Governor Participates in Bakersfield Town Hall

GOVERNOR: And the first one, before we do the question and answer session, I just want them all to say a few words because it is very interesting areas that we are working on in our administration to move the state forward because this is what's it all about is moving the state forward. And the first one that will be talking to us is Jim Tilton, who is the Secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation and he has been part of really working with everyone to get the prison system expanded and to bring some kind of a, you know, system into this whole mess that we have inherited just three and a half years ago. He's done a great job, so please, Jim if you could tell us all a little bit about it.

SECRETARY TILTON: Thank you, Governor. A couple things…the Governor talked about the fact that there is a capacity problem, not just at the state level, but the at the jail level, over 200,000 inmates being released in county jails. And we talk about the 53,000 beds as if the solution is capital outlay in beds. But the major thing that the Governor is pushing is real reform, it's just not about building beds. For the last 20 years, we've had an attitude of sending inmates to prison believing they go to prison, never come back and they are lost and forgotten. 95% of the inmate population comes back to the community. Over 60,000 by current population will come back to communities within the next three years. And we warehouse prisoners in this state. We've overcrowded the prisons and in 2000, because of budget cuts, we reduced programs so inmates are sitting on bunks. And what I describe to communities is inmates coming to my system, and I'm not proud of this, they come out of the system with two hundred dollars in their pocket, a drug habits, mental health issues, no education, no job skills, and they come back to your community through your bus terminals with two hundred dollars in their pocket. And now we're surprised that 70% of those folks come back through the system, we have this revolving door.

So the real reform we have is to say, you know what, we need to identify that clearly there are prisoners who are going to prison and need to stay a long time, and there are prisoners coming out of prison I'd like to find work with the police to get them back in sooner. But there are thousands and thousands of inmates coming out of the system, that we know if we invest in basic skills, give them tools to be successful and reintegrate them into communities they will be successful. It's proven, but we haven't invested those resources. So the major part of the reform of the Governor is to put resources in to invest in those inmates, do assessments of them to identify whether they have education, drug, anger management, whatever, and I owe you, as the Secretary of CDCR to provide a better product coming out.

A friend of mine, Bill Kolender, a Sherriff of San Diego describes these revolving door inmates and says, ‘they come back to your prison for a 45-day processing, sit on a bunk for 3 months, you send them back to me, Jim, zero value added'. My description is negative value added. They may have been trying to work with their families, get jobs, we violate them back and they come back worse. So the real reform is to work with local law enforcement in communities to invest in what we are describing as re-entry beds, so that we move inmates out of the big prisons into small facilities, full programming, provide that assistance to them, and then bring them back out in your community with a chance to be successful, and that's the reform we're talking about in this state, is to invest in those individuals. If we can make them successful, that's the best public safety. Stop that victimization. Get them as productive citizens, and we believe (Inaudible) and we're looking forward to working with the communities. We're talking to the sheriffs, we're talking about helping Kern County with jail beds, get re-entry facilities so we can make sure the citizens coming out of our prisons into your community have a better chance to be successful and positive citizens, so look forward to working with your community. (Applause)

SECRETARY TILTON: Next I'd like to introduce Linda Adams, she's the Secretary for Cal/EPA.

SECRETARY ADAMS: Thank you, Jim. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to talk to you a little bit this morning about climate change and global warming. As the Governor mentioned, he did sign into law last fall the most comprehensive plan in the world to deal with global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. That was Assembly Bill 32 by Speaker Fabian Nunez, and our top scientists around, not only California, but around the world, all agree that there will be unique and devastating impacts to California if we continue business-as-usual, do nothing approach. By the end of the century, we could see temperatures rise in California by up to ten degrees, and I don't think I have to tell folks in the San Joaquin Valley what that would mean as far as increase in asthma and smog and heat-related deaths. Also, another devastating impact that would be particular to the Valley is we could lose up to 90% of our Sierra-Nevada snow pack. And I know, I'm very aware that Kern County declared a water emergency and I know that Kern is very, very dependent on water from the north and from the snow pack, and so business-as-usual is simply not acceptable, and that's why the Governor signed this law.
And we know in California that 40% of our greenhouse gas emissions are from the automobile sector, so the Governor has a two-point plan particularly to deal with autos. And number one is a Low Carbon Fuel Standard, where we will diversify our fuels in California, and I think there's a big opportunity in the San Joaquin Valley for developing bio fuels. And the other is that we are demanding that our auto manufacturers make cleaner cars, and we know that they can do that, because off-the-shelf technology exist for them to do that. And as far as our clean cars regulations go, we have eleven other states that have followed our lead, and seven more potentially to follow. That is the buying power of almost half of the Unites States. We are fighting with the federal government right now because we need a waiver in order to implement our regulations. We hope to win that fight even if it goes to the Supreme Court. And we know that California cannot solve this problem alone, so the Governor has been working with other states, and other provinces, and other countries and many have followed have followed our lead and I think with all these efforts around the world, even in China and a trip to India coming up that I think we'll be able to make a real difference. So, speaking of water, I'd like to introduce Joe Grindstaff, Assistant Secretary for the Resources. (Applause)

