“This is your day, you can kill this baby,” Chairman John Moorlach said to Norby.
Norby switched his vote at the last minute to approve the training, which would have passed at the board’s next meeting in two weeks with all members present, Moorlach said. But the supervisor vowed to continue looking for ways to make the cities pay for their own harbor patrols. He said he plans to raise the issue again.
“I don’t think it’s responsible to make taxpayers pay for this,” Norby said.
PROP 1-A OK FOR NOW
Local budget officials are crossing their fingers that Sacramento’s budget woes won’t prompt a rescinding of Proposition 1A, an initiative that prevents the capital from borrowing more than 8% of local revenues to balance the books.
Gov. Schwarzenegger’s plans don’t include any such maneuvers, though a declaration by the governor and a supermajority vote of the legislature could prompt a temporary lifting of the proposition — invoking unwanted flashbacks to 2003, when the state took .25% of local retail taxes for its own coffers, while returning the money without interest the following year.
“Certainly it worries me,” Costa Mesa’s Director of Finance Marc Puckett said. “It creates uncertainty in our budget and makes it more difficult to balance with that uncertainty hanging out there, based on what the state may do in terms of cutting other resources we rely on.
“At this point, my attention is focused on what’s developing in Sacramento, but I’m not going to say that I’m worried or not worried. Let’s just say I’ll breathe a sigh of relief when they adopt their budget.”
