By Michael Dominguez
Californians will have to look closely at Proposition 3 as the ballot day is getting closer.
Prop. 3 is a water bond that will invest $8.877 billion dollars in California water infrastructure.
This will include safe drinking water, Sustainable Groundwater Management implementation, watershed restoration, fish and wildlife habitat conservation, infrastructure repair, and many other water programs.
It sounds like a great water bond but it is not the right one that the public needs, the public needs to know that and they should vote “no.”
First of all, the League of Women Voters of California stated on their website that, Californians will have to pay out of their taxes for the projects that the proposition is asking for.
According to the Sierra Club website, who opposes Prop. 3, “The damage was caused by subsidence caused by overpumping of aquifers.”
Prop. 3 will then have taxpayers pay for the repairs instead of farmers who are the ones over- pumping water.
According to the Legislative Analyst Office; taxpayers would be paying an average of $430 million repayments every year for the next 40 years.
There will be a profit for a few local agencies, nonprofits, private water companies and others which it will benefit them. This is known as the pay-to-play where the public pays for it while these groups take the public tax money.
CALmatters reported that more than half the money raised to promote the measure came from business groups and farmers seeking improvements for the 152 mile Friant-Kern Canal in the Central Valley.
In 2002, a similar situation happened with Prop. 51 but voters rejected it. Prop. 51 would have diverted sales tax money from California’s general fund to a handful of big developers who couldn’t get their projects funded through the legislative process.
Since 2000, voters have approved about $31 billion in general obligation bonds for water and environmental projects, the LAO says. $31 billion dollars have been spent and still no positive results have come out of these bonds. Spending $ 8.877 billion dollars on another water bond from the voter’s pockets should not be the way and that’s why voters should vote No on Prop. 3 on Nov. 6.