MR. GRINDSTAFF: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here today. Just briefly…we made real progress on flood management last year, dealing with levies, the most significant actions that the state has ever taken to deal with flood management in the state were taken in this last year. We have four more elements that the governor proposed this year that we really need to implement to manage our water system well. Number one in the delta, we have failed to solve the problem with the delta and we have to deal with conveyance. Two-thirds of the state is dependent on water that is delivered from the delta, conveyance is a key issue. We have to solve that issue. (Applause)

Number two: Storage. Not just ground water storage, but surface storage is really important for this state. I think it's been demonstrated by what's happened in the last few weeks. If you look in the bay area, they can't go for two weeks without having water. What happens if we have an earthquake and the system goes down? We need to have more surface storage. That is critical to the state in order to be able to move ahead. Number three: We have rivers that we really need to restore. We have environmental issues that we have to deal with, those restorations things are really important. The fourth thing is conservation—water use efficiency.

If we can implement all of those elements of the program, we as a state will be prepared to move forward for the next fifty years. Thank you and I'm going to turn this over to David Long, our Secretary for Education. (Applause)

MR. LONG: Thank you very much, and again thank you for inviting us into your home. You heard the Governor say on several occasions, you'll hear it a few thousand more times, that next year will also be the year of education. And I will tell you as we approach that subject, there will be many reforms and many reforms because you deserve the very best. So when we start down that road, you're going to hear a lot about a very comprehensive plan, a plan that is going to be very bold, and a plan that is going to be very passionate because it is about your children and it's about your grandchildren. So we want them to be very bold, we want those reforms to come. I'm going to mention a few of them just to tickle your fancy.
The first is this: career-tech education. 30% of our students now go to college and universities 70% of them do not. Career-tech education will handle that situation with the 70%, we want it to be 100%. We want to pay attention to 100% of our students, again because they're you're children, and your grandchildren. And the Governor in his May Revise came up with many suggestions, and we're going to push for those and we're going to get them. And that will be more teachers, more counselors in CTE, more equipment, and more courses. So come with us on that one.

The second thing I want to mention is a reform and pushing forward is on pre-school. This year in the May Revise, the Governor put in another fifty million dollars because he knows school readiness is the key to success for children. So fifty million last year, fifty million this year, and we're planning on fifty million next year.
A third area is EnCorps. Last Friday in Los Angeles, we had a press conference where it is a program where retired managers in cooperation with not just managers but workers an industry will be coming back to help teach. We need a lot of math and science teachers, so some of you sitting out there right now, think about it, we will be in contact with you. We need you in class rooms for our children. Another area I want to mention is safety. Safety is the number one question people ask. They ask about achievement, but they also want your children, your grandchildren to go to school every day and we pray to God that they come home safe every day. So I will tell you in our reform effort in the State of California with the Governor's help, we will be developing the finest safe initiative plan for education in the United States of America. It will be a national model.

The last thing I want to mention is data. We feel that data is the key to a successful education system, and to that end next week we will be having a press conference and be releasing a transparency website so you can see, and again stay tuned, so you can compare how much you spend on each site, what the achievement is, how much is being spent in each classroom. We cannot do that without a high degree of collaboration, so we need all of you in this reform effort. Please come with us for the children of California. Thank you very much, with that (Applause) I'm trying to really speed it up here. With that I want to introduce the Secretary for Food and Agriculture, A.G. Kawamura. (Applause)

SECRETARY KAWAMURA: Thank you David. Good morning everybody, it's good to be here in Bakersfield, I used to farm in this area, lived many years ago right out here off General Beal road, so I know the area very well. We've got a lot of great opportunities in agriculture but of course we have some challenges as always, whether it was the freeze last year, the heat spell last year, and certainly the crisis with water right now. And we're working very closely with my counterpart, both Joe Grindstaff and Secretary Chrisman at Resources to deal with the water situation and looking for solution sets for that water crisis as we head into potentially a drought.

