Posted on 02/23/2005 7:41:11 AM PST by SmithL
SACRAMENTO - Seeking to protect motorists from higher bridge tolls, Senate leader Don Perata on Tuesday proposed a statewide bond measure to pay for the Bay Bridge's $3.2 billion in cost overruns and preserve its current design.
The bonds, which would require voter approval, also would fund earthquake retrofit work for California's hospitals. The plan requires a two-thirds approval of the Legislature to be placed on the ballot. The amount of the bond is not set, and Perata, D-Oakland, still must work out the measure's details.
The move could be a significant tack for Perata and Bay Area legislators, who have fought Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's call for higher bridge tolls as one way to pay for the bridge's escalating price tag.
Schwarzenegger is cool to the idea, said spokesman Vince Sollitto. "The governor has proposed his own solution to the Bay Bridge debacle and more borrowing is not it."
Perata submitted the measure -- just minutes before the Legislature's deadline for new bills this year -- as news surfaced that bridge negotiations between the governor's top aides and legislators could begin in earnest by week's end. Schwarzenegger and Bay Area lawmakers have been at odds over the bridge since August, when the project's huge price run-up became public.
Perata said he's expecting to discuss Schwarzenegger's latest proposal with administration officials in coming days.
"They are going to call us for a meeting," Perata said. "I don't know what they're going to present."
The governor, Perata and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, talked last week on a flight back from Washington, D.C., about how to resolve the impasse over the Bay Bridge, aides said.
Although Perata downplayed the renewed talks, Nunez said an agreement could be reached soon.
"We're holding to a negotiated solution that I believe buys us some peace and buys support from Northern California as well as Southern California," Nunez said. "That means we're going to have an agreement in the next week or two. We feel pretty good about where we're going."
Nunez did not elaborate, and his aides said they didn't know what deal the speaker had discussed with Schwarzenegger.
The governor has called for streamlining the bridge's design by scrapping a planned self-anchored suspension span with a tower and substituting a skyway that resembles a freeway on stilts. He also has recommended that Bay Area motorists cover most of the cost increases.
But if the talks prove fruitless, Perata's bond measure could circumvent the governor. The plan is to seek voter approval of a general obligation bond, a mechanism frequently used to fund capital projects, such as new schools.
Unlike a revenue bond, which is financed by a specific stream of income, a general obligation bond is paid for by the state's general fund. That's the pot of money used to fund all the state's main programs, from K-12 education to social services.
The measure is tied to another bill that would allow the Bay Area Toll Authority to refinance its debt to raise an additional $500 million the authority could put toward bridge construction.
Also, the legislation would direct the state to move forward with building the bridge as currently designed, and get repaid from the bond.
As for hospitals, the bond would fund only a small portion of their $41 billion in estimated earthquake retrofit needs.
I don't want to pay for a bridge I don't use let Oakland and SF pay for their own bridge. stupid RATS
The key word is statewide. The Bay Area always votes for spending when they're making someone else pay for it.
The Oakland side of the Bay Bridge is the portion being replaced. It is particularly ugly and it's hard to find pictures of it for that reason. A sleek modern freeway on stilts, like the San Mateo Bridge and the Dumbarton Bridge in the south bay would be an improvement.
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