PLACIDENA WILL GET PLENTY OF SOCIAL TOLERANCE BUT H2-ZERO IN CAL WATER BILL

Pasadena Sub Rosa ^ | November 20, 2009 | Wayne Lusvardi

[WayneLusvardi]

Preface: Lake Placidena is a fictional place where women run the entire city sub rosa (clandestinely) through the non-profit PEF and Historical and Cultural Preservation Commission, men play all year at staging a national parade, all the children in public schools are designated in poverty, but all the schools must be above average. The permanent state of drought in Placidena is a local joke because groundwater comes from underneath "Laughing Waters (Ha-ha-monga) Park," The actual Lake Placidena was fittingly created by impounding waters behind Devil's Gate Dam and is known for its strange green color due to perchlorate contamination which is unexplainably at roughly the same level as drinking water from the Colorado River.

NOTE: Photo of the fictional Lake Placidena can be viewed at the following link: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_CHbFw48nnWQ/Sta9OIt-MZI/AAAAAAAACPY/JNhp5oFWeZA/s1600-h/No+date+Devil%27s+Gate+Dam+and+reservoir+early+days.jpg

Only in algebra and in the Placidena Star News do two pluses add up to a minus. The Star News's editorial of Nov. 14 - Our View: (State) "Water Package Has Many Pluses" (link here: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinions/ci_13788454 fails to tell

Placidenans the following facets of California's new proposed water bill SBX7-7 which will be put to voters on the upcoming state ballot next year:

1. There is plenty of social tolerance for Californians in the State Water Bill as State Senate President Daryl Steinberg's district will receive $10 million for a "social tolerance" center. 


2. There is no direct new source of water for Pasadena in the Bill either for local replenishment of Raymond Basin or imported water supplies. 



3. The State Water Bill will increase Placidenan's water bills by about 20% to pay for an $11.1 billion Water bond according to officials of the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District. This 20% increase is on top of the City of Placidena's water rate increase in 2009 due to water conservation causing a $4 million shortfall in the Water Department fund related to lower water sales.



4. The California Teacher's Association objects to the $11.1 billion bond as part of the State Water Bill because it would likely cost $800 million in annual debt service when the State Budget deficit is $21 billion and growing. The State Water Bill will likely "crowd out" the availability of funding for public schools. This is paradoxically good for Placidenans who could then justify a proposed PUSD parcel tax to replace any reduced funding for local public schools. If the Water Bill fails they then can do a tax double dip.



5. There is $125 million in the Water Bill for the California Department of Forestry "to provide for climate change adaptation" (e.g., Station Fire re-seeding of Angelus National Forest not required as fire due to arson not 'global warming'). 



6. The State Water Bill exempts some water polluters (only in the District of State Senate President Daryl Steinberg) but increases regulations on others (e.g. Placidena). 


7. There is $150 million for the L.A. River for building bike trails, buying open space, and developing watershed education centers, but no new water from Northern California. 


8. The Water Bill will add yet another layer of bureaucracy to state water management by creating the Delta Stewardship Council to provide oversight of the Sacramento Delta, an apparent ruse for exclusive management of the Delta by environmentalists only, to the exclusion of industry, agriculture, municipal, and fishing and recreation interests. 



9. The State Water Bill expressly forbids construction of any "conveyance system" (Peripheral Canal, two-gate system on California Aqueduct, etc.) to bring any more water to Southern California. 



10. The State Water Bill provides State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass's district in Baldwin Hills with $20 million for open space acquisitions. 



11. All of the water projects contained in SBX7-7 could be floated up by local cities or water agencies and thus there is no need for an omnibus state water bill with all the pork contained in it. For example, the Foothill Water District is planning on its own to issue a $20 million bond to fix aging pipes to conserve water from leakage.

The only drawback in the proposed State Water Bill is that apparently the infamous Cadiz Water project in the Mojave Desert proposed by the fittingly named Keith Brackpool, and opposed by Diane Feinstein, the Pacific Institute, and many environmental organizations, may get some indirect assistance for infrastructure from Water Bill subsidies to the Mojave Water Agency. But, hey, we don't live in a perfect world even here in Placidena. 



The proposed State Water Bill (Senate Bill SBX7-7) contains a perfect blend of political correctness, social tolerance, diversity of pork barrel projects, a blend of open space, and watershed education centers for other multicultural cities, potential justification for an added PUSD parcel tax or tax double dip, continued local water rate increases to which the city can add a Utility User's Tax surcharge, and continues an unrelenting Stalinesque stranglehold on irrigation water for Republican farmers in Central California. The proposed Water Bill assures that everything will remain placid in Placidena.

In short, the proposed California State Water Bill and $11.1 billion bond should pass in Placidena by a waterslide.