SAN FRANCISCO (AP) San Francisco Bay area residents were already steamed last week when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared them solely responsible for the ballooning costs of the Bay Bridge earthquake retrofit.
Then, Schwarzenegger tossed another bombshell onto Bay Area commuters, inking a deal to put California's first urban casino a gigantic Indian palace with 5,000 slot machines, more than the biggest Las Vegas casino in San Pablo, right alongside traffic-clogged Interstate 80.
``It's just been a big week,'' said a governor's spokesman, Vince Sollitto, sounding much like a card shark who refuses to show his winning hand as he rakes in the chips.
Still, many wondered if even the genial Schwarzenegger wasn't above settling political scores. After all, the Bay Area is the state's most Democratic region, and the only part of the state to vote against the recall that swept Schwarzenegger into office.
Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, called the governor's bridge funding position a ``non-starter'' and criticized the casino deal as ``mind-boggling'' in the detrimental impact it could have on the Bay Area.
Schwarzenegger's bridge plan is being shepherded by a Los Angeles area lawmaker, Democratic Sen. Kevin Murray, who not surprisingly says his end of the state has contributed enough. But despite long-simmering political fights between northern and southern California, Bay Area Democrats also have themselves to blame for the bridge and casino deals.
The bridge project, a priority ever since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, has been snakebitten for years by faulty budgeting, steep steel prices and the soaring costs of insurance and bonding following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Its price tag has swollen to $7.4 billion, well past the original projection of $2.6 billion.
Many of the construction delays, which made the project more vulnerable to so many unforeseen costs, can be blamed at least in part on Bay Area lawmakers and residents dickering over the placement of the bridge and its ``signature'' architectural design.
``The governor does believe the cost overruns are directly attributable to the design which was chosen by the Bay Area, and delays that are due to decisions made by local elected officials,'' Sollitto said. ``To be fair, he does not believe he should take transport money desperately needed all over the state and pour more of it into this project.''
That means Bay Area commuters could see another dollar added to the bridge toll or money earmarked for other local transportation projects shifted to this one.
Meanwhile, the agreement establishing the new casino grew out of federal legislation authored by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez. That law authorized the 259-member Lytton Band of Pomo Indians to build a casino on a nine acre sliver of land in San Pablo, a working class suburb 20 miles from San Francisco.
The legislation compelled the state to negotiate in good faith for the casino, but Miller spokesman Danny Weiss said they thought it would have no more than 2,000 slots.
Weiss said Miller wasn't pleased that Schwarzenegger was laying responsibility for the casino on him, given that the governor has vowed to seek more Indian gaming revenue to help solve the state's budget woes. Lytton has agreed to share 25 percent of the new casino's revenue with the state, which the governor's office has estimated could be $152 million per year.
``(Miller) is concerned that the governor has chosen to solve the budget problems of California by changing the nature of gaming without regard to the impact on local communities,'' Weiss said.
Not everyone thinks the casino is a bad idea.
San Pablo city manager Brock Arner estimates the casino would create between 1,500 and 2,000 jobs in the economically depressed community, and could generate significantly more than the $2.6 million a year the city now gets from the small card club on the site.
Sollitto said the tribe would be legally bound to work with area officials to mitigate the environmental impact.
``The governor opposes urban gaming and yet this casino was inevitable, so he wanted to ensure it would provide the best possible benefit to the state as a whole,'' Sollitto said.
That statement raises an interesting contradiction which brings us back to the subject of political payback.
On the one hand, Schwarzenegger has declared the cost overruns on the bridge to be a regional problem, saddling Bay Area residents with the bill. But when it comes to the casino, the Bay Area is expected to be a good soldier for the state, putting up with the myriad consequences of a giant urban gaming hall in order to generate millions of dollars in revenue that will surely be spread elsewhere.
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Beth Fouhy has covered national politics since 1988.
| In the interest of timeliness, this story is fed directly from the newswire and may contain occasional typographical errors. |