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| Rancho Cucamonga, California - Friday, July 25, 2008 | ||
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| CHAMBER JOINS CITY IN SUPPORTING THE FAIR COMPETITION AND TAXPAYER SAVINGS ACTThe Government Relations and Executive Committees made a recommendation to the Chamber Board of Directors to support "The Fair Competition and Taxpayer Savings Act (for Architectural and Engineering Services) initiative. The recommendation received unanimous approval.This initiative is a necessity because the people who brought Proposition 224 are at it again. While Chambers of Commerce throughout the state were busy defeating Proposition 224, the same group of Caltrans employees was also pursuing their agenda in the courts. The bad news is they won - the California Supreme Court agreed with their interpretation of the constitution. This means that state government, and potentially local government agencies are essentially banned from contracting out for design services. A recent study conducted by the California Business Roundtable concluded that the court decision will result in a $3 billion backlog at Caltrans. If this ban remains in place, the government will be forced to hire and maintain an ever-larger work force to meet the state's infrastructure needs. More and more scarce taxpayer dollars will be sidetracked to support this growing, permanent, government workforce. This will mean either fewer dollars for vital projects or increased taxpayer costs. This is why the Rancho Cucamonga Chamber joined the California Chamber and the City in supporting the Fair Competition and Taxpayer Savings Act. California's decades-old infrastructure is wearing out. The state's highways, water delivery and sewer systems, prisons, schools, and higher education facilities are now nearing the end of their intended life. Compounding the problem, California's continued growth means increasing needs for additional infrastructure. The overall need for infrastructure projects such as roads, seismic retrofitting work, schools and water delivery systems is more than $90 billion. The California Chamber of Commerce and the California Taxpayers' Association, produced a report entitled, "Meeting California's Infrastructure Challenge: Assuring Cost-Effective and Timely Project Delivery." One of its major findings is that the ability of state and local governments to contract out for architectural and engineering work must be a key component of any successful strategy to meet the state's infrastructure needs. Unfortunately, that flexibility has been taken away from state government and local governments are threatened as well. In June of 1998 the California Chamber and Rancho Cucamonga Chamber, along with nearly every local chamber in the state, were part of the coalition to defeat Proposition 224, which would have prevented state and local governments from contracting out with qualified private engineers and architects. The measure was soundly defeated. To insure that state and local governments have the flexibility to contract out with qualified private engineers and architects, and prevent a $3 billion backlog of important highway and bridge projects, everyone needs to put forth a lot of effort to insure this measure wins at the polls. The California Chamber of Commerce has submitted more than 1,050,000 signatures, along with many city and chamber endorsements, which qualifies the initiative to be placed on the March 2000 ballot. Last Update: 12/29/1999 Norm MacKenzie is the Executive Director of The Rancho Cucamonga Chamber of Commerce. You can reach Norm at StorminNorman@citivu.com |
