Page 5 - Yucaipa Valley Water District - Board Workshop

those investors to use taxpayer funds for projects they would otherwise have to pay for
themselves.”

Those arguments might have been too complex for the average voter to grasp, said
University of California San Diego political scientist Thad Kousser.

Instead, Kousser said he suspects the reason the bond failed was because voters in 2014
and in June passed water-related bonds.

Plus, voters this election agreed to keep higher gas taxes, and they also passed bonds for
children hospitals, homeless people and affordable housing.

“I think there was bond fatigue here,” Kousser said. “And let’s face it, a dam isn’t as
sympathetic as a veteran, a sick child and a homeless person. .... When voters are voting
to continue to tax themselves for gas use, voting for three other bonds, and then they see
the big price tag of this, I think voters just balked at that price tag.”

Asked Wednesday why he thought the bond failed, Gov. Jerry Brown offered a similar
assessment.

“Hard to say,” Brown said. “It might be there was so many bonds.”

Brown, who championed the 2014 Proposition 1 water bond, declined to say how he voted
on the initiative.

Meral said it didn’t help that at least 15 editorial boards at the state’s newspapers,
including The Sacramento Bee, wrote editorials that condemned the bond.

Money may have also been a factor. Farming groups and others had donated nearly $5
million to its campaign war chest, but in an email to bond supporters, Meral said the
campaign lacked money to buy TV ads, and “memory of the drought has faded, so water
was not considered a high priority.”

The bond would have allocated $750 million to repair the Friant-Kern Canal in the eastern
San Joaquin Valley, which is sinking because farmers in the area have pumped so much
groundwater it’s caused the region’s floor to collapse several feet. The failing canal is
losing its ability to supply water to more than 300,000 acres of crops. The bond also
would have paid more than $200 million for repairs and other work associated with the
Oroville Dam crisis in 2017.

Proposition 3 also would have provided more than $1 billion to help farmers comply with
pending groundwater regulations. Around $3 billion would have gone to water quality
improvements and fish and wildlife habitat projects across the state. Another $500
million would have gone to flood protection. Proposition 3 would have provided $500
million to clean up drinking water.

The loss of the drinking-water funds leaves a continuing shortage for poor communities
with unsafe water supplies, especially since the state legislature this summer failed to

Yucaipa Valley Water District - November 13, 2018 - Page 5 of 166