Democrat OC Assemblyman Jose Solorio has introduced legislation that would give OC cities more of their fair share of Proposition 42 transportation funds.
The twist is that the money would come from the county’s share, not from other parts of the state.
It is well known that Orange County is major ‘donor county’. But not many people know that Orange County’s cities are not getting back their fair share of monies for street and roadway improvements from the county.
Solorio’s AB 823 simply urges the County of Orange to allocate more funds to the cities for roadway improvements. Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim collectively have $700 million in backlogs for arterial and residential street improvements. At the same time, the County of Orange has over $100 million in road fund reserves.
The county ought to be commended for banking these funds for a rainy day. But they also need to share the love. Here’s why: State formulas assume that the county maintains 25% of roadways while cities maintained the other 75% in the county.
FACT: The County of Orange actually only maintains 7.4% of county streets.
So the county has been banking this over allocation for years. It’s time that they share the wealth and let local cities have a bigger piece of the pie.