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A bond package for the future

EDITORIAL
San Francisco Chronicle
Published: October 08, 2006

VOTERS HAVE a direct say next month on the state's biggest spending decision in years: Should California borrow $43 billion to prepare its public facilities for the future?

The specifics in the five-bond package are worthy of study. But there's a bigger message carried in these public-works measures: California is willing to dig deep to make the household repairs to take it forward.

Roads, education, water systems, housing and the outdoors will all get an overdue fix-up. The plan is short on showpiece symbols such as new college campuses or glittering science centers. But it arrives with a rare political boost: bipartisan support from political parties usually at each other's throats.

The package will cost money. If all the bond measures are approved -- as they should be -- there will be a $2 billion bill on the state's general-fund budget of $101 billion. The cost of the bonds, plus earlier ones, amounts to less than 6 percent of the budget, a reasonable level for the benefits these improvements will bring.

Each measure needs a simple majority to win. Polls show none of the bond plans passing easily, probably because voters are skittish about the high-sounding numbers and unfamiliar with the details.

Here are rundowns on each of the five measures: ...

... Proposition 1C

Low-income Californians have the fewest options when it comes to housing. This measure would use $2.85 billion in bonds to create affordable housing.

The bulk of this money would go for construction on underused city lots or land near transit lines. This emphasis should reward the Bay Area where land-use policies promote housing near bus and rail lines, but lack the public subsidies to make it happen. There is also money for home-ownership programs, multifamily apartments, farmworker housing and homeless shelters. A prior housing bond, totaling $2.1 billion, is nearly spent, creating the need for a fresh source of money to continue state housing programs. ...

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