ReMixed Re-Cap!

With over 200 in attendance the Redwood City-San Mateo County Chamber of Commerce held a very successful Progress Seminar ReMixed, Thursday, June 19 at Oracle Conference Center.

Below is a small re-cap from our Keynote Speaker Larry Gerston.

Please also take a look at the very impressive piece on Sustainability and The Downtown Redwood City Precise Plan (pdf). This document coincided with the First Panel Presentation Going Beyond Green, Fostering Sustainable Communities. Many thanks to Dan Zack and Blake Lyon with the City of Redwood City for authoring this piece.

Larry Gerston - The California State Budget - An Ugly Tapestry

Larry Gerston, Professor, Ph.D, University of California and well known Political Analyst at NBC 11 and radio KCBS spoke at the Chamber’s Progress Seminar ReMixed June 19 at the Oracle Conference Center. In his presentation “The California Budget: Can This State be Saved?” he shared his seven deadly political and fiscal sins which continue to cause California budget woes.

The three fiscal sins were Mandated Spending taking 70% of the dollars off the table leaving little left to consider; new obligations taken on by the state with no funding, things like Anti terrorism, no child left behind, and prisons; and lost revenues from Prop. 13 and the Motor Vehicle Tax. The four political sins in Gerston’s view were gerrymandering where districts as constructed hardly ever change hands leaving legislators with no reason to compromise; Term limits, he said are an undemocratic tool which should be voted out. It takes time for legislators to reach their level of expertise and then “time’s up” giving special interest groups a stronger voice; and Ballot Initiatives which put citizens groups in control of the legislature and special interest groups in charge; and the 2/3’s rule required to pass the budget, the highest in the nation along with Arkansas and Rhode Island. This creates nothing but gridlock.

Gerston’s approach – eliminate mandated spending or have a 2-3 year sunset provision where causes would have to justify and defend their requests more than once; New obligations – Make unfunded mandated law real; lost revenues – expand the sales tax to other services; gerrymandering – put into the hands of an independent commission to decide; Omit term limits; Make initiatives harder and more costly to qualify for the ballot or require that they first go to the legislature; and adjust the 2/3’s budget requirement to a more manageable figure.

Gerston stressed that unless we want to become a “big, empty state” that business must take the lead to improve California from 46th in the nation in per capita for education and 50th in the nation on highway spending.

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