From the Publisher/Arnold G. York
The race for the three seats on the Malibu City Council, which will take place on April 13, has begun in earnest. Over the next six weeks we will introduce you, or in some cases reintroduce you, to all the candidates. The order in which the candidates profiles will run in The Malibu Times has been drawn by lot, and they will appear in the following order: starting with Bill Winokur this week, thereafter Jeff Jennings, Walt Keller, Jay Liebig, Pamela Conley Ulich and finally, Ken Kearsley. Some, like current incumbents Jennings and Kearsley and former incumbent Keller, are probably known to many of you already. But this election is unusual because one of our long-term incumbents, Joan House, decided not to run again after 12 years of service, and there are three new faces seeking office: Winokur, Liebig and Conley Ulich. Just to add a little spice and complication to the city race, we have another statewide election coming up a bit earlier on March 2. At that time, we’re going to get to vote in the presidential primary (although I expect that will be decided before they get to us) and also on a number of ballot propositions that are crucial to the state:
€ Proposition 55: Education Facilities Bond for $12.3 billion
€ Proposition 56: Allows budget to be passed with 55 percent vote
€ Proposition 57: Debt-reduction bond of up to $15 billion
€ Proposition 58: Requires a balanced budget and budget reserves
Although I haven’t yet decided what I would recommend with the ballot propositions, I’ll give you sort of a movie trailer about what to expect in the campaigns.
Proposition 55: This is to help build or retrofit schools. In many communities with growing populations, this has become a crisis. The problem is the timing couldn’t have been worse with the governor’s $15 billion bond issue on the same ballot. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Times editorial page pointed this out, and said it was not the time for the bond, which makes it a bit of an uphill struggle for the measure.
Proposition 56: In recent years, as the Legislature has become progressively more partisan, it has become very difficult to pass a state budget on time. It takes a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to pass the budget, and if the minority party, currently the Republicans, don’t break ranks, the process stalls. The Democrats, who comprise more than 55 percent of the Legislature, are agreeable to changing the rules, arguing that only three states have a rule that requires more than a majority to approve a budget and tax increases. Many of the Republicans and many business interests are against Proposition 56 for fear it will result in higher taxes. You can look for all sorts of television commercials distorting the hell out of the issues.
Propositions 57 and 58: These propositions are basically two for the price of one. I think we all know that California is deeply in the financial hole. It’s hard to keep track of exactly how much, but it runs in the billions and billions. There are really only three ways out of this thing. One would be to do nothing, which I suspect might very well bring us to the brink of bankruptcy, if not into actual bankruptcy. It might also be illegal, since we’re required to have a balanced budget. Another option is to raise taxes to cover the shortfall, which is near impossible to do without practically closing down the state government. The numbers are so large, it would be almost impossible to make it up in one or even two budgets. Lastly, we could approve a $15 billion bond issue to cover previous overspending, and then impose austerity on new spending. The truth is that none of the choices are great.
The new governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, has staked a great deal of his political capital on option three, the $15 billion bond issue. They’re calling it a debt-reduction bond, which I think is kind of a nice title. But stripped of its verbiage, we’re borrowing more money to pay off an old debt. Additionally, with Proposition 58, we’re proposing some major structural budget changes to prevent this from happening again, we hope. Schwarzenegger is tromping around the state, with State Controller Steve Wesley, a Democrat and Silicon Valley multimillionaire, pushing Propositions 57 and 58 as the only answer that makes sense. Both bonds must pass together, or neither passes. The opposition is led by conservative Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock. He has virtually partnered up on this one with Democratic State Treasurer Phil Angelides, a longtime liberal who is fiscally conservative and would love to be our next governor. Elections certainly do make very strange bedfellows. Stay tuned for developments.