Tapping money for ‘a real need’
Lawmakers promise a bond measure to fund parks and water improvements.
SACRAMENTO — Top lawmakers have promised to put a bond measure on the 2018 statewide ballot to fund parks and water improvements.
“More parks is not just a wish, it’s not just a dream, it’s not just an ideal, it is a real need,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said at a rally Wednesday outside the Capitol. “We see that all over the state.”
Rendon and Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) said they’re negotiating details of a measure that, if approved by voters next year, would spend billions to build and maintain parks and water infrastructure. Gov. Jerry Brown also has agreed to support a water and parks bond.
Among the issues left to be worked out is how much the bond would raise. Last week, Brown, Rendon and De León announced their support for a $4-billion bond to fund the construction of low-income housing and provide home loans for California veterans.
De León said spending on housing would be greater than on water and parks.
“The housing bond, given the real need that’s out there, will be supreme,” De León said.
Two groups outside the Legislature also have pitched ballot initiatives for 2018 to fund water and parks improvements. Those measures, one backed principally by the Nature Conservancy, the Environmental Defense Fund and similar groups and the other by other environmental and agriculture interests, would each authorize more than $7 billion in spending.
De León said negotiations involved trying to mollify those outside interests so they would abandon their efforts.
“We don’t want several ballot initiatives working at odds with each other, confusing the voters,” he said.