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News & Features
From the Idyllwild Town Crier weekly newspaper, 03.18.10 edition.
  Democrats aim for SD 37
By Marshall Smith, Staff
Reporter
Editors note:
Three Democrats,
three Republicans and one American Independent are running for
California Senate District 37 in the April 13 primary. We have profiled
the three Republicans. This week, we look at two Democrats, Justin
Blake and Anna Nevenic.
Justin Blake, currently a member of the Palm Springs Unified School
District’s Board of Directors, sounds some themes with which
Republicans could be comfortable. For example, Blake favors, “Returning
control of our children’s education to local teachers and
administrators.”
In position papers, Blake states, “With increasing state involvement
with our public school system, this is what we have come to: last year,
our public schools suffered massive cuts while the state’s prisons got
a 2-percent raise. It costs far less to keep a boy in school than to
keep a man in prison.”
Blake rails against Sacramento raiding proposition set-asides, as in
1988’s Proposition 98 which established minimum funding levels for K-12
and community colleges from which the state continues to “borrow.” The
state owes public schools $37 million for 2006-07. Blake slams state
legislators for suspending Proposition 98 allocations in 2004-05.
“It is very clear to me that if we want to improve and grow our
economy, California needs a well-educated, critically thinking, and
problem solving workforce,” Blake said. “It makes no sense to me to cut
education when we desperately need to nurture and support the students
in our schools today who will be the backbone of our economy in just a
few short years.’
Blake also supports fast tracking green initiatives to make Riverside
County a net exporter of green energy. “Finance it through an [oil]
extraction tax dedicated to green technology development,” he said,
noting that California is one of few states that does not charge oil
companies an extraction tax. He also believes in working the tax
structure to make it more attractive to new businesses coming into the
state. “Give small and developing businesses lower taxes and tax
incentives to come into the state,” he said, “and favor small
businesses. Café Aroma and Wal-Mart should not be treated the
same.”
He would favor selective tax cuts and advocates collecting taxes that
are illegally avoided. Blake also could support a California
Constitutional Convention, given that the system is so broken and
abused that a new start is merited. He would throw out term limits
since they stand in the way of legislators gaining job expertise. “Let
the ballot box be the determiner,” he said. He would end district
gerrymandering for party political advantage. He would also jettison
the three strikes law. “Drug laws are archaic and dishonest in
application and intent,” he said. “Sentencing laws should be revisited
for fairness. Rich boys don’t go to prison. If three strikes remains
law, it ensures that in 20 years, California’s prisons will be the
largest chain of retirement homes in the country.”
Finally, Blake said he recognizes that layers of government regulation
designed to protect the consumer often “break the back of small
businesses” and need to be sifted through and revised for redundancies
and overlaps. Blake would do away with the two-thirds vote requirement
for passing budgets and raising taxes. California is one of three
states requiring two-thirds to pass budgets and to raise taxes and the
only one requiring two-thirds to pass both. Blake has the endorsement
of the state Democratic Party.
Democrat, registered nurse, author and activist Anna Nevenic stands
solidly for public financing of political campaigning. She finds the
influence of lobbyists too pervasive and believes public financing
would do much to curtail their influence. “Open the media to give time
to all candidates,” she said. “The air waves are [supposed to be] free.
Open the system. It is the key.”
Nevenic also advocates raising taxes on commodities that lead to trips
to the emergency room and chronic conditions that have become costly to
treat. “Raise taxes on alcohol, soft drinks, fatty foods, tobacco,
products that target the young and lead to health issues, not huge
increases, small increases on millions of bottles of soft drinks,” she
said. “You have control not to buy and the money generated would go a
long way to funding health care and education. Nurses are very
persuasive by nature. Attack these problems in the right way and jobs
can be created. A healthy workforce can contribute to job growth. All
that money that we will save from health expenses opens employer
pocketbooks. They’ll be able to spend more in hiring.”
Nevenic is founder of the United Children’s Network committed to
assisting youth in junior high school to lead productive and balanced
lifestyles by creating peer programs on consequences of drinking, drug
use and other risky behaviors. She is a published author of “Hidden
Agenda,” discussing the battle between religious fundamentalism and
feminism, and “Parenting Made Easy,” a guide to raising healthy
children.
Marshall Smith
can be reached at marshall@towncrier.com.
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