Some of these negative things although are off-set by the great opportunities we see with agriculture here in our state, the number one ag state in the nation. Governor's been fantastic in supporting the building of an infrastructure, as you know, that helps support agriculture. So when we look at transportation, when we look at water systems, storage, and the rest, these are all the things and components that agriculture has to depend on. And with that infrastructure in place, we can then build a 21st century agricultural system that is basically a model for the rest of the world, both environmentally and in terms of its productivity. We're very excited about what that means for us, whether it's our trading opportunities as the world globalizes and we've had many successful trips. This area is a powerhouse of both export products and just products that this nation feeds. We are the food source for our nation, and the investment then in these areas has been very important.
The Governor's been very, very supportive of working with all of us, his cabinet members that have an issue whether it's in the nutrition arena, or whether it's in the conservation arena, whether it's the new energy economy that this state is determined to be a leader in. Those are all components of a new farm bill, and the Governor has been very supportive of that farm bill, we have been very supportive of making agriculture stay on top, be on top, and continue to move forward in all these new areas. And so what I'd like to see is I see Secretary Belshé is here and we are great partners in dealing with nutrition challenges of a nation and a state, and secretary Belshé I'm going to hand my microphone back to you. Thank you everybody. (Applause)

SECRETARY BELSHÉ: Good morning everyone. I apologize for being tardy. My mother taught me to be punctual; I can't account for Southwest Airlines I'm afraid. Earlier this year, the Governor put forward a very bold, comprehensive plan to fix our state's broken health care system. And he did so because he really does believe that doing nothing, the status quo, is just simply unacceptable and it's unsustainable. It's unacceptable that 20% of our residents are uninsured, here in Kern County it's 25%. It's unsustainable that businesses and individuals are dealing with year after year increases in health care costs two, three, four times the rate of inflation. So the Governor put forward a very significant, far-reaching, comprehensive plan to address the problems of coverage and costs, and in so doing, get out some of the issues that we're all dealing with. Because the problem of the uninsured isn't someone else's problem, it's our problem. As the Governor mentioned no doubt in his comments, we all pay for the problem of the uninsured, the extant costs they can't pay then get shifted to people who are insured. We all suffer as a result of our emergency rooms that are over-burdened with individuals who are uninsured or underinsured who use emergency rooms for their basic medical care needs. So this is not someone else's problem, this is all of our problems. So the Governor's plan is intended to get at this problem of the hidden tax, the shifting of cost, and make coverage more affordable, to achieve coverage for all and to promote a healthier California.

There are three principal components. Number one is prevention and wellness, because we cannot get at cost over the long term and promote a healthier California without doing more around prevention and wellness. And so that means taking on diabetes, for example, and try to prevent it and better manage it when it does occur. It means tackling obesity. Californians have gained over 360 million pounds over the course of the past ten years - think about that. That's a figure that kind of invites a little personal introspection. Governor wants to take on obesity like California has lead the nation and the world on taking on tobacco. So prevention and wellness is really, really critical.

Second is coverage for all. Governor believes everyone should have coverage, and under his plan, everyone would be required to have coverage. But we understand that mandatory health care is not affordable and available health care. And that's why his plan is accompanied by a series of reforms to make coverage more affordable particularly for lower-waged Californians, and to make it available by changing some of the insurance market rules which the Governor no doubt talked about so the insurance companies can't turn people away for their age, their work status, pre-existing medical conditions. And finally, is affordability, because you can't talk about coverage without talking about cost. And so the Governor's plan includes a number of short-term and longer term affordability measures that, in an effort to relieve providers, for example, from some of the very costly mandates that contribute to the cost. Using health information technology in a way that really we believe can improve coordination, improve patient outcomes and reduce cost. And so coverage for all, reduce the hidden tax, promote affordability - those are the three principle goals of the Governor's plan. Everyone will benefit by coverage for all and more affordable health care. Everyone has to contribute to the solution. And the Governor is very much committed to working with all of our partners throughout the state as well as with the legislature to ensure that Californian's get the health care that is so long overdue and which they so richly deserve. And so with that, let me turn it over to the Governor, who I think is ready to engage with all of you, and enough about us. Thank you Governor. (Applause)

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much Kim, and now let's go and hear some questions please.

Q: I'm going to start, if I can borrow this, thank you. Governor, on behalf of the business community, first question we'd like to ask is about the high speed rail. We know that connecting northern California and southern California is very important for the future of California, will be very important for this area, both in terms of jobs and air quality issues which we have more than a lot of others. And so the question would be how are we doing this year with the budget and are we going to have funds to keep going forward with the great work that's been done towards a high speed rail in the future.

GOVERNOR: Thank you. Well first of all let me just say, because it's a budget, we still are very, very tight with our budget because as I said earlier, we started with a sixteen and a half billion dollar structural deficit or operating deficit. That means when I took office, we were spending sixteen and a half billion dollars more than we took in in revenues. Now we have cut that down every year for two, three billion dollars. Now we're all the way down to 1.4 billion dollars. That means we are still spending 1.4 billion dollars more than we are taking in, but we are down from sixteen and a half billion dollars, so budget wise, we always have to be very careful. So when people say why aren't you increasing funding for this, or why don't we start this new program, or why do you take money out for that it's because I have the responsibility to be really conservative and to be living in our means. I cannot spend more than we take in. So this is why it's very important for me to keep my eye focused on that and wipe out by next year hopefully the structural deficit completely. I owe this to the people of California because they are always, the more we cut it down, the more we improve our credit rating, and that saves us hundreds of millions of dollars to the taxpayers.
So number two, the rail, I am a big believer in the high speed rail. I think that I've worked now stayed on that for a long period of time, tried to put it in the ballot, but it went as far as I was concerned, the wrong way. They were trying first to get the public to commit to ten billion dollars. But it's not ten billion dollars that would build the rail. The high speed rail costs forty billion dollars. So no one yet has thought about where we get the rest of the thirty billion dollars. It has to be a partnership between the federal government, the private sector and the state. So let us go and look at that and if they claim here who is in charge of the project and we are all believing very much so that we should be able to go and commute and get back and forth from the north and the south through Bakersfield as quickly as possible. It will be huge - it will be really fantastic to have the high speed rail, but we have to go about it the right way.

