Jerry Brown’s money grab of redevelopment funds has set off an orgy of spending projects up and down the State and everyone is trying to get a slice of the action. Here in San Diego, the City is planning to vote on over 4 Billion dollars in projects this week. The San Diego school system, led by Richard Barrera, and joined by allies Nathan Fletcher and labor leader Lorena Gonzalez, have decided to try to grab some cash ($64 million a year) for the wild spending school system.
Ok, regardless of what you think of redevelopment, the idea that San Diego should float an advance to San Diego Unified is ridiculous. The school system faces a $125 million dollar shortfall due largely to overly generous contracts to the teachers union by a labor controlled board. In addition, they have instituted policies like requiring project labor agreements, thereby ensuring the work benefits unionized labor and increase costs to the taxpayers. But at least the school system is one of the best in the State…oh, never mind.
The continued erratic involvement of Assemblymember Fletcher in local redevelopment has been the strangest part of this six month drama. By raising the cap in a late night deal with Mayor Sanders and “Labor Lorena”, Fletcher tried appealing to traditional downtown fundraisers for his mayoral aspirations. Never mind that Fletcher voted for a state budget bill that didn’t pencil out the day after it was enacted.
Now he’s helping Labor Lorena at the expense of his downtown supporters by this ill-conceived idea that only helps the teachers union avoid potentially painful cuts to very generous benefits packages. The only logical conclusion is he’s doing this for two reasons:
1. To help the one group he’s consistently helped during his involvement in redevelopment: Labor Unions
2. In an attempt to undo some of the bad press he received because his original Cap deal forced the State to backfill hundreds of millions of dollars to the school system.
Neither of these reasons are likely to endear him to voters.