Home / Archive / Big Deals: Voters Pass Historic Bond Package
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: March 2007
Voters Pass Historic Bond Package
The 10 biggest breakthroughs, bombshells and busts of 2006
Story by Rich Ehisen
If a name could be given to 2006, it should be The Year of Big Moves.
Huge decisions were made last year by business leaders, legislators and even California voters that will move our state and our region in new — and hopefully prosperous — directions.
That’s not to say that all the big deals and decisions took us forward. Some were a step — or three — backward in ways that will have an impact on Sacramento’s landscape for years to come.
The impact of many of this year’s big decisions may not be seen or felt for several years, but that should be taken as good news: It’s much better for a region to make forward-thinking decisions than to react to a crisis at the last minute.
As we breathe cleaner air, drive better roads, live safely behind better levees, enjoy new ways to get from A to B, and benefit from a healthy and diverse economy, we can look back to 2006 as the year that made it all possible.
Voters approved the largest bond package in California history in November, passing five initiatives that together will provide more than $42 billion for infrastructure throughout the state.
Together, Propositions 1B through 1E and Proposition 84 will provide almost $20 billion for public transportation and traffic-congestion relief, $10.4 billion for school repairs and expansion, $2.8 billion for affordable housing projects, $5.4 billion for water-quality improvements, and $4.1 billion for levee improvements and flood control.
The levee-improvements measure, Proposition 1E, is likely the most important for the Sacramento region, which is surrounded by hundreds of miles of aging levees in need of repair. (The city of Sacramento holds the dubious title of most flood-vulnerable city in the nation, a title that used to belong to New Orleans.)
The $4.1 billion price tag only covers the state’s share of the cost of flood control. Still, that’s a bargain against estimates from a California Department of Water Resources study, which shows a catastrophic flood in Sacramento
could cause more than $11 billion in damages, displace more than 200,000 residents and shut down innumerable public services.
The bond measures, while enjoying broad support from a variety of interests throughout the state, were not without their detractors, who raised concerns about whether the funds would really address the problems facing the state and whether going much further into debt was in California’s best interest.
The life of the bonds is 30 years, meaning Californians won’t be done paying for them until 2037. With the cost of interest over that time, the $42 billion bond package will actually be costing taxpayers closer to $84 billion.
For the majority of Californians, however, it’s worth the cost. “Californians are tired of commuting long hours to work, driving on deteriorated roads and taking their children to run-down and overcrowded schools,” according to a written statement by Chris McKenzie, chairman of the California Infrastructure Coalition, which supported all five of the bond measures. “This was an historic opportunity for California voters, and they responded in force.”