So right now we are looking into the private sector because the latest thing is Wall Street loves to invest in public projects. They just want to check on the returns and so on, and this is what they are doing for instance right now, with for instance the lottery. The lottery which the state is running right now, we make very little money compared to a state like Massachusetts, where in Massachusetts is only one-fifth of the population but they make one-third more than California does, so we want the private sector to take over and to go and lease the lottery. The state could make immediately anywhere between thirty and forty billion dollars. Think about that - this is huge, really serious money, and at the same time we can secure money for education that it is meant for and to pay off our debt and do all kinds of great things. And so we want to go and think a little bit outside the box not do the things the traditional way, and so with high speed rail it is very important. I think we are going to move forward with that very aggressively, look for the private money. Look for the private-public partnership and also look to the Federal Government to make sure that the Federal Government comes in and gives us the money as well, because it is a joint venture. And I'm on that and we will get that done and push it as quickly as possible forward. Sure.

Q: H. Schmidts, AARP.

GOVERNOR: You looked all pumped up today, look at you. That chest, that chest. I love it. I love it, all it needs to do is put that baby oil on and man he can hit the side. He can do all the poses exactly. Very nice, thank you. (Laughter)

Q: Thank you Governor, thank you kindly. Insurance companies tend to charge more to insure us older folks, many of us are on fixed incomes. These rates often make health insurance unaffordable and unobtainable, forcing us citizens. The insurance companies justify these rates saying they need to offer younger persons such as yourself, younger persons lower rates that they can afford. This inaccuracy suggests that age can be used as a prophecy for income. Not all older folks have high incomes, have high incomes, the insurance practice conveniently serves to make insurance unaffordable for older persons who…it's this practice conveniently serves to make insurance unaffordable for older persons who insurers don't want to insure anyway. How to you propose to make insurance, health insurance, make sure that health insurance companies do not unfavorably discriminate against older persons.

GOVERNOR: Well, first of all, let me just say to you that this is one of the most common questions to get because people are really concerned that age, and this is what I said earlier, one of the things we need to do is make sure that insurance companies first of all cannot refuse to take on anyone. I mean, you know, because of age, because of some medical history, or because of the job that they have because they right now pick and choose, which I understand because they want to make a profit; but as soon as say that everyone must be insured and we have mandatory health insurance, it means all of a sudden you increase that risk pool. Now the insurance company has millions and millions more people that they can insure but at the same time they are forced to accept having to take in everybody, so this is how you protect it.

The other thing Kim Belshé mentioned is cost because we always have to talk about cost. What we do is, what we have in our proposal is it says the insurance company has to spend 85% of their money, of the money that they take in, on health care, on the patients, and only 15% on the administrative costs and on profits. And now that immediately eliminates the problem there where people say, well if you make it mandatory the insurance, then insurance companies are going to say great, now we have six million more people that we're going to insure. Now we're going to go and raise the rates because they have to take our insurance and then we're all winners and we make billions of dollars more profit. Now they can't do that because they are limited to 15% only for profits and administrative cost and 85% is to be paid for health care for the patients. So this is how we go and package the whole thing.

And so your concern is a very valid concern. I tell you, the stories that I've heard in the past, I've been working on this now for a year—we have, for instance, people that have been turned away. There was one family in the Central Valley, their two sons, that are children, are taking medication for asthma. Just because they're taking medication for asthma, because they're living in the Central Valley where it is more polluted and people have more problems with asthma, they cannot get health care. Now, they have the money to pay for health care, but they can't get health care. They refuse to give them health care. So those are the kinds of things that we see. And what happens then is if you can't get health care, you have to worry continuously because you're literally one long hospital stay away from filing personal bankruptcy. And personal bankruptcy, the No. 1 reason for filing personal bankruptcy in California and in the United States, is health care bills. The No. 1 reason. So people that are uninsured have to continuously worry about not getting insurance, and having maybe getting into this financial problem, and people that are insured have to always worry about that they will lose their insurance if they get sick and have some medical problem. So that's not a situation we ought to be in. So this is why I think it is very important that we reform the system. And as I said earlier, it's politically risky, it's a tough thing to do. Many, many states have tried it and they have not been able to do it.

