Congressman spends day in MH meeting with constituents
Congressman Richard Pombo visited Morgan Hill Wednesday to bring his constituents up to date and found the first question out of practically every mouth was “what do you think of the recall?”
“I didn’t get involved in the recall before,” he said during a visit to the Morgan Hill Times office, “but I will vote for it.”
Pombo said he was reserving judgment on which Republican candidate he would support.
Pombo, R-Stockton, has represented Morgan Hill – but not San Martin or Gilroy – since the November 2002 elections. Statewide redistricting changed the Central Valley district he had represented for 10 years, including much of the San Joaquin Valley and large parts of Sacramento County, to include Morgan Hill, Danville, San Ramon – and Lodi, far to the north.
The main difference he finds, is the huge area he has to cover. Driving from Morgan Hill to Lodi is a lengthy procedure.
“People are the same everywhere,” he said, “it’s the driving that’s a problem.”
Pombo said that, with his former district he could visit several different cities in a single day. Now, he said, if he comes to Morgan Hill he has to spend most of the day because it is so far from his home base of Tracy and Stockton.
The congressman commented on the economy and the recent business atmosphere.
“The (national) economy is turning around, getting better,” he said. “There has to be a balance between business (interests) and the environment. Regulations have to be implemented in a more user-friendly way. The California economy, however is different.
“What California needs to do (to master its huge budget problems) is to control spending and have an economic growth package.”
Constraints on the business community, he said, helped to create job loss since, he said, many companies are leaving the state for more business-friendly states.
At a late afternoon meeting sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce at the community center resident Mark Grzan confronted Pombo with questions about his environmental record, referring to it as “extraordinarily anti-environmental.” Earlier this year Pombo was appointed chair of the House Resource Committee, which oversees the nation’s natural resources.
The congressman explained.
“I’m not anti-environmental; I’m pragmatic,” he said. On drilling in the Arctic wilderness – ANWAR – he said the area is 92 million acres large and he voted to explore drilling for natural gas on only 2,000 acres.
“It’s false to say that you have to have either economic growth or a healthy environment,” Pombo said. “You can have both. It’s the balance.”
Craig Breon, executive director of the Santa Clara County Audubon Society, asked if it was worth his time to work with Pombo’s office on land acquisition in the area. Pombo encouraged him to do so but explained his own opinion of land acquisition – to protect environmentally sensitive areas.
“I won’t change the way I deal with things,” he said, “but you may realize that I don’t have horns.”
Pombo said he was not a fan of land acquisition but of maintaining private property.
“There are areas that should be protected,” he said. “The federal government owns one-third of the land in the nation, he said. “It’s not all necessary to be in the public trust. We ought to sell some land that is not environmentally sensitive and buy some that is.”
As a peace offering, Breon presented Pombo with the official Audubon Society coffee mug, which he accepted.
Even though the congressman has taken a leave of absence from his House Transportation Committee to serve on Resources, he said he is still out there trying to help solve the area’s transportation problems.
“BART will get some money,” he said. “Mike Honda and I have been after them to give even a few hundred thousand dollars so the project can stay on track.”
Perchlorate, ever-present in South Valley discussions, was raised when Grzan asked when standards would be determined on allowable levels in drinking water. Pombo said he had pushed along standards from the EPA and expected a (Maximum Contaminant) level to be set by the end of the year.
The congressman said that Rancho Cordova – site of an enormous perchlorate problem, most likely caused by Aerojet, and one of the earliest detected in California – was in his former district.
During the day Pombo also met with local lenders, including banks and credit unions, to offer information on how they could benefit from the USDA Rural Developments Community Facilities and Business and Industry Loan Guarantee Programs.
Pombo’s website is www.house.gov/pombo/
