Features

Voters to consider $2.6 billion in bonds for parks, farms, air

By Don Thompson The Associated Press
Thursday February 28, 2002

SACRAMENTO — Californians will decide Tuesday whether to spend some green — their tax money — on greenery. 

Proposition 40, dubbed the California Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe Neighborhood Parks and Coastal Protection Act, would spend $2.6 billion on water and air quality, protecting beaches, improving parks, and preserving open space, farmland and wildlife habitat. 

The debt would cost taxpayers an estimated $4.3 billion over 25 years — including $1.7 billion in interest — or $172 million a year from the state’s general fund. 

Supporters including the National Audubon Society, National Wildlife Federation and League of Women Voters of California say that works out to about $5.20 per citizen per year, a bargain. There’s no tax increase; instead, the measure requires the money to be spent from existing tax revenues. 

“California is continuing to grow at a pace of about 500,000 people a year,” said Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, who authored the proposition. “We need to make capital improvements in parks, open space, clean air and water to maintain quality of life.” 

Critics, including the California Farm Bureau, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association and National Tax Limitation Committee, note voters approved $4 billion for similar purposes two years ago, when the state and its economy was in much better financial condition. 

“This is not the time to spend another $2.6 billion plus interest to address the same issues,” said Farm Bureau Federation President Bill Pauli. With a budget deficit of about $14.5 billion, critics note the state already is eyeing cuts in services and possible tax increases. 

The critics have raised no significant money to fight the proposition, however, while proponents have spent or were prepared to spend more than $5 million. 

Gov. Gray Davis is counting on part of the money to help plug the deficit hole, as well as to fund natural resources projects proposed in his pending budget. 

State Treasurer Phil Angelides supports the measure, which he says would only marginally affect the state’s budget and borrowing power. And Keeley argues that with interest rates at a 40-year low, borrowing now is a bargain. 

While it’s only two years since the last bond measure, that money went quickly to make up for 12 years with no natural resources bonds approved at all, Keeley said. “It went to take care of the tremendous backlog of need. Proposition 40 is designed to look somewhat forward.” 

Business groups say the cost would be offset by helping maintain the natural beauty that draws millions of tourists to the state each year. 

A November poll by the Public Policy Institute of California showed support for the measure by 74 percent of the 2,002 adults surveyed, with an error margin of 2 percent. The support came despite what pollsters noted was a steep drop in consumer confidence, but before many voters knew much about the state’s looming budget deficit. 

More than $1 billion allocated under the proposition would go to state and local parks. 

The Legislative Analyst projects state and local governments would spend of tens of millions of dollars annually to maintain or operate parks purchased with the bonds. But the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs argues more neighborhood parks will provide children with safe places to play. 

About $400 million would go to water quality protection projects, and $300 million to buy and maintain wildlife habitat. Another $50 million to replace older, heavily polluting diesel trucks and buses operating in state and local parks. 

But opponents point to another $375 million that would be spent through private organizations, which could claim part of the money for administrative costs. And the Farm Bureau’s Pauli objects that $75 million for farm and grazing land preservation “continues excessive land acquisition by government that already owns half the state.” 

Since 1980, voters have approved about $7.6 billion in debt for recreation, conservation and water projects, but all but $1.2 billion of that money has been spent. 

Among other projects, passage of the proposition would help the state buy the Cargill Inc. salt ponds in Southern San Francisco Bay. The state wants to add the 13,000 acres to the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge and restore it to a tidal marsh.