Avoid Proposition 1 Like The Water Pump In A Cholera Outbreak
30 Thursday Oct 2014
Written by redqueeninla in Water politics
Tags
bond funding, Lynda Resnick, No on prop 1, Nov 4 elections, Paramount farms, proposition 1, proposition funding, propositions, Resnicks, Roll international, State Superintendent, Stewart Resnick, Torlakson, water bonds, Water policy, Water politics
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In 2013 the Los Angeles school board race attracted some remarkable, inordinately outsized contributions from supporters not even associated with LAUSD, lured instead by the zeal of Antonio Villaraigosa and his Coalition for School ®eform. This particular flank in the War to Privatize Education (“WarPED“?) has since lost quite a few of its generals and commanders (Villaraigosa, Bloomberg, Deasy). But one name appears in next week’s November election associated with a trough that is different.
Lynda Resnick personally contributed $100,000 toward the LA mayor’s war chest leveled against our public schools. And as a superficial expectation allying Education ®eformers with Privateers, it seems reasonable to predict some of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick billions from ROLL Global holdings (POM Wonderful, Fiji Water, Teleflora, Franklin Mint, Paramount Farms (growers of among other water-intensive citrus and nuts: pomegranites, mandarin “cuties” and pistachios)), might be employed in support of Villaraigosa-championed, Charter-school-cheerleading, Edushyster Marshall Tuck.
But, in fact, this philanthropic “limousine liberal” rolls the other way, nipping Tuck for Torlakson. Lynda, Stewart and three of their five children, Jason Sinay, Ilene and William Resnick, have instead collectively contributed at least $41,500 toward Tom Torlakson’s State Superintendent race.
So … all participants in all skirmishes are not aligned all of the time. And perhaps then Stewart Resnick is to be believed on the face of it when he states he makes political donations “without much real strategy“. Certainly, Torlakson has been in charge and in power for some while. And Stewart and his wife have appeared with Torlakson at the site of their San Joaquin Westlands citrus farm’s very own eponymous Charter School, Paramount Academy. Torlakson and his power base is not without his own charter championeering Oligarchs. And their contributions may be more aligned with profit than ideology.
These Resnicks are power donors with a proclivity for supporting self-serving policies politically. With a long history of mixing water with education, they are some of California’s wealthiest individuals because of California public water policy, which they actively shape.
The November election’s water policy Proposition 1, is a seven-and-a-half billion dollar ($7.5B) bond proposal – that’s some real change – packaged to appeal to drought-sensitized California residents, even environmentalists. But this massive public loan ultimately showers a mega-elite few with extravagant benefit for inefficient, inappropriate, multinational-profiting corporate farmland while yielding minimal long-term benefit for the public, which nevertheless picks up the tab.
There is plenty to read about the science, policy and claims surrounding proposition 1 and California’s water policy. But an interesting shortcut is to follow the money of who’s spending what where. And of course who isn’t getting funded. The voice of opposition is loud but funded with a mere rivulet, drowned by some of the planet’s wealthiest to the roar of three orders of magnitude more campaign dollars.
Lynda and Stewart Resnick have personally contributed at least $150,000 toward the tens of millions arrayed to pass this proposition. It is difficult if not impossible to follow their derivative interests in the matter. Funds are contributed by consortia that shield its constituents, and these front groups themselves have shadowy relationships. Could, for example, a group registered by the lawyer “Jason Resnick” of Western Growers Service Corporation that invested $250K in the prop. 1 cause, be more than nominally related to the family-run Resnick corporation? Regardless, it is minimally clear the Resnick’s have sunk a lot into floating this gargantuan bond measure, at least five times that of the annual median household income in Avenal, CA, a town adjacent to some of the Resnick’s Paramount Farm holdings.
The morality of this dubious philanthropy informs my own choices. Stay skeptical of overwhelming influence and listen instead to the foot soldiers carefully. My experience and needs as a parent in LAUSD is clearly at odds with the interests of its ideological financiers; this seems analogous. Consider the motivating interests beneath this political bill’s water line and vote with me:
¡¡ NO ON PROPOSITION 1 !!
2 Comments
October 30, 2014 at 12:21 pm
As you know Queenie…it is so rare an occurrence that I respectfully disagree with you, but on Prop. 1, I disagree.
As an ancient muckraker, in my early years I both interviewed Senator Thomas Khuekel (forgot how to spell his name) about California water issues, but also debated Papa Gov Pat Brown on TV on these issues. The north/south water wars have been going on long before my fav queen was born, or at least since she was in nappies.
In this instance, it is almost an imperative to vote YES on Prop. 1 to insure So. Calif. has drinking water, but even more that the farmers, including Big Ag, can continue to grow the crops to feed so much of America.
I lived in the heart of the agricultural Santa Ynez Valley for over 15 years, and saw first hand, how farms, large and small, sprayed (ugh) and organic all were predicated on the use of water.
Now the drought conditions, longest in our recorded Calif. history, has made this issue primary. I cannot understand why desalinazation plants are not going up along our coast, and why there are not more laws on uses of purified waste water, but I do know that Prop. ! would move us in a positive direction.
Please read George Skelton in today’s LA Times for more info.
Also, I agree about the Resnick pair, and their ilk, who only donate if their names are on all public buildings. But that seems to be the mindset of these self proclaimed overlords.
Hope you don’t mind my disagreement…Ellen
November 1, 2014 at 1:01 am
I don’t mind you disagreeing; hopefully you will not mind my pointing out how you are disagreeing about irrelevancies.
This isn’t about north/south water issues, and it isn’t about growing food for America.
It’s about enriching those with most of the money already; it’s about their power to get ever-more. It’s about their power to take the public’s dime, and sell it back to them for a fifty-cent piece. Nor is this bill about ensuring drinking water. And it isn’t about growing food for America either; it’s about supplying pistachios to the Iranians. And it’s about growing water intensive crops where they should never have been permitted to be grown, and supporting those who grabbed the land for this ill purpose first, just because they did and because they have the money to twist the public’s arm until they cry uncle.
It’s all very well and good that you were involved when this scheme was first fomented 50 (?) years ago. But the delta tunnels have been rejected three times already; they make no more sense now than they did long ago. This is not a bill that’s in the best interest of the people. It is a bill with small bones distributed liberally to potential objectors to essentially buy them off, but that does not change the central onerousness of its essence.
Just because Jerry Brown has vowed to avenge his father’s failed deal on the water delta does not make this a reasonable bill to pass.