Editorial: Valley counties could lose more representation

The valley counties of Merced and Stanislaus may lose more of its representation in the State Legislature when new district lines are drawn. Instead of consolidating the valley’s agricultural belt, the new district would extend west over to the coastal counties of Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and take in a sliver of San Jose.

Last week a hearing was held by the Redistricting Committee in Fresno and a bus load of valley residents attended the meeting to give input, however, there has been a strong push to move the local district off of its agricultural base and allow the interests of the coastal counties to dominate the district.

According to a report put out by the Merced County Chamber of Commerce, the new district gives the coastal counties over 100,000 more votes than it had previously.

“The commission is doing its job of listening to citizens, but it seems the only citizens who are providing input are those who want to move the lines toward the coast,” the Merced County Chamber of Commerce stated in a recent email.

In the past Merced and Stanislaus Counties have suffered a loss of representation because the local district has extended into San Joaquin County taking in downtown Stockton as part of the district. It also ran far north picking up Tracy to fill it’s list of registered voters.

The problem is that it divides the district into so many little pieces that no one area has enough strength to vote a local representative into office. The district has been forced to look to people from outside the area to represent the interests of the valley.

With so few representatives who really have the valley interests at heart, urban, non-agricultural districts control the legislature and tend to pass laws which detrimentally affect the state’s agricultural base.

Slowly but surely California, the bread basket of the world, has become a second rate agricultural producer. Water issues have taken second place to domestic issues.

Budget issues are stalled and elected officials don’t know who they really represent or how their constituents want them to vote. It is a political quagmire and one which does not serve the best interests of the state or the agricultural counties of this valley.

Your interests can be heard by going on line to www.wedrawthelines.ca.gov or by attending the meetings which are being held through out the area.

Neither the city or the county of Merced realize what they are doing with this year’s budgets is only a stop gap measure. The real pain is yet to come.

They both fail to realize that it will take reductions in wages and benefit packages to survive in this economy.

Instead of attacking the real issues, they have both looked for cuts in other areas, and dipping into their reserves.

What will they do next year?

In the case of the county, they actually talked of closing the library in Winton, picking one small community with a 71 percent Hispanic population, and one which can not fight back.

Closing the main jail is just as bad an idea.

What is needed is salary and benefit reductions; perhaps 5 percent across the board this year with another 5 percent anticipated next year.

This could have saved a lot of jobs and if and when the economy returns, the city and county could return wages and benefits to the present level.

Even the little town of Livingston showed the way by cutting the salary of the new city manager by $30,000 a year.

Were they able to get a good city manager for that price? We believe they did.