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Byron Sher
Byron Sher talks about state's budget problems
By Oakley Brooks
A former law professor at Stanford and a former Palo Alto city councilman, state Sen. Byron Sher has represented Saratoga in the California Legislature since March 1996.
As a noted legal advocate for the environment, he authored California's Clean Air Act, strengthened the state's mining and timber laws, and headed a state committee on the Headwaters Forest.
Lately, he has been turning his attention to the state's swelling budget deficit, now in the $15 billion range. The crisis apparently claimed its first major local casualty recently, when the governor recalled--among other funds--$300,000 for classrooms and environmental restoration at Montalvo's redeveloping artists' colony.
At an appearance in Saratoga on Feb. 21, Sher briefly outlined the governor's plan to borrow revenues from the national tobacco settlement and other extraordinary state income to help balance the budget this year.
Some of the 50 Saratogans at the Senior Center that night, including city council members and Saratoga Chamber of Commerce leaders, gasped when Sher talked of the fiscal difficulties before the state.
Sher admitted that expensive energy contracts he and others in Sacramento hurriedly signed off on last winter were the source of much of the state's woes.
But the loudest concerns residents shared with Sher related to Highway 85. Sher has spent more than three years urging Caltrans officials to go ahead with $9.3 million worth of sound-mitigation measures on the highway in and around Saratoga, after Santa Clara County's Board of Supervisors voted in June 1999 to allocate the money. Caltrans officials would like to grind down the rainwater grooves on the highway to reduce sound, but that decision has been complicated by a group of Saratogans who favor an asphalt concrete overlay instead.
After the meeting, Sher spoke briefly with the Saratoga News.
SN: It was not hard to see what the main issue was tonight--people were really anxious about noise abatement on Highway 85. That's something you've worked on for many years. It seems like the city residents want one thing and Caltrans wants another and, it seems like the sound results from either option could be close.
Sher: They have been looking at this test up in the San Rafael area for scouring the highway and it's right that Caltrans is leaning in the direction of grinding. The citizens, from the beginning, since I've been in on it, have wanted to do this resurfacing. And the issue for Caltrans is the ongoing maintenance.
SN: Saratogans have been ambivalent about this highway, some of them completely against it, since it was laid in. Is it hard to find a balance on this issue, in dealing with people who didn't want the highway there in the beginning?
Sher: When the agreement was made they made concessions to communities, in terms of off-ramps, the elevation and sound walls. The deal was made when the sales tax went through (Measures A and B) and the city has a commitment to do [sound mitigation]. I don't know that they have commitment to a particular process.
You do have this state agency to deal with because of the state highway and all the bureaucracy that that carries with it. We do the best we can to communicate community interest, but it's difficult. About the best leverage we have is that every year they have to have their budget reviewed.
There's been a new director at Caltrans and I've met with him. But it's ongoing.
SN: This was a redistricting year, and with the new Senate boundaries, Saratoga will be shifted out of your district and into a new district that stretches into San Luis Obispo County. You voted for this new map--I wonder if you were completely happy with these new boundaries.
Sher: Redistricting is always a hard thing to do. It's a very political process; each house has its own plan and you have to bring them together. I voted for it because it was the one the [Democratic] leadership had signed off on. You have to redistrict--the law requires it every 10 years and so there are going to be some changes. But no, I'm not particularly happy with what happened with Saratoga.
I've been through three different re-apportionments, and every one of them has been political. In 1990, there was an impasse and no map was agreed on and the courts redrew the maps. Each senate district had two [smaller] assembly districts nested exactly inside them. I think there's a particular logic to nesting the districts. In this year's new reapportionment, we'll be working with at least three different assembly districts.
The changes are dramatic for Saratoga. I would feel that Saratoga is closer to the peninsula communities.
It becomes a burden for the legislator if there's no sense of community within the district--it becomes hard to represent.
That's true now in my own district, where I have agriculture out on the San Mateo coast and suburban places like Saratoga. Redistricting--it's weird.
SN: You put through a bill this past year to expand the mission of the Santa Clara Valley Water District to include more environmental restoration.
Sher: Well this is certainly not a new subject for me. It ties in with my environmental interests.
SN: The creeks in Santa Clara County, including the ones here in Saratoga, are in trouble--they're heavily polluted. Will this bill help them out?
Sher: I wanted to make it clear that part of the [water district's] mission was to protect the environment and the streams that flow through their district. It was certainly their intention to do that.
It is true that we have a lot of runoff that brings toxic materials into the streams, and, yes, the district's oversight could provide a potential solution. There was a time when the water district felt their mission was solely stream bank protection and they were filling in channels with concrete to control floods. I think they are now sensitive to the environmental perspective and now they do it more naturally. They recently went to the voters for money to do the restoration--I think it's an appropriate part of their mission.
SN: The biggest issue for Saratogans in the March 5 election isn't a state ballot measure or a candidate but the community college district's Measure E--I wonder if you've had any time to develop an opinion on that.
Sher: I'm gonna pass on that--seems like a local issue. People often ask us to take a position on bond issues. I'm always in support of schools and community college districts. But usually the issue on this is money.
Nobody has asked me to take a position on this, fortunately. [laughs].
SN: You're facing quite a burden this year with the growing state budget deficit. How is it wearing on you personally?
Sher: It's hard in that you know at a minimum, you're going to have to cut programs that groups depend on. We're down to about $15 billion, from $17 billion, in what we have to handle. The governor has a plan to deal with $10 billion by shifting revenues around. Then our legislative analyst says there's another $5 billion that needs to be taken care of.
There are only two ways to do this. One is to increase taxes. That's hard to do because it's an election year and you need a two-thirds vote of the people.
The places where you can save are in the programs.
Schools and community colleges are protected under Prop. 98--we have to fund them at a minimum level. It's hard to cut prisons and law enforcement.
So the brunt of cuts will be felt by health programs.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
