PROP. 84 PROTECTS CALIFORNIA’S WATER, LAND,
AND COASTLINE.
California is growing rapidly, putting new pressure each
year on our water resources, land, coast, and ocean. Prop. 84
protects these vital natural resources, which are essential to
our health, our economy, and our quality of life.
YES on 84 PROTECTS DRINKING WATER QUALITY.
The water we drink and use to grow our food is vulnerable
to contamination. Prop. 84 will:
• Remove dangerous chemicals from our water supply.
• Prevent future groundwater contamination.
• Prevent toxic runoff from flowing into our water.
Prop. 84 is essential to assure our communities CLEAN,
SAFE DRINKING WATER.
Last year, there were more than 1,200 beach closing or
advisory days in California. Prop. 84 will help prevent toxic
pollution from storm drains from contaminating coastal waters
and endangering public health.
YES on 84 ASSURES A RELIABLE WATER SUPPLY.
Prop. 84 will increase the reliability of California’s water
supply, through conservation and other programs. Every
region in the state will benefit from this measure, while being
given local control over specific projects to improve local
water supply and water quality.
YES on 84 PROTECTS OUR COASTLINE AND
CALIFORNIA’S NATURAL BEAUTY.
The measure will help clean and safeguard the ocean and
beaches all along California’s coastline, including the San
Diego, Santa Monica, Monterey, and San Francisco Bays. It
will also provide for safe neighborhood parks and protect the
rivers and lakes in which we swim and fish.
YES on 84 PROTECTS AGAINST FLOODING.
An earthquake or a series of major storms could damage
our state’s levees, causing dangerous flooding and potentially
leaving up to 23 million Californians without safe drinking
water.
Efforts are underway to address this urgent threat to
public safety and our water supply, but much more needs
to be done. Flood control experts agree that Prop. 84 is an
important step forward and complements ongoing efforts to
improve flood control in California.
YES on PROP. 84 PROTECTS CALIFORNIA’S
ECONOMY.
Clean beaches, rivers, and lakes are crucial to tourism,
which contributes more than $88 billion to the state economy
each year and directly supports more than 900,000 jobs.
An adequate supply of clean, safe water is also needed for
California’s farms and cities. Prop. 84 protects the water that
our economy needs to thrive.
YES on 84 WILL NOT RAISE TAXES—AND
INCLUDES TOUGH FISCAL SAFEGUARDS. Prop. 84:
• Is funded entirely from existing revenues and will not raise taxes.
• Will bring federal matching funds into California.
• Includes strict accountability provisions, including yearly
independent audits and a citizen’s oversight committee.
PLEASE JOIN US IN VOTING YES on 84.
Conservation groups, business organizations, and water
districts across California support Prop. 84. For more
information about the measure, please visit www.CleanWater2006.com. Your YES vote will help protect our
health, economy, and quality of life now and in the years to
come.
PROTECT CALIFORNIA’S DRINKING WATER,
LAND, COAST, AND OCEAN. Vote YES on 84.
MARK BURGET, Executive Director
The Nature Conservancy
LARRY WILSON, Chair
Board of Directors, Santa Clara Valley Water District
E. RICHARD BROWN, Ph.D., Professor School of Public
Health, University of California, Los Angeles
REBUTTAL TO ARGUMENT IN FAVOR
OF PROPOSITION 84 |
PROPOSITION 84 CANNOT DELIVER ON ITS
PROMISES
It will not benefit everyone, but everyone will pay for
it through higher taxes or budget cuts for education, law
enforcement, and health services.
NO on 84 PROTECTS THE PUBLIC TREASURY
Prop. 84 gives state bureaucrats the power to spend
your money without effective oversight. This proposal
eliminates protections against corruption and favoritism in
current law and it bypasses our competitive bidding system.
It prevents audits by the State Controller, the State Auditor,
and even the Legislative Analyst. It exempts itself from
the Administrative Procedures Act. Ask yourself why the
proponents fear routine audits.
NO on 84 SENDS SACRAMENTO THE RIGHT
MESSAGE: WE NEED A RELIABLE WATER SUPPLY
This water bond does not contain ANY funds for new
reservoirs, aqueducts, or water storage! The water diversions
mandated by this bond will actually take away drinking
water from current sources.
NO on 84 PROTECTS YOU FROM SPECIAL
INTERESTS
Bond funds can be awarded to the same private
organizations that placed this initiative on the ballot,
campaigned for it, and bought advertising to promote it. This
is a perversion of the initiative process.
