Governor Sent $20-Million ‘Pork-Barrel’ Bill

The Senate and Assembly easily passed and sent to Gov. George Deukmejian on Friday a quickly assembled, $20-million spending plan labeled in a GOP staff analysis as a “pork-barrel” bill.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Dan McCorquodale (D-San Jose), breezed through the Assembly on a 68-5 vote with almost no debate. Later Friday night, it zipped through the Senate 38 to 0. With the legislative session scheduled to end late Friday, the deal was put together in 11th-hour negotiations between legislative leaders and the Deukmejian Administration over how to split revenue from oil drilling on state lands.

Among the pet projects are more than $1 million to purchase Hopetown, an old movie stunt ranch in Simi Valley now owned by entertainer Bob Hope; $600,000 in seed money for a courthouse in Monterey Park to handle child dependency cases, and $250,000 to renovate a Capitol hearing room in honor of Jesse M. Unruh, the state treasurer and former Assembly Speaker who died earlier this year.

According to a Republican Assembly analysis of the bill, “There appears to have been a ‘deal’ made after this bill left Ways and Means (Committee).”

It described the measure facetiously as “good government in action.”

Sen. John Doolittle (R-Rocklin), the Senate GOP Caucus chairman, confirmed that legislative leaders from both sides of the aisle had agreed on how to split the tidelands oil revenues, officially known as the Special Account for Capital Outlay.

Doolittle agreed with the Republican staff memo describing the measure as a pork-barrel proposal chock-full of pet legislative projects.

‘We Spill That Much’

Cracked Doolittle: “Hey, we’re only spending $20 million. We spill that much around here every day.”

In 1985, legislators split up about $375 million from a one-time windfall of federal oil revenue for pet projects.

Tom Beerman, Deukmejian’s assistant press secretary, said his boss “has not made a commitment” on the McCorquodale bill.

Assistant Finance Department Director Lois Wallace said her agency opposes the measure because some of the projects were previously vetoed by Deukmejian and others should be paid for by local governments. Further, Wallace said, Deukmejian’s budget had earmarked the entire $196 million in the oil revenue account.

“They (the Legislature) just said the money should come from” the fund, Wallace said. “But there’s no money there.”

Even so, Mark Hite, a McCorquodale aide, said the agreement on the projects was negotiated late Thursday afternoon among legislative leaders and the governor’s office.

Among other appropriations listed in the bill are:

- $1.4 million to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for acquisition of Solstice Canyon, near Malibu Creek State Park.

- $300,000 to the state Department of Parks and Recreation for Chino Hills State Park.

- $300,000 for renovation of Los Angeles City Hall.

- $200,000 to clean up polluted Harbor Lake in Wilmington. The funds were inserted by Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-Long Beach), who earlier in the week shelved a bill to spend up to $500,000 on clean up.

Meanwhile, a companion bill, by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco), containing about $6 million in tidelands oil revenues for pet projects, won approval in the Senate 38 to 0 and was sent to the Assembly for final passage.