But we are going to do it. Why? Because we have created a great atmosphere in Sacramento of both of the parties coming together, and eventually always solving those problems. And of course it's all about compromise. We have our proposals, Democrats have their proposals, the Speaker has a proposal, Senator Sheila Kuehl has a proposal, the Republicans have proposals. So all of this will be put on the table, and then we're going to negotiate. And we are right now in the middle of negotiating, so I have great hopes that we're going to come out with something that is really terrific for the people of California.

Q: Thank you, Governor.

GOVERNOR: Absolutely. Thank you. (Applause)

Q: I'm Nancy Adalian with the California State PTA, I'm a member of the board of directors of the California State PTA. And our members have some concerns about many of the issues that Secretary Long brought up, one of them being the money for preschools. And we appreciate the 50 million dollars that has come in last year, this year, and next year. What do you think—how do you see the long-term funding for the vast numbers of preschool children that we have in California?

GOVERNOR: Well, again, it is—first of all, let me just say that education is one of my top priorities, and I think that the PTA has been a great partner. Why? Because the PTA is in the trenches. These are the parents that work with the teachers, that all work together as one team effort in order to make our kids smarter. And whenever you deal with people that are actually in the school and that are working with the kids, and are doing this kind of work, these are the greatest people that you can have on your side in order to move the agenda forward. So you guys have been great partners with Proposition 49, with the After School Education and Safety Act just four years ago, which was really great. And ever since then we have been great partners.

I think, again, it's a budget issue. I cannot even promise you right now that the 50 million dollars that we have for preschool that I said last year—last year we'd put it in, this year we put in, and the next year we'd put it in—that it would be in the end there, because right now my budget is going through the negotiations between the Democrats and Republicans. I have my proposal, and there it's in. The 50 million dollars is in. But what happens in the end when the Democrats and Republicans get together, they may say, "Well, this is not the most important thing for us." And there will be maybe a debate over that. So I will fight for it, as much as like for instance, law enforcement. You know, I put in my 600 million dollars for law enforcement, but they could be starting to work and say, "Let's take 100 million out." And then I will go back and say, "Don't you dare touch it." Or they will try to take the 50 million out for preschool, and I'll say, "No, don't do that, otherwise I will terminate you." (Applause)

So we will do all of those kind of things. But in the end it is a team effort, and like I said, we all have to compromise. But education is important. Let me just tell you that we have increased education funding by 11.5 billion dollars since I have come into office. We are now funding education with 57.6 billion dollars, and I'm very proud that we lowered the fees, for instance, for community colleges, by 6 dollars, from 26 dollars to 20 dollars, it's a drop of 26 percent, in order to make it more accessible for people. We are very happy we put more money into higher education, that we put now infrastructure bonds to build more schools and more classrooms, to expand our university system, and to build more career-tech educational facilities.

Because here is an important thing: too many times, when we talk about education in California and we talk about sending our kids on to higher education, to four year colleges. But the fact of the matter is not every kid wants to go to a four-year college. They want to go and do some career-tech education, study a profession like a mechanic, computer technician, or to be a builder, a carpenter, a pipe fitter, or any of those, or be a chef or something like that, or a nurse. We are short of nurses. So we have to give our children different options. That's why we have such a huge dropout rate, because we always just—counselors go and say to them, here is the plan. You'll go to a four-year college. That's not really where it's at. Yes, maybe half of the kids want to go there, but the other half want to learn a different profession where you don't need a four-year college, where you need career-tech education. So that's why we are putting the spotlight on this, and also put a lot of money behind career tech education, because we need those professions in the future here. We need 130,000 more nurses by the year 2014. Where do we get them if we don't send the kids to nursing school? We need around 70,000 more carpenters by the year 2014. How do we get them if we don't get them into apprenticeship programs to become carpenters?

So those are the kinds of issues that we are working on in education. So I love education. And we've got to go and reform the system. Like the Secretary was saying earlier, to show accountability and to give the parents the chance to look at the website and to see, for you to see, are you sending your child really to the best school? Or is there another school nearby that actually has better performance? Right now, you would never know, because a lot of this information is hidden. But we want to bring that information out. We want you to be able to look and say this school has more money in the classroom than this school. This school has an after school program, this one doesn't. This dropout rate in this school is much higher than the dropout rate in this school. This success rate, when it comes to passing, graduation and the exit exams, is much better over here than in this school. All of this information should be on a website, you should have the possibility to look at that, and also, the financial statement of every school. How do they spend their money? Why is this school laying off teachers, and this school over there is hiring teachers? What is going on here financially? So these are the important issues. It was a short answer.

Q: Yes.

GOVERNOR: Anyway, any other questions? (Applause)

Q: Good morning, Governor, Lou Gomez with the Kern County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

GOVERNOR: Right.

