Well here’s a no-brainer: Of course residents of San Benito and
Santa Clara counties shouldn’t pay for Santa Cruz County’s flooding
problems.
Well here’s a no-brainer: Of course residents of San Benito and Santa Clara counties shouldn’t pay for Santa Cruz County’s flooding problems.
And thanks to Santa Clara County Supervisor Don Gage for keeping the pressure on South Valley’s state representatives to fight that hare-brained idea.
Those legislators are targets of heavy lobbying from Santa Cruz County officials to allow them to tax their neighbors – that’s you and me – to pay to fix their flooding problems.
Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ellen Pirie has made the dubious claim that because some of the water flowing into the Pajaro River originates in San Benito and Santa Clara counties, that those residents should pay for the maintenance of Santa Cruz County’s levees.
In making her unprecedented – and unwarranted – request, Pirie conveniently forgets to mention that the Pajaro levees are inadequate – built to withstand 10- or 15-year floods. She omits the fact that a recent state watershed and hydrology study said the Pajaro levels should be built to withstand 100-year flood floods.
That same study also debunks another of Pirie’s contentions: that growth in the South Valley has contributed to the Pajaro River flooding.
Gage also makes another point Pirie would probably just as soon state lawmakers not hear: “We (did not authorize housing to occur in the flood plain, so it should not be our responsibility to pay for damaged levees.”
State lawmakers involved in the dispute are in a pickle: many of them have constituencies in both regions, so this will be an interesting test of where their loyalties lie. We think they should lie with the facts, which clearly show that asking residents and businesses of San Benito and Santa Clara counties to pay for Santa Cruz County’s flooding problem is not only unprecedented, it’s unwarranted.
We urge the rest of South Valley’s political leaders: mayors, council members, community activists, as well as citizens, to keep the pressure on their state representatives to stop Santa Cruz County’s audacious request.
Get involved, or you might find yourself paying for Santa Cruz County’s levee maintenance.
To respond to this editorial or comment on this issue, please send or bring letters to Editor, Hollister Free Lance, 350 Sixth St., Hollister, Calif. 95023 or fax to 637-4104 or e-mail to
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