Senate president pro tempore Don Perata, D-Oakland, said that he is shelving his efforts to place a water bond measure on the ballot this year.
The size of California’s projected fiscal 2009 budget deficit — up to $14 billion — makes it a bad time to ask voters for billions in bond authorization, Perata told reporters when the Legislature convened this week.
Perata had been planning a signature-gathering campaign for a $6.8 billion water bond measure after lawmakers failed to come to terms on a compromise water bond measure during 2007. The main disagreement was that Republicans wanted the measure to include dams and Democrats didn’t.
