By Oceanside City Councilmember Jerry Kern
AB 805, authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, takes away the County Board of Supervisors’ authority to select its own representative on the SANDAG Board of Directors and gives the City of San Diego a stranglehold of power over this agency, which allocates infrastructure funds throughout San Diego County.
Under her legislation, North County is likely to receive even less of these funds than is currently the case. This is a pure and simple case of a Sacramento politician meddling in local affairs to tip the scales in favor of her political allies.
AB 805 ignores the very real problems of accountability that have plagued SANDAG, and instead exploits public anger over SANDAG’s misleading sales tax campaign last fall in order to promote her parochial political agenda.
By forcing the Board’s representatives to rotate every year based on whether the Chairman is from a majority rural or urban district, her legislation guarantees the County will never again have a leadership role at SANDAG. This is a slap in the face to voters and taxpayers throughout San Diego County.
If Ms. Gonzalez Fletcher is sincerely concerned with issues of accountability, she should focus her attention on the legislative body to which she was elected, since the state appears to be headed toward multi-billion dollar deficits in coming years.
Kern is a candidate for County Supervisor representing North County’s Fifth District.