Private markets reward ‘self help’ business people who make wise long term risks and word hard to make their goals by providing them with additional investment capital.  In turn, successful business people employ more people, expand their operations, and squeeze more value out of that investment capital than could have ever been imagined when the business person was sitting down to make their initial ideas a reality.

Senate Republican Leader Dick Ackerman’s SB 872 is a perfect example of government applying those same investment principles to the allocation of transportation bonds.  By prioritizing counties that are investing in their own roads for state bond dollars, those precious, finite funds will have their real value multiplied many times over.

Here are a few examples of what I mean.

In Orange County, taxpayers have decided to invest almost $18 billion in local roads and infrastructure above and beyond what they already pay in local, state, and federal taxes.  In Riverside County, taxpayers and home builders have undertaken a similar investment of $8.5 billion for roads.

Both counties have had lively, in depth policy debates and ongoing high level examination of the real value of projects for investment from improvements that can take minutes off everyone’s commutes, to plans for major interchanges and roadways that will improve safety and traffic.

Providing state-local partnership bond money to projects in these two counties is like adding investment capital to a company on the verge of hiring 5,000 new employees – right place, right time, yielding huge positive results for everybody involved.

Orange and Riverside have been heavily involved in a cooperative effort to expand the 91 freeway for years.  As the Chair of the 91 Tollroad Advisory Committee, I understand the unique opportunities that have been created by our working shoulder-to-shoulder each day to solve problems.  Statewide recognition for our work is building. California Transportation Commission Chair Marian Bergeson recently lauded our two counties for working together when Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, OCTA Chairwoman Carolyn Cavecche, OCBC President Lucy Dunn, and I, along with others successfully testified for additional state bond money for the 91.

SB 872 is an important additional step in that process.  By setting forth some clear guidelines for the state and locals to follow, the good work that counties like Orange andRiverside have been undertaking for years will be encouraged statewide.

Everyday, our free market system rewards risk taking and hard work with further investment.  By passing SB 872, we will begin to bring that same principle back into road building in California.