Amador County – Amador County Board of Supervisors last week voted 5-0 to not support the California State Association of Counties in seeking its own budget initiative for constitutional protection of funding made by a recent state budget realignment.
The vote by Supervisors was an advisory to Supervisor Chairman Louis Boitano, who sought direction on the issue, along with the stance of the Board on Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget initiative. The Board voted 4-1 to remain neutral on Brown’s initiative, with Supervisor Brian Oneto voting no, saying he would not support new taxes.
Supervisor Richard Forster said: “You can’t tax your way to prosperity, as a great politician once said.” He said it was too much taxes, but “talking about politics, this is not the way to do it.” He said: “Can we get the quid pro quo if we put a bad taste in the governor’s mouth?”
Supporting a “no” vote on the Governor’s initiative support question, Oneto said the “quid pro quo would just make the agony longer,” and was like saying: “I will do what I should do if you do this for me.”
Boitano said Gov. Brown came to the last CSAC board of directors meeting. Boitano did not know if it would come to a vote that day, and he was not sure what to do, and wanted to see what the board wanted. Forster said abstention may be the best way to go. Boitano said Brown’s initiative would increase taxes, and make a constitutional protection of recent “realignment” of state funding. CSAC’s own ballot initiative would solely aim at constitutional protection of the realigned budget.
Boitano said he thought the CSAC vote of support for the Governor would pass. Supervisors voted to direct Boitano to not vote in favor of the support. They also voted 5-0 to direct Boitano to oppose a CSAC initiative.
The Board considered a memo from CSAC executive director Paul McIntosh to the CSAC board members, in which McIntosh said “while no county wants to see an increase in dues, such sacrifice would be far less than the potential of losing all or a portion of the approximately $6 billion dollars in funding for realigned programs or the loss of CSAC’s advocacy and program support.”
Boitano said McIntosh is not wild about CSAC’s own initiative campaign and does not want to spend the money. Supervisor John Plasse noted that it cost about $1 million dollars to push the initiative, and that would be offset by an increase in dues paid by CSAC members.
Boitano said: “I don’t want to have a CSAC initiative,” and he wanted to “nip it right there.” The next CSAC board meeting is Thursday, Feb. 23 in Sacramento.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
