October 21, 2005

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Publication Date: Friday, October 21, 2005

Better times are coming

Optimism was the subtext of Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty's talk earlier this month at a meeting of the Tri-Valley Republican Women. He told those gathered that local projects could get a boost from a projected 7 percent hike in revenue from both property and sales tax in the coming months, even though the county only gets to keep 15 cents on the dollar.

Haggerty's also optimistic the county's in pretty good shape should a disaster require dipping into reserve funds that now stand at $40 million. Nine years ago, those funds totaled just $3 million - an amount Haggerty described as "dangerously low" should the county face a major flu epidemic or massive earthquake.

County expenses, he pointed out, have grown by $780 million since 1996, a budget that now stands at $2.18 billion compared to $1.4 billion when Haggerty first took office. Revenue shortfalls forced 17-22 percent cuts in every county-funded department this year, he said. Even so, Haggerty has made beefing up the reserve fund a priority during his tenure.

He admits he's surprised unions that have seen members laid off due to the Draconian budget cuts haven't questioned the county's ability to, at the same time, beef up money it's holding in reserve. But, he said, without sufficient reserves, if the county had to deal with an epidemic or other disaster, rather than a relative handful of workers losing their paychecks, "everybody goes out the door." County-funded budgets, he added, have been cut to the bone.

The good news is an anticipated 7 percent hike in both property and sales tax revenue, he reported. Also helpful are funds generated by the gasoline tax voters approved five years ago (Proposition 42) that have finally been cut loose. That money, he said, will boost county coffers by $1.3 billion to deal with local traffic issues.

Calling the I-580 corridor the "worst traffic nightmare in the nine-county Bay Area," Haggerty empathizes with commuters who "scream that it takes them an hour and a half to get to work. I scream when it takes me a half hour to get from Pleasanton to Livermore (where he lives with his three children)."

Speaking of Livermore, Haggerty is a strong proponent of leaving services for veterans right where they are rather than relocating a nursing home and clinic to San Joaquin or Stanislaus County. "It just doesn't make sense that it would be better to go somewhere else and build a new building and move all these people - displace them - and be able to do that in a cost-effective manner," he believes. While acknowledging that the Livermore-located VA hospital and nursing home aren't big money-makers for Livermore or the Tri-Valley, to Haggerty, "It is a sense of pride that we have the VA Hospital in our community."

Equally important, he said, is the dignity of the veterans who have made the existing facility their home. "People are happy there. They don't want to leave there." Haggerty has assigned a staffer to the issue, saying, "My office has been actively involved. At some point you have to listen to the people who are the users of the service and say, 'What do you want?'"

On other issues, Haggerty's interest in alternate forms of transportation to ease both congestion and air pollution may result in a prestigious appointment. He said the Governor's Office has called to tell him he's first choice for the next open seat on the California Air Resources Board. Haggerty has already served nine years on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Board as one of two representatives from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. A Republican who thinks hardliners see him as "too liberal," Haggerty joked that the Governor's appointment "has environmentalists coming unglued. I guess they don't like me."

Whether or not someone likes him doesn't seem to drive Scott Haggerty. Saying he won't stand in the way of a ballot measure he doesn't support personally if he thinks it has wide public interest, he is also straightforward about his beliefs when asked a direct question.

A woman at the luncheon took issue with carpool diamond lanes she insists are rarely used or are used illegally by single passenger cars and, in her view, tie up other lanes and contribute to congested freeways.

Haggerty told her bluntly, "Expect to see more of them," and, he said, HOT (High Occupancy Toll) lanes, too. He's convinced that such measures - especially when applied to multi-passenger vehicles like buses - are important to Bay Area air quality.

The same woman asked why the county "keeps spending a lot of money on social services for illegal aliens." Haggerty told her, "If there's an illegal child living here that needs health care, I'm going to get it to them." He feels the same way about providing care to, for example, "a 42-year-old illegal male with a broken leg." Haggerty believes a rich country like the United States should be able to help people who are sick and in pain, regardless of their immigration status. Pleasanton, he told the group, is the richest city in Alameda County. He points out that immigrants looking for a better life are what built America.

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