Supervisor To Detail Reasons For Creating New State

Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone today will detail his reasons for wanting the county and a dozen neighboring counties to break away and form the new state of South California.

Stone filed a five-page memorandum on the Board of Supervisors’ agenda for consideration, enumerating what actions he says should be taken to create America’s 51st state.

The supervisor prefaced his de-annexation “action plan” with a description of things that have, in his opinion, been going wrong in California and pushing the state closer to financial ruin.

Stone cited a survey showing that California is ranked dead last in business-friendliness nationally, and he named a number of companies that he said have moved operations outside the state to escape high taxation and regulation, including Fluor Corp., Intuit, Nissan North America and USAA Insurance.

“As a result of these thousands of jobs leaving our state, those citizens waiting for this economic cycle to turn are in for a very big disappointment,” the supervisor wrote. “It has been estimated that many businesses can relocate to Texas and expect to save 20 to 40 percent! What will remain here is a `welfare state.”‘

Stone, a pharmacist who owns several businesses, said “duplicative” state and federal environmental regulations and high personal and corporate income taxes drive away entrepreneurs.

He maintains that the state’s unfunded public pension liabilities — which a Stanford University study last year estimated as high as $500 billion — are unsustainable and will only worsen as lawmakers and the governor cater to union interests.

Read: Proposal To Secede From California, Establish New State

According to Stone, state taxpayers are footing the bill for medical and welfare services for illegal immigrants and subsidizing their college tuition while legal residents pay their own way.

The supervisor described California as “too big to govern,” a laggard in K-12 education, with one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients and only 12 percent of its population. He decried the state’s raids on funds designated for infrastructure improvements and local programs — without resolving multi- year budget shortfalls.

“It is time to take corrective and decisive action,” he said.

Under the supervisor’s proposal, Riverside, Fresno, Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Kings, Madera, Mariposa, Mono, Orange, San Bernardino, San Diego and Tulare counties would form a new state.

Stone envisions a part-time legislature, with lawmakers meeting for three months every two years — like Texas — and earning $600 per month instead of $400 per day. He said South California’s constitution should include a balanced budget provision and property tax protections, akin to those guaranteed under Proposition 13.

There would be no subsidies for illegal immigrants, no legislative term limits, and an emphasis on automating many government functions.

Reactions to the proposals have been mixed.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s press secretary, Gil Duran, told City News Service that Stone was engaging in a “monumental waste of taxpayer dollars. …It’s clearly a joke.”

But Assemblyman Brian Nestande, R-Palm Desert, found merit in some of Stone’s ideas. “We’ve got a state now that is literally unmanageable,” he said.

Stone is seeking the board’s approval for the Executive Office to call a conference at the Riverside Convention Center and invite representatives from all of the counties and cities proposed in the new state to debate the issue and its ramifications.