THE NOVEMBER ELECTION

On November 7th we witnessed a political shift of national scope as Democrats took control of both houses of Congress. On the local scene the League was very active in two local County Measures that were the most controversial of late. The League opposed Measure L The SMUD Annexation of PG&E Electric Service Customers in Yolo County, and was a signatory of the Argument Against Measure L, and the Rebuttal to the Argument in Favor of Measure L. Measure L's attempt by a publicly owned business to obtain, by an act of eminent domain, the assets and customers of a private company in the same business was basic to our opposition, along with the unknown costs involved.. League President Ken Payne was extremely active in the Coalition that opposed Measure L. For the past two months he appeared a number of times daily on TV, and often on radio, including Tom Sullivan's program, voicing the League's opposition to the Measure. In addition, the Coalition sent a League flyer to voters in the county explaining why we opposed, which included a Membership form on the bottom. In the end, Measure L was defeated by 61.72 % of the vote (as of 11/22).

In addition, the League was very active in opposing Measures Q and R, The Advisory Vote Asking Whether Half of a New Sale Tax Increase Can Be Used For a Sports and Entertainment Center, and for a Levy of a 15-Year One-Quarter Percent Sales Tax Increase. These Measures were designed to build the Sacramento Kings a new arena, and were constructed to circumvent Proposition 218, which states a "Special Tax" means any tax imposed for specific purposes, including a tax imposed for specific purposes which is placed into a general fund. This attempt to violate the law immediately bought our opposition, which increased in fervor as the deal being made with the Kings unfolded. Executive Director Joe Sullivan debated, and was in discussions on TV and radio, with members of the Yes on Q & R Coalition including three times with Matt Mahood of the Sacramento Metro Chamber of Commerce, Sandy Smoley twice, and David Taylor once, and had full-scale Opinions published in The Sacramento Bee, The Sacramento Union, and Inside the City newspapers. Measure Q was defeated by 71% of the vote, and Measure R by 80.21% (as of 11/22).

2007 LEAGUE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

The slate of League Board of Directors recommended to serve in 2007 is the inclosed insert for the vote of League Members. The proposed leaders of the League in 2007, our 46th year, are virtually the same as the present Board, with three exceptions. Directors Pat Kelly and Dave Cox have asked to pass on next year's Board for essentially the same reason. Neither has been, or will be, able to attend Board meetings, and prefer not to be represented by alternates in their name. Dave had been represented by his alternate, Ken Payne, whom the League convinced to become an actual Director, and then elected him as League President. And the Committee recommended Member Bob Blymyer, a retired state executive, be added to the Board.

The Board's new officers for 2007 will be selected at the first meeting of the new Board on January 18th.

GLOBAL WARMING REVISTED
Joe Sullivan

Once-in-a-while, my experience as a Geological Engineer gets tugged, and its been global warming again. The earth's warming is a given, and climatic cycles are nothing new. They have been going on for billions of years. The Earth is dynamic, and continents making up our globe are simply plates riding on a semi-molten sphere, all in constant motion. Over billions of years six major continents have formed from one, and are still moving. The American Plate on which California rides moves to the west and south about two inches a year.

We are slowly coming out of the last Ice Age, of which there have been many. The continents on the Earth have cooled down and heated up many times, and oceans have been lower, and higher than present also. New 2006 studies appear in Funk & Wagnalls 2007 Science Yearbook that describe how scientists discovered that 65 million years ago, the ocean may have reached 108 degrees Fahrenheit, 25 degrees warmer than the present tropical Atlantic Ocean. The analysis suggests that the carbon dioxide (greenhouse) gas during that time was between three and six times greater than it is today.

When considering global warming, two major episodes of glaciation occurred about 2.5 billion years ago. The glaciation disappeared as continents warmed, and the sea rose well above the level of today. About 450 million years ago, glaciation covered nearly the entire western continental masses in the southern hemisphere, and 404 million years ago, the seas rose, extensive barrier reefs were formed, and the Earth became devoid of ice. Then 333 million years ago, as the continents moved, one segment split, and moved over the south pole and suffered major glacial-interglacial intervals. The growth and retreat of these glaciers contributed to changes in sea levels, and widespread semiarid conditions prevailed. The time is described as the Age of the Reptiles, famous for its large dinosaurs. However between 144 and 66 million years ago, these giants became extinct. The earth's temperature was warm to mild, as related in the Funk & Wagnell Yearbook, and former polar regions were temperate, and free of glaciation. The next onset of new major glaciation began 40 million years ago when surface ocean waters rapidly became colder. About 3 million years ago glaciers developed in Antarctica and 2 million years ago there were mountain glaciers in Alaska. Massive antarctic glaciation occurred, and the northern hemisphere was covered by ice sheets. Four major cycles of glaciation occurred in North America. The Era was termed the Great Ice Age, and the storage of water in glaciers lowered the sea level 130 meters. It was in this period mankind was becoming widespread on the Earth. The Era ended 10,000 years ago as a general warming trend occurred that was periodically interrupted by short relatively cool periods. One cool period, from about 1500 A.D. to the late 1800s, was characterized by expansion of glaciers and persistence of sea ice for longer periods than had occurred previously. This Era is termed the Little Ice Age, and it is this Era from which we are presently emerging, long before the first internal combustion engine was ever conceived.

