Sunday after church I picked up Saturday’s mail and found a flyer from the California Democratic Party (yes, I’m registered D, not R.) It charged Andy Vidak with broken promises to working people and condemned him for being “Just another SACRAMENTO POLITICIAN.”
Considering the flyer’s source (an
organization dedicated to getting politicians elected) and the Sacramento
postmark, the irony was almost comic.
But then my eye lit on a small light green box near my name and address
recommending yes votes on Propositions 1 (the California Water Bond) and 2 (The
Rainy Day Fund,) and my sense of humor disappeared.
Last week I intimated that I don’t
think the Water Bond deserves automatic approval just because we here in Tulare
County live in a semi-desert dependent on water imported from two watersheds
north and are experiencing a drought that is drying up our main source of
livelihood. I still have water coming
out of the tap, so perhaps I’m not appropriately panicked. But these two propositions were crafted by
Sacramento politicians to take advantage of the public’s uncertainties about
the future, given this drought’s potentially long life, doling out enough
goodies to the most powerful stakeholders so they’ll keep quiet. (Prop 2 has nothing to do with rain, by the
way.) I think both parties should be
ashamed.
Governor Brown might be the biggest
Sacramento politician with muck on his shoes from this. Rumor has it he’d like to take one last shot
at the Presidency. I’m sure his good friends
Lynda and Stuart Resnick would be glad to help out on that one. Are there any provisions in the California
Water Bond for buying back the Kern Water Bank from them, which they silently wrestled away from the public's ownership? I didn’t see any - let me know if you find
one, OK?
While you’re looking, you might want
to check out the website for “Vote NO on Proposition 1.” It is a coalition of organizations concerned
about the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta and San Francisco Bay, plus
organizations like the Factory Farm Awareness Coalition and Food and Water
Watch. I find their arguments
compelling, which range from what the bond undermines in terms of public trust
doctrine and the principle of “beneficiary pays,” to the blunter facts that it
provides “little cost-effective near-term drought relief” and that the proposed
dams previously “had been abandoned because of low water yield and financial
infeasibility.”
The most compelling argument to me,
however, is that it “sabotages efforts to meaningfully resolve California’s
continuing water crisis.” I agree with
their problem statement: “The water crisis is the result of the
over-appropriation, waste and inequitable distribution of limited water
supplies and the failure to balance the public trust.” Let me bring your attention back to one
key term: “inequitable
distribution.” I wonder how Lynda and
Stuart’s almond, pistachio and pomegranate crops are doing this year. I bet their citrus groves aren’t hurting,
either. Somebody want to check?
Governor Brown, in this term and his
first, hasn’t touched inequitable distribution or the big boys’ grip on
water. He learned well from his father,
under whose leadership we got a water bond creating the high-cost State Water
Project that made farming feasible on those Westside lands the Resnicks farm
now. Now the Sacramento Politicians are
asking the public to throw good money after bad, and have corralled most of the
activists and media to co-operate.
When we find elected officials who
can and will address the inequitable distribution of the public’s water supply,
we can call them by another name: statesmen.
Until then, the only question left is “Will we ever just say ‘No’?”
Visit www.ballotpedia.org for good information on the
propositions. See www.noonprop1.org to view the arguments
mentioned above. Note: On Oct. 8 I received another Vidak flyer, this one from the Republicans claiming Vidak helped author the Water Bond - another reason not to vote for him in my mind.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a writer who is used to being in the minority. You can send her your reasons for voting yes
or no c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay CA 93247 or leave a comment below.
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