Q: And recently our governmental relations committee had a concern, or a question, regarding Prop 1B, which as you know is a 19 billion dollar bond measure that was approved by the voters last November for road and highway improvements. And frankly, we haven't seen a lot of improvements on our local roads here, and we've been kind of anxiously awaiting for improvements and widening of Highway 99, and we haven't seen that either.

GOVERNOR: Right.

Q: Can you maybe expand on that, and tell us a little bit where that money is, and when we can expect to see some improvements?

GOVERNOR: Absolutely. First of all, let me just say that it was very important for me that we improve Highway 99. I would not have signed on, on any of this 37 billion dollars infrastructure package if they wouldn't have put that billion dollars into Highway 99. I made that very clear to them, because that is extremely important, especially when you have that many trucks going and delivering, and the agriculture goods that we are producing, and I'm so proud of the Valley and this area here that produces so many great goods, that I love selling all over the world. And that's why I go on trade missions to sell our agriculture goods all over the world. But the way it works is, last November the people have approved the money, and now the legislators are dividing up the money, and they're saying, okay, it has to go to this road and to this road. All of this is going on right now, part of kind of the budget process. So then the next step will be to start building. But right now, they have to go and really decide where the money is allocated to. Okay? So you will see action very quickly. As a matter of fact, we made a deal that we're going to have design-build, so that we can go and cut through all the additional studies, on a lot of those projects, and that we can go and start working on it. And 99 needs immediate attention. We need to fix that highway immediately, because it's very dangerous, and a lot of people lose their lives because it's very dangerous. Okay? Thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you. (Applause)

Any questions out here, from this area here? Yes, please.

Q: Governor, you've addressed the health care issue, plus --

GOVERNOR: Say again?

Q: You've addressed the health care issue plus the education issue.

GOVERNOR: Yes.

Q: But what about the illegal issue?

GOVERNOR: Well, as you know, the question is about the immigration reform. That's what you're talking about. We have right now, as you know, the bill is stalled in Congress, and they tried to solve the problem, which they should have solved a long time ago. And they are arguing still about and fine-tuning some of the last few things. I have yesterday done an interview with a bunch of Latino press people, radio, newspapers, magazines and so on, and I talked about it, the importance that we solve this issue as quickly as possible, because right now the status quo doesn't work. We have so many people here illegally, more people are coming in here illegally. People are driving illegally, people are working illegally. I think there's a much better way to go with that whole system, and that is to recognize that we need workers in this country for farming, for construction, for various different jobs, for high-tech, for instance, in Silicon Valley, they need more workers, they can't get enough here in this country. We should be able to go outside legally, companies should be able to go outside legally and hire workers from outside on a temporary basis. And then after they have done their work, they return again to their country. That ought to happen.

But at the same time, we ought to have securing the borders, which is a very important part, and then to deal with, what do we do with the 12 million people that are here right now illegally, and that are undocumented, and we don't really know a lot of times who those people are. And so we know there are a lot of them are working, and making great contributions, but we really don't know who all of those people are. So all of that has to be sorted out. I think they are very close, and they almost kind of threw the towel in, and they shouldn't, because I think what it needs is an extra week or two to fine-tune those things so that we don't have so many unanswered questions. I still have a lot of questions that are unanswered in this bill. For instance, how do you enforce all of those rules? How do you enforce those laws? Do we have really enough H-1B visas? For me, this is very important, that we get enough talent to California that we have the people working in the Silicon Valley. We have right now a system where we give kids this great education from foreign countries, and then we send them back to the country that they came from. Why would we give them the four-year education and not go and let them work here for four years so we can benefit from the great knowledge, and from that great experience, and work in Silicon Valley, for instance? So there's a lot of things that are still unanswered that need to be answered, but I think it is important that we solve it, and we do it really well, because we don't have—you know, we can't go back to that issue once again in a year or two from now. That issue will be addressed once again maybe in 20 years from now, because the last time we addressed that issue was 20 years ago, and now 20 years later we're addressing it again. So it has to be done in the right way so we know who is coming here, that we have done a background check on every individual, and that people eventually that are here can earn in some way, by doing certain things like paying fines, learning the English language, and those kind of things, earn their way towards citizenship. (Applause)

Yes, please.

Q: Thank you. Governor, first of all I want to thank you for the prisons you'll reform. Secretary Tilton, Tom Sawyer, you guys are terrific, working with the California State Sheriffs, and we're very proud of where you've gone. If you ask the public in this country what the No. 1 issue is, it would be public safety and gangs. I haven't heard you talk about your gang initiative, which I'm very familiar with, and very proud of, but I'd like you to take the opportunity to share with the people their No. 1 issue on how Chief Rector and I are going to combat gangs with the help of the Governor.