NO on 84 SAVES MONEY FOR REAL FLOOD
CONTROL
Flood control is vital, but less than 15% of bond funds are
dedicated to that purpose—and that money could be chewed
up for studies, environmental planning, environmental
mitigation, and bureaucratic administration. If bureaucratic
reports could stop flooding, we’d no longer have a problem.
PLEASE JOIN US IN VOTING NO on 84.
BILL LEONARD, Member
California State Board of Equalization
RON NEHRING, Senior Consultant
Americans for Tax Reform
LEWIS K. UHLER, President
National Tax Limitation Committee |
This measure should have been titled the “Special-Interest-Hidden-Agenda Bond” because it was placed on the ballot
by special interests who don’t really want you to know where
all your money is going to be squandered. Every special
interest that helped get this boondoggle on the ballot will get
a share of the taxpayers’ money, but ordinary taxpayers will
get nothing from this bond but higher taxes for the next three
decades.
This so-called “water bond” has no funding for dams or
water storage! The authors set aside billions for bureaucratic
studies, unnecessary protections for rats and weeds, and other
frivolous projects, but they couldn’t find a single penny to
build freshwater storage for our state’s growing population.
You have to read the text to believe it.
Only a very small portion of the funds from this enormous
bond would be available for repair and maintenance of our
levees, but Proposition 1E was placed on the ballot by the
Legislature to provide $4,090,000,000 for these same levees.
Common sense dictates that we should wait to see how that
money is spent before we authorize another $5,388,000,000
in new spending. It would be foolish to lock permanent
spending formulas in place, as this initiative seeks to do,
when we have no idea what our future needs will be once the
funds from Proposition 1E are spent.
This bond represents a huge tax increase. The proponents
seem eager to avoid this unpleasant fact, but voters need
to understand that bond repayment takes priority over all other government spending. Once issued, bonds cannot be
cancelled, repudiated, or discharged in bankruptcy; they can
only be repaid with tax revenues. Our state already has a
$7 billion budget deficit, and there is no way to pay for this
gigantic bond without higher taxes.
Local projects should be funded at the local level. This
statewide bond is designed to force people in one part of
the state to pay for local projects on the other side of the
state. Why should people in Redding pay for urban parks in
San Diego? Why tax people in Los Angeles to pay for beetle
habitat restoration in Sutter County? This is poor tax policy,
and it was clearly designed to benefit the special interests
that put this measure on the ballot. We should expect local
communities to fund their own local parks and improvements;
statewide bonds should be reserved for state parks, colleges,
and other capital projects that benefit the whole state.
What is worse, this bond allows unelected, unaccountable
state bureaucrats to spend billions of dollars, with little or
no real public oversight. Sacramento bureaucrats and special
interests will love having a slush fund that they can spend
without the need for public hearings and public votes in the
Legislature—but we cannot allow that to happen.
Please join me in voting NO on Proposition 84.
BILL LEONARD, Member
California State Board of Equalization
REBUTTAL TO ARGUMENT AGAINST
PROPOSITION 84 |
The opponent’s argument is simply wrong.
Proposition 84 provides clean water and protects our coast without raising taxes. It is supported by a broad, bipartisan
coalition of public interest and business groups including the
League of Women Voters of California, Los Angeles Area
Chamber of Commerce, and The Nature Conservancy.
Here are the facts.
• Prop. 84 funds crucial projects needed to assure reliable
supplies of clean, safe drinking water.
• Prop. 84 protects all of California’s waters: our rivers,
lakes, streams, beaches, and bays.
• Prop. 84 includes strict financial accountability, including
a citizen oversight committee, annual independent audits,
and full public disclosure.
• Prop. 84 protects our families from toxic pollution, floods,
and other hazards through critical public safety projects
not funded by other measures.
YES on 84: BENEFITS ALL CALIFORNIANS
Prop. 84 funds local priorities to improve water quality
and supply in every region of the state.
YES on 84: SUPPORTED BY CALIFORNIA’S LOCAL
WATER DISTRICTS
Proposition 84 is so important that water districts that
provide drinking water to more than 23 million Californians
all urge YES on 84.
YES on 84: PROTECTS PUBLIC HEALTH
Prop. 84 removes dangerous contaminants from drinking
water, cleans up toxic chemicals that contaminate the fish we
eat, and keeps dangerous polluted runoff from flowing onto
our beaches and into our coastal waters.
YES on 84 protects our land, water, and public health, for
our families and for future generations.
Join local water districts, conservation organizations,
business groups, and public health experts in voting YES
on 84.
ERICH PFUEHLER, California Director
Clean Water Action
JEFF KIGHTLINGER, General Manager
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California
KAITILIN GAFFNEY, Conservation Director
The Ocean Conservancy |
