The No on Prop 90 campaign is just getting going, and a Coalition List is now available on their nascent web site.  The Coalition includes some big names such as the California League of Cities, the Police and Fire Chiefs Associations, the Sierra Club and Environmental Defense.

Prop 90 would restrict city and state governments from efficiently acting to protect the character of their cities, to require green development, or to limit development.  Environmental restrictions would become prohibatively expensive for either the state or municipalites.  Our days of environmental leadership would be in jeopardy.  Or, as the League of Cities puts it:

As a result, Prop. 90 would lead to thousands of expensive lawsuits that would tie up our courts and result in added bureaucracy and red tape. The cost of these lawsuits and payouts would rob local communities of billions of dollars in limited resources that fund fire and police protection, paramedic response, schools, traffic congestion relief and other vital services. That’s why the CALIFORNIA FIRE CHIEFS ASSOCIATION, CALIFORNIA POLICE CHIEFS ASSOCIATION, and CALIFORNIA SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION oppose Prop. 90.

PROP. 90 would trap taxpayers in a LOSE-LOSE situation. If communities act to protect their quality of life, taxpayers could be forced to make huge payouts. Or, if communities couldn’t afford the payouts, basic quality-of-life protections simply couldn’t be enacted. That’s why conservation groups, including the CALIFORNIA LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS and the PLANNING AND CONSERVATION LEAGUE, warn the measure would drastically limit our ability to protect California’s coastline, open spaces, farmland, air and water quality. (League of Citie)

This iniative would be an enormously expensive proposition for the taxpayers of California that would end up primarily benefiting large developers.  It is a bad idea for the state of California.