North County does not need State Senator Steve Peace’s full time employment act for termed out legislators. His proposed Senate Bill 329 is one of the worst ideas to come around in a long time. He wants to create a regional countywide superagency that overlaps existing bureaucracies and is a waste of taxpayers dollars. Peace’s San Diego Regional Infrastructure and Transportation Agency, (RITA) is not a representative form of government, and for North County residents would be a loss of local control. For these reasons and others, I oppose RITA.
RITA is proposed as an encompassing bureaucracy that is to take over all of San Diego County’s transportation agencies including the North County Transit District, SANDAG, the Air Quality Management District, the Port District and portions of the Border Development Zone and lump them into one.
If the State Legislature passes RITA, North County voters will be virtually left out of the loop during the first few years of RITA’s existence. Initially, RITA will be comprised of 10 members, all appointed by California Governor Gray Davis. The first of four RITA seats will come up for elections in the November 2002 General Election. This is after the agency has been staffed and their mission objectives have been implemented. Coincidentally, this is when Senator Steve Peace will be forced out of the legislature due to term-limits. That is why I call RITA, the “Steve Peace Full Employment Act.” It gives him a job closer to home, after being forced out of the legislature.
While the RITA legislation does everything to create a new bureaucracy, it does not eliminate the existing ones that are not getting the job done right. Shamefully, RITA would become a huge bureaucratic layer on top of the other agencies.
The North County Transit District does not have any problems that North County can’t take care of. We all know that SANDAG and some of the other agencies have major problems. If we can not streamline them and make these agencies more efficient, then they should be eliminated and their decision making authorities should be vested with the County Board of Supervisors. The five Supervisors have been duly elected by San Diegans to implement what is best for the County and it is the voters duty to hold them accountable. We don’t need RITA to make countywide decisions relegating North County’s local governments to the back of the bus, giving our elected officials only advisory roles to the new superagency.
RITA is a bad deal for the voters and the taxpayers of San Diego’s North County. If Senator Peace, pushes SB 329 to the legislature this year, he is going to have a fight on his hands. I am not willing to turn over North County’s projects and decisions on how to spend our tax dollars to Steve Peace and his gang of 10.
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