CA: Governor's bond likely to focus on formula, not projects

SAN DIEGO ---- When it comes down to dividing the spoils of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed $68 billion infrastructure bond, Sacramento likely will do that by formula rather than on the basis of a long list of specific projects, a San Diego County legislator said Friday.

"There will be major resistance to trying to earmark," said Sen. Denise Ducheny, D-San Diego. "We're trying to set up a process that's fair and a formula that's fair, not a line item."

Ducheny made the comments at a late Friday afternoon gathering of San Diego County's delegation of state lawmakers and elected local officials who serve on the 20-member San Diego Association of Governments, a regional planning and transportation agency. The session provided officials from each of the region's 18 cities and the county government the opportunity to tell legislators what they would like to see in the bond.

Schwarzenegger has proposed a series of bond measures totaling $68 billion, including $12 billion for transportation, to go on statewide ballots between now and 2014. The governor would like to bring the first measure before voters in June, on the primary ballot.

The governor is proposing California's most massive public works campaign since the booming 1960s. He wants to pump money into transportation, water storage, flood-control levees and public safety.

Ducheny said it will be difficult to place a measure on the June ballot, as that will require reaching a consensus in Sacramento on the matter by March 10. If the governor and Legislature are able to reach that deadline, the measure likely will be limited to transportation, housing and levees.

Some association board members said they would like to see specific highway projects listed in the ballot measure and suggested that would increase the chance their communities would vote for a bond. But Ducheny cautioned against that.

A decision to list projects could result in creation of a measure hundreds of pages long and dominated by the pet projects of Los Angeles and San Francisco, Ducheny said. There could be a consequence for San Diego County ---- it might not get its fair share of the funding pie, she said.

Association Executive Director Gary Gallegos stressed that the regional agency's primary goal is to make sure that San Diego County gets a piece of the statewide transportation funding matching its 8.3 percent share of California's population. Under the current rule for divvying up state gasoline-tax money, San Diego County gets 7.3 percent, he said.

"There is a concern that San Diego (County) sometimes doesn't get its fair share from bond issues," said San Diego City Councilman Scott Peters.

Board Chairman Mickey Cafagna of Poway added that the association would like to see greater emphasis on public transportation in the bond, and a significant chunk of cash geared toward replacing aging train cars, trestles and track. Among the $12 billion proposed for transportation, $500 million would go for passenger railroads.

Schwarzenegger's plan, the subject of intense negotiation in Sacramento, also suggests pumping $5.6 billion into state highway construction and $4 billion into building transportation corridors that promote the movement of goods brought into California through international trade. The latter could include railroads and highways leading into the state's interior from sea ports and the Mexican border.

"Goods movement is definitely this year's miniskirt," said Sen. Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego. "Everybody's talking about goods movement."

Encinitas Mayor Christy Guerin, one of the board members, said she was uneasy about pairing transportation with housing on a bond.

"You have a little bit of a conflict there," Guerin said. "More houses mean more traffic. These two are fighting each other." She suggested home construction just results in more people sitting on the freeway.

"But if they (new residents) could live close to work, they wouldn't be sitting on the freeway," Ducheny said.

This is soooo ass backwards. Where is the list of proposed and/or needed projects with estimated costs, risk, benefits, priorities, etc. How did they conclude $68 billion or $222 billion is the right number? Instead, they've found the maximum number they think they can justify to the bond markets by leveraging every bit of revenue for the next 10 years. Now all the politicians are looking like kids in a candy store.

Arnold was rightfully critical of the State's planning process and lack of direction but he has proclaimed that "now we have a plan." It appears the only substance to that plan is the amount of money they want to spend--with no specificity as to what it will be spent on. Now the local governments are scrambling to come up with anything to get their hands on taxpayer money, including doing studies to develop concepts. These issues are only emerging since Arnold announced an upcoming spending spree.

San Diego Union Tribune, February 4, 2006

Regional planners will float their idea for a new San Diego County railroad freight line in a scheduled meeting with the area's legislators Friday, hoping the state can help pay for a study of the concept.
A future infrastructure bond could be a good place to begin analyzing and developing the feasibility of the rail proposal, said Gary L. Gallegos, executive director of the San Diego Association of Governments.
The regional planning agency intends to incorporate a rail proposal into its 2007 update of a regional transportation plan; it would be part of a $10 billion package of projects to improve the movement of goods.
The issue emerged this week because officials don't want to miss out on possible funding from the infrastructure bond measures circulating in Sacramento, one of which – Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's – identifies moving freight as a priority.
To that end, Gallegos said the issue will come up Friday at a special meeting for which the agency's board of directors invited all the state assembly members and senators representing San Diego County.
“This is just a concept,” Gallegos said.

The proposed cap on debt limits is equally disturbing. Once they have committed all funds and leveraged to the hilt, what happens when there is a real emergency? What happens when the economy slows (or tanks)? What happens if there really is a housing bubble and it bursts? Talk about a plan--a plan for disaster!

Carry_Okie talks about this quite a bit...the notion of this very large white collar planning/biologist class that could not exist without gov't funding. This bond proposal is their wet dream.

These bonds will be spent on studies and plans that will never be implimented...thus serving the twin goals of keeping people employed in the regulatory apparatus that regulates the producers; while simultananeously ensuring that nothing is produced (no freeways, no reservoirs, - hell, they don't even want to maintain what is already built).

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