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EDITORIAL: Making the Deal: Governor Reiterates Support for Bond Money to Fix Highway 99.

Posted on: Wednesday, 22 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Mar. 22--Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has rightly declared that a state infrastructure bond without funding to upgrade Highway 99 through the San Joaquin Valley is a dealbreaker. The governor told The Bee's editorial board Tuesday afternoon that the $1 billion he's earmarked for Highway 99 improvements is not negotiable, and the bond "won't happen" if the Legislature reduces it.

Finally, someone in power in Sacramento understands the critical nature of a freeway that's a lifeline for the Valley.

Unfortunately, the state has allowed Highway 99 to become a beaten-down roadway, with too much traffic, too many monster potholes and too much ugly landscaping. Anyway you look at it, this freeway does not meet California standards.

Highway 99 has become a symbol of how the Valley is shortchanged when it comes to getting a fair share of state funding. That's why the governor's bond deal was refreshing. Then Democratic leaders signed on to the "Save Highway 99" cause. But the bond fell apart over other issues, including a partisan battle over building dams.

The governor said he's confident that he and the Legislature can reach a compromise to allow an infrastructure bond to get on the November ballot. We need that bond, and the all-or-nothing strategy of some in the Valley -- Highway 99 and a dam at Temperance Flat must be linked -- is foolish. To say they will torpedo Highway 99 to get funding for a dam that's 20 years away from being built doesn't make sense.

That plays into the hands of Los Angeles and San Francisco interests who really don't want either project, no matter what they say publicly.

The state has huge needs, yet our leaders fiddled when it was time to get an infrastructure bond on the June ballot. It's time that the governor and Legislature find a way to fix our highways, levees, roads, bridges, ports, hospitals and water supplies.

The governor said he believes that legislators will cooperate on this issue because most of them are standing for re-election in November and they need to show they are solving the infrastructure problems.

We hope so. It will be a huge strike against democracy if voters allow their representatives to get away with ducking this problem. Our only hope is that the public is paying attention.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Fresno Bee, Calif.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Fresno Bee

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