Peddling recycled rhetoric VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

In his latest letter to the editor, Carlos Zaragoza is careful to stress that he is “a staunch supporter of collective bargaining” just before he attacks Project Labor Agreements as evidence of corrupt union practices and political “cronyism.” His disclaimer would be more credible if it weren’t so clumsily written.

Just to be clear, being for collective bargaining and against unions (and PLAs) is like being a staunch supporter of space travel and an opponent of jet-propelled rockets. One does not follow from the other.

As for the rest of his claims, if he listened to the five-hour-long special meeting on Monday, he would have learned that he is being used to recycle alternate facts and anti-union talking points. He did the same thing a few weeks ago when he wrote a letter castigating the IID board for the “erosion” of local water rights.

He was referring to the district’s defense of its water rights against Mike Abatti, and the two-year effort to reverse the legally flawed decision by the trial court that Abatti had “a constitutionally protected water right.” That, as we all know, was a myth, but it is one that Zaragoza apparently still believes in.

Finally, his challenge for me to pay my own employees union wages misses the point, most likely on purpose: For one thing, I am a small-business owner, with a handful of employees. For another, I am not building utility-scale public works projects with multi-million-dollar outlays for a nearly $1-billion-a-year public agency.

Carlos Zaragoza is for the status quo, including what he calls the “perpetual 20-percent unemployment rate” that he says makes a PLA impossible to pay for. In other words, we are too poor to even try to cure our poverty.

That might be a future that works for Zaragoza, but not for working families.