STATE INFRASTRUCTURE GETS C-MINUS AS ENGINEERS ISSUE REPORT CARD.Byline: HARRISON SHEPPARD Sacramento Bureau SACRAMENTO -- California's infrastructure is in such bad shape that the $42 billion bond package on the November ballot would make only a dent in the problem, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a new report issued Wednesday by an engineers group. The American Society of Civil Engineers “ASCE” redirects here. For the Nigerian stock exchange, see Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a professional body founded in 1852 to represent members of the civil engineering profession worldwide. gave the state's overall infrastructure a grade of C-minus and said it would take an additional $37 billion annually for at least a decade to get it up to an acceptable B grade. ``These bond measures are not a panacea Some antidote or remedy that completely solves a problem. Most so-called panaceas in this industry, if they survive at all, wind up sitting alongside and working with the products they were supposed to replace. ,'' said Yazdan Emrani, who co-chairs the committee that produced the report. ``This is a start of a road that, hopefully, all of us will be willing to take together in investing funds in our infrastructure on a continuous annual basis, not a one-time deal.'' The C-minus grade came in the American Society of Civil Engineers' first California California (kăl'ĭfôr`nyə), most populous state in the United States, located in the Far West; bordered by Oregon (N), Nevada and, across the Colorado River, Arizona (E), Mexico (S), and the Pacific Ocean (W). Infrastructure Report Card, based on similar reports by the society at the national level. The last national report card gave the U.S. infrastructure a D grade. The state report came out on the same day as results of a poll by the Public Policy Institute of California Public Policy Institute of California is an independent, nonpartisan, non-profit research institution. Based in San Francisco, California, United States, the institute was established in 1994 with a $70 million endowment from William Reddington Hewlett. , which found that voters favor most of the Nov. 7 bond proposals. The poll found that the bond measures dealing with the infrastructure were leading by margins of 10 points or more among likely voters who had made up their minds, with the highest lead -- 57 percent in favor, 30 percent opposed -- going to the housing bond proposal. The report card broke the state's infrastructure into nine individual subjects, with levees and other flood-control projects getting the worst grade: F. There was a D-plus in the parks/open space category. The same grade came in each of two other categories: transportation and controls on urban runoff Runoff The procedure of printing the end-of-day prices for every stock on an exchange onto ticker tape. Notes: If the "tape is late" then it can take a long time to print off all the closing prices. . The highest grade, a B, was in solid waste, judged acceptable because of gains in recycling recycling, the process of recovering and reusing waste products—from household use, manufacturing, agriculture, and business—and thereby reducing their burden on the environment. and advanced planning to extend landfill capacity. In transportation, the engineers recommended support for county sales tax sales tax, levy on the sale of goods or services, generally calculated as a percentage of the selling price, and sometimes called a purchase tax. It is usually collected in the form of an extra charge by the retailer, who remits the tax to the government. measures for local projects; efforts to streamline government approval of projects; and efforts to secure more money from the federal government. The engineers estimated that $17.9 billion a year for 10 years would be needed to bring the state's transportation system up to a B grade. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger (German pronunciation (IPA): [ˈaɐ̯nɔlt ˈaloɪ̯s ˈʃvaɐ̯ʦənˌʔɛɡɐ] and state lawmakers have made infrastructure a priority this year, agreeing on a bond package of four measures on the November ballot to raise $37 billion. An independent group added a fifth bond measure for water projects, bringing the combined total to $42 billion. Paul Hefner, a spokesman for the campaign committee promoting the bond package from legislators and the governor, said officials have always recognized that the bonds alone won't solve the problem, but he noted that the funds would be leveraged to produce a greater overall investment. For every dollar the state provides through bonds, a local agency -- such as a city or county government or a school district -- and the federal government might provide twice as much in matching funds Noun 1. matching funds - funds that will be supplied in an amount matching the funds available from other sources cash in hand, finances, funds, monetary resource, pecuniary resource - assets in the form of money for a project, Hefner said. ``Our plan for $37 billion will (spend) some multiple more than that -- two or three or five times that -- to give us good schools, good roads and other things we need for a sound economy,'' Hefner said. harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com (916) 446-6723 CAPTION(S): box Box: California's Infrastructure Report Source: American Society of Civil Engineers Daily News |
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