Acting out

California's Williamson Act, which was designed to protect farmland from development, is under threat in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state budget plan, according to the S.F. Chronicle and The Ethicurean and The Sacramento Bee and Grist and a local Assemblywoman and the Tulare Chamber of Commerce.

Environmentalists are closely watching the budget-cutting proposal from the pro-growth "green" governor, who simultaneously wants to curb global-warming emissions while spending billions on new or refurbishing freeways. He's so complicated!

The Williamson Act, says the Ethicurean, "helps preserve farms and ranches by allowing those who enroll in the program to have their land taxed at a rate based on actual use, not potential use. The state then compensates cities and counties for the revenue loss." But the governor's budget would shift the $40 million cost to cities and counties, which would increase the temptation on farmers to "to shut down operations and sell to the highest bidder, namely developers."

"It was a bad idea then and an even worse idea today," Assemblywoman Lois Wolk wrote to Schwarzenegger recently, referring to a similar proposal by Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. "We urge you to reconsider this ill-advised proposal that will only harm our rural economies while providing negligible benefit to the state budget."

The governor's agriculture secretary, A.G. Kawamura, says the Schwarzenegger administration doesn't want to end the Act, but rather shift responsibility: "These local budgets have seen tremendous growth in property tax revenues in the past decade and are in a better position than the state to continue with this responsibility."

(Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)