Assemblyman Scott Wilk gave his Weekly Update from Sacramento about the revisions he wanted to make to Governor Brown’s budget, his AB 806 bill and the chloride issue in Santa Clarita.

Wilk began his interview by discussing some discrepancies he noticed in California Governor, Jerry Brown’s, budget plan. While he agrees with the projected revenue that will be placed towards education, Wilk said that a surplus was created due to a change at the federal tax level.

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Despite Wilk counting 19 public employee unions whose contracts are up at the end of this fiscal year, Brown has zero.

“Brown has budget assumptions that don’t match reality,” Wilk said.

The irony is that those same unions finance his election, making Wilk believe there will be some political backlash during the next election.

Another point of disgust for Wilk is that there were 36 “budget bills” on the floor of the assembly, which all got passed back. He believes that the Democratic Party changes bills at the last minute, and then forces the assembly to vote on them without even reading it.

“That’s not the democratic process,” Wilk added.

Assemblyman Wilk wants everything to be in print for at least three days, so that the assembly can fully understand what they are actually voting for.

He calls the current process “Nancy Pelosi budgeting,” where he is forced to vote for a bill to even know what it’s about.

Wilk also took some time to discuss the AB 806 bill, which aimed to improve student success at the community college level.

It would “enhance the economy by getting people through the system,” he believes.

The bill was heard in the Appropriations Committee where only fiscal impact is supposed to be discussed, not the policy itself. In this case, the bill had no direct cost to the state and therefore should have gone through.

However, the bill did not receive the necessary nine votes to be passed, and Wilk believes this is due to political opposition.

“This wasn’t done on merit, it was done on politics,” he said.

Despite the initial opposition, a request for reconsideration has been granted. Wilk will continue to push this bill as long as he is in office.

“I feel strongly that this needs to get changed,” Wilk said.

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The final subject which Wilk touched upon was the high chloride levels in Santa Clarita. In his opinion, the levels are too high because we import our water from state projects.

Also, the regional quality board has set Santa Clarita’s chloride level at 100, while it is set at 150 in the Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks. He believes that if our level was moved to 150, we would pass all of the chloride tests.

“It is an unfair burden to us,” added Wilk. “There are a lot of unanswered questions.”

For more information about what is going on in Sacramento, tune in to Assemblyman Scott Wilk’s Weekly Updates every Wednesday. 

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