Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came to Fresno's Tower Theatre on Thursday to pitch his vision for California's next budget. What he got instead was an earful about the state's water woes.
During a question-and-answer period following an 18-minute budget stump speech, several in the audience pointedly criticized the governor for not paying more attention to a water shortage that has particularly hurt farmers on the Valley's west side.
It was an issue many in the audience considered more immediate than the state's looming $24.3 billion deficit and the deep spending cuts being proposed to close it.
"If you allow water to flow, you allow dams and canals to be built, you will raise revenue and you won't need to make cuts," said 55-year-old crane operator Tom Salmon of Oakhurst.
The governor responded, saying, "I think it's very important that everyone knows that I have been fighting for water for the last four years straight." But Salmon pressed the issue, protesting that not enough has been done.
As the atmosphere turned tense and Salmon wouldn't let up, Schwarzenegger called Orange Cove Mayor Victor Lopez to the podium. In a short but heated response to critics, Lopez called Schwarzenegger the best governor in the nation's history; a friend of the farmworker, the farmer and the businessman; and someone who can help solve the state's water issues.
"We're going to get that water," said Lopez, whose east-side Valley city is a high-priority water customer a world apart from the struggling cities on the west side, where agriculture depends on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for its water supply.
Water quickly stole the spotlight from the governor's budget message.
Actor and comedian Paul Rodriguez, who also is a member of the California Latino Water Coalition, implored Schwarzenegger to ask the federal government to convene a panel informally known as the "God Squad" to create environmental exemptions that roll back delta water delivery reductions.
The panel -- added to the Endangered Species Act in 1978 -- employs seven Cabinet officials who could find that the economic hardship from reduced water flows is more important than protecting a threatened species. Schwarzenegger has said he's not yet ready to take that route.
Rodriguez then broke the tense atmosphere among the 200 people present with a quip that drew laughter across the theater: "Please don't make us look like Bakersfield." That followed an earlier comment in which Rodriguez said the central San Joaquin Valley was "not as green" as it used to be.
It was apparent even before Schwarzenegger's speech started that attendees had more on their minds than closing the state's massive budget deficit -- the primary reason for the governor's visit.
Mixed in among sign-carrying protesters outside the Tower Theatre opposing Schwarzenegger's proposed budget cuts or those reminding him to oppose any tax increase was a vocal group highlighting the water crisis.
Carrying signs that read "save people, not fish," several protesters chanted "turn on the pumps."
Protester Steve Wayte, a Fresno business owner, said Democrats in power at the state and federal levels were the driving forces behind building the state's water infrastructure, and now "they won't let us use it."
Wayte, who was outside the Tower Theatre, and many others inside are part of a large group of central San Joaquin Valley residents frustrated about a federal court ruling that led to a key delta smelt management plan being rewritten by the federal government.
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