA, jobs, Water
This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Environment, Government, LP&A, Politics, Water. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