Our atmosphere by volume, is 78.08% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.1 to 4.0% water vapor, 0.93% argon, 0.034% carbon dioxide, and traces of neon, ozone, and other gases and particles. And all the global warming hoopla is blamed on an infinitesimal increase in only 0.034% of the Earth's total atmosphere. Although the most knowledgeable scientists in the world are unwilling to state that increased carbon dioxide alone is the reason for global warming, politicians, pressured by environmentalists, passed legislation that will cost Californians billions, trying to reduce carbon dioxide by a smidgen. I believe if all humans on the plant disappeared, the plates of the Earth would continue to move, and our planet would continue to warm, as Nigel Calder, author of "The Restless Earth" said," to the Earth it's a matter of indifference."

FLOOD RISK REDUCTION PROGRAM

The Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency (SAFCA) has briefed both Jonathan Coupal, President, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association (a League Vice President), and Joe Sullivan, League Executive Director concerning its plans in working with the Corps of Engineers and the State Reclamation Board on levee upgrades and repairs in the Sacramento area, and in negotiations with the Bureau of Reclamations on the changes to be made to the Folsom Dam to reduce modification costs, while enhancing its flood water handling capability. They also discussed technical problems they had been saddled for 17 years within parts of the SAFCA Act that created them. These involve Water Code requirements on bonding authority, financial statutes, and the issuing of notes to finance projects. They are endeavoring to change the associated Water Code Appendixes for clarification.

SAFCA adopted a flood risk reduction program to provide at least 100-year level of flood protection in the Sacramento area as quickly as possible (making flood insurance optional and more affordable); to provide 200-year protection over time, decreed by all local elected officials as minimum; to ensure regular inspection of levees; and to encourage good flood plain management. The funds for the program calls for cost sharing of about 65% from the Federal government, 25% from the state, and 10% from SAFCA. The American River Flood Control District and Reclamation District 1000 are responsible for long-term care and maintenance of the levees. SAFCA's funding is derived from assessment districts within the affected areas.

SAFCA intent is to propose combining two assessment districts into one, and raising $290 million from the property owners in the new district to achieve the 200-year level in the area's flood protection in 10 years. The new tax, levied on an estimated 138,000 parcels, would be voted on by the property owners in March 2007. The $290 million is SAFCA's share of more than $2 billion to be spent to reach the 200-year storm protection target.

BLOATED, VERY HIGH COST STAFFS

There is a tendency statewide, by supervisors of public agencies, to resist using contractors. Instead they build bloated, very high paid staffs to elevate themselves, basic in Empire Building 101. Personnel increases in government agencies has been a major growth industry in the state for many years. Permanent staff is relatively easy to hire when paid for by public enterprise funds, but is extremely hard to reduce when need abates as projects are completed. Further, personnel increases are obscured as pass-thru money moves among divisions within an organization.

These problems are not new. In the County Taxpayers League Position Paper - County 92-93 Budget, when acting as part of the County's Budget Advisory Committee, among issues pointed out were the: "Shell Game" played with interdepartmental transfer of funds. Such transfers are difficult, if not impossible to track where money is spent. Expansions in some overhead departments occurred at a much higher rate than overall county expansion, and major increases in head count were made in all departments. Simultaneously, some departments were protected from outside review. The results of our work was interesting. We were never again invited to participate as a member of follow-on Budget Advisory Committees.

The state, counties and cities are going to be squeezed by slowing income, and our suggestion to all is "Follow the Money, Inside the House."

LETTERS TO THE LEAGUE

We seek “Letters to the League” from Members concerning projects and issues on which we are working, along with recommendations on those we should look at. Letters may be edited and republished in any format, primarily in the interest of available space. Send letters, faxes, or e-mail to the Sacramento County Taxpayers League. Our e-mail is sactaxleague@prodigy.net; our telephone number is (916) 921-5991. Our fax number is (916) 567-1279. And our address is:
Sacramento County Taxpayers League
1804 Tribute Road, Suite 207
Sacramento, CA 95815.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS MESSAGE

The seated President stepped from under the shelter of the Capital building that protected him from the rain, and went to the table to deliver his Second Inaugural Address. Precisely when he began to speak the sun broke through the clouds, the rain ended, and it became clear and calm. Shortly after his first Inauguration, America had gone to war as a result of an unwarranted rebellious attack on the nation, and after nearly four years of war, during which he was attacked repeatedly in the press, lampooned by critical cartoonists, and regaled by a split citizenry for and against the war that had torn a nation asunder because of seemingly unending casualties. A weariness of spirit pervaded the nation. The address was not a recitation of achievement, but instead was a sermon in which he asked his audience think with him about the cause and meaning of the war.

He ended with these words: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Forty-one days later, on April 15, 1865, Lincoln was dead. His second Inaugural Address is graven in a wall in his monument facing our nation's Capitol. The Civil War ended on April 26, 1865. American casualties in militaries, both North and South, is an estimated 623,000 men.*

* Based, in part, on Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural, by Ronald C. White, Jr.

After four years of war in Iraq, we appear to be a nation whose citizenry is also exhibiting a similar weariness of spirit that prevailed before the Civil War and the war in Vietnam ended. And we must beware of letting the effect of that weariness betray the men and women we have put in harms way. Always remember what Abraham Lincoln said in his famous June 16, 1858 speech in Springfield during his run against Stephen Douglas for the U.S. Senate. He said: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Little did he know that he would be called upon, as President, to lead the cause to save a divided Union at a horrendous cost in American blood.

Joe Sullivan

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