GOVERNOR: Well, thank you very much for asking that question. I think it's very important that we recognize that public safety, like the Sheriff said, is the most important thing. And this is why we had to go and reform the prison system and build more prison cells, and go and build more beds, and create and help the counties by building re-entry beds and county jails, and expand them and so on, so we don't let, every year, 200,000 inmates go free, and then they go and commit crimes again. The LA Times has done a study, out of the 150,000 that were released, 6 of them committed murders, 400 or so were caught with violent crimes and with rape and stuff like that. That's not doing a service to the people when you do that. So this is why it was very important to build the prison space. And we will build, within the next 18 months, as quickly as possible, the additional prison space.

But the other issue that you are addressing is gang violence. What has happened up until now was that the police and sheriffs and everyone has worked together and did a great job in really wiping out gang violence. But as soon as—it's like the water balloon effect. You squeeze in one area, and it pops up somewhere else. So that's exactly what happened. So when I got together with the sheriffs and the police chiefs, there in Los Angeles they were proud, and they said, "Well, we wiped out this and we reduced the gang violence, and we did that. Only for the next sheriff in Orange County to say, "Well, thanks a lot. I got them now. You guys did a great job, but now I have them. So I had to work for a whole year very hard, and spend a lot of money to get rid of them." And then Sheriff Kolender in San Diego said, "Well, thanks a lot, you did a great job, now I have them." So this is the way it went. So when you look at that, you say to yourself, "Well, why has no one really done a statewide approach?

So what we did as a state, we got in there, and I as governor, I brought everyone, law enforcement, the mayors and everyone together, and we had many meetings to flesh out the different ideas. And now we have a coordinated approach. Now the cities and the counties and the CHP and everyone works together in order to really do the suppression, intervention, and prevention. And there are some people that were worried about that we are putting too much money into suppression, and intervention, and not enough in prevention, which of course is wrong, because we are putting much more money into prevention. When you just think about the 428, plus the 150 million dollars that we are putting into after school programs—after school programs are designed specifically because law enforcement knows that between 3:00 and 6:00 o'clock, this is the danger zone for children. That is the time when they go and get recruited from gang leaders, or that's when they get involved with drugs, and with alcohol, and with guns, teenage pregnancy, and all of those kinds of things that sometimes ruins their lives. So this is why it is important to offer them a positive alternative, and that's what my Proposition 49 was all about, is to create the after school programs. So we are spending now over 550 million dollars on those after school programs so kids have a positive alternative and go and stay in school and learn, and get homework assistance, and get tutoring, sports programs, and all of those kind of things.

The other thing is the counselors. Like I said, earlier, that the counselors help our kids, send them off in the right direction with career tech education, and so on. We spent over 200 million dollars on that. And then, of course, on career tech education on top of that we spent 235 million dollars, so it's over a billion dollars that we are spending on prevention to really go and give our children a positive alternatives, and to give them hope. Because this is what it's all about, is to teach our kids how to say no to gangs, how to say no to drugs and no to violence, and to say yes to education, yes to sports, yes to hope, and yes to life, basically, because with the amount of killings that we see and the destruction that we see among those gangs is really ridiculous. And so we are working very hard, and so I'm very happy that we now have a coordinated approach where we all work together, and we've put a lot of money into this, and I think that it will be much more successful now the way we deal with the whole thing. So thank you for bringing that up, and thanks for doing such a great job. You guys have been doing a great job here in this area. Thank you very much. Let's give them a big hand. (Applause)

Yes?

Q: Thank you for coming to Delano, and our preschool. I'm Angel Diaz from Delano, thank you for coming to our preschool. I've been at it for 25 years, I'm a business person, out of my pocket, and English is important. In our school—oh, there's Mary Mendoza, our director—they learn English in 6, 7 months. As a matter of fact, we've got a little girl that learned three languages—(IA), English and Spanish, she's only four and a half. And the other one I also want to thank for coming, and your push for preschool. That is key. We've got three prisons in Delano. And second, that with your coming, we had families of (IA) cans of beans in (IA) Tulare, because of the freeze, two or three months. Now we're getting thousands, we've got thousands. So thank you for what you have come and done.

GOVERNOR: Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause)

I think that was very important that we all work together on this, when we had the freeze. But there were actually two things that happened during my administration, and that happened obviously before my administration also. One was the heat. I mean, we all of a sudden saw people dying in the fields, people that are working very hard, and that are struggling to help us create all this great agricultural goods and produce that we're all so proud of. But you know, the heat wiped them out because they did not have rest periods, they did not have shade, they did not have a regular water supply and stuff like that. So they asked me if I would create heat regulations. And of course, we did. We worked together, all of us, and we created the heat regulations, so they have certain rules that they can have water periodically, so they can have shade, and if they feel dizzy, so they can relax and just go on the side and really relax a little bit rather than being punished and not getting paid and all those kinds of things. So there are a lot of things that were straightened out, and we did that. They've tried to do this now for 20 years, and finally we did that.

The other thing was the freeze, just recently, which really wiped out a lot of farmers, and also was a devastating blow to the workers, because as soon as you wipe out farmers, then the workers don't have a job, and it goes on and on and on. Now, of course, a lot of those farmers, or a lot of those workers on the farms, they didn't' have any food, because they rely on the money they make every day, so they didn't' have any food, so we, again, put millions of dollars behind so that we have food programs, and so they can be fed, and that we can take care of them with the respect that we ought to give them, because these are the people that are working so hard in the fields. So it was really the whole thing worked out really well, and I was very happy that I was able to help as quickly as possible in that area.

And the other thing I want to say is, I know that this area is going through some real trouble right now with the water. And this is one area, and one issue, I think it is extremely important for this state. This state has a habit of not dealing with problems when they need to be dealt with. They wait and they wait. This is in general, government all over the United States. This is just the way they operate. It's like they always wait until there's an emergency. I mean, you remember with the levees. I came into office and I said we've got to fix the levees. We have so many broken levees. We have vulnerable levees. Our levees are literally one big storm, or one earthquake away from wiping out. And that will mean that thousands of farmers will be wiped out, hundreds of thousands of people will be wiped out. Why would we wait for that? That will cost us billions and billions of dollars. Let us—hundreds of billions of dollars, as we have seen in New Orleans. Do you know what happened? After New Orleans, after so many people died in New Orleans, and the suffering that they saw on television in New Orleans, that's when all of a sudden we started getting real here, and the people started to wake up, and they said, "We've got to fix our levees, because our levees in California are more vulnerable than the ones in New Orleans. Our levees are more vulnerable. So finally last year we agreed to a 4.1 plus 500 million, 4.1 billion dollar package, to go and immediately start addressing the most vulnerable levees. And right now they are still building levees, and they are rebuilding, and they're fixing the levees. Finally we did it, so that we can strengthen our levees and we don't have to always live in fear.

And the same is with the water project. Do you know that for 20 years—well, actually since the late ‘70s—they have not built a dam? I mean, think about that. They have not built a dam. And since the ‘80s, they have not done any conveyance, built any conveyance that delivers the water. In the meantime, since then, we have gone from a population of 20 million to a population of 37 million. We almost doubled our population since the last time they built conveyance and a dam. Now how can we do that? We need that infrastructure. We need it for the farming, we need—I as governor, it's my responsibility to not just think about my next election. I don't have a next election. I don't' have a next election, so I don't have to think about that. But usually in politics they think about only the two years ahead, or the four years ahead.

No. As governor, you have to think 20, 30 years ahead. I want to make sure that I can honestly stand in front of you and say your farmers will have enough water 20, 30 years from now so that you can continue farming, and to create all this great agricultural stuff. And the great fruits and the vegetables, and the wine, and all of those great things. I want to be able to promise you that. Right now I cannot promise you that, because already today we have problems with the water. You don't have enough water for the farms. There's a reduction in water that you can use. Conservation in Los Angeles and in San Francisco, they're talking about conservation and reducing the amount of water they can use, because we are running low. Because we have not addressed the problem with conveyance, to build more conveyance and to build more water storage.

Now, it is very important, and this is why I always say the people are my partners. You've got to go and help me to put this pressure on the legislature. That's how we get things done. That's what happened last year. Last year with the infrastructure bonds, there was so much pressure mounting, because the people said we are tired, we're sick and angry about the fact that we're getting stuck in traffic all the time, and we want to build more roads. We want to have more roads. And we are sick and tired that our kids are in over cramped classrooms. We want more schools, and more classrooms. And they put so much pressure on the legislators that finally they passed and put it on the ballot. And then the people voted for it. That's what you have to do with water. We need more water. We need more storage. We need to build more storage, and we have to build conveyance, the canal, all of those kinds of things.

Even though it's politically risky again, but it's one of those big, big issues that has been swept under the rug for decades. Just like health care, just like education reform, just like infrastructure, that has been swept under the rug and now we are lifting up that rug and we are pulling out all that stuff, and saying, here's the problem. So I need your help. I need each and every one of yours help to go and let the legislature know, let us create more water. I know the environmentalists don't like to create and talk even about conveyance. They don't' like that. And they don't like to build more water storage. I understand it when you come from their point of view. They were up there in my office. We were all talking yesterday about it. They want to do another five year study. There is no more study. We have studied this subject to death. We have studied this subject to death. (Applause)

It's time for action. That's' what I did on the big screen, create action, and that's what we're going to create right here in California. Every time you see a problem, we create the action.

Okay, with that I want to just say thank you very much to all of you for your participation, for being here today. You have been very kind. We love that you've given up your time, that means that you're interested in your community. So I can promise you, we will be back here many more times. I'll be back. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Source