Volunteer Campaign Adds Locations to Pickup and Drop Off Petitions

November 13, 2021

Do you want to circulate petitions for the Water Infrastructure Funding Act, or just want to sign one yourself?

Find them here, on our new website page “PETITION LOCATIONS.”

Do you want to make petitions available at your business for registered voters to sign, and collect them once they are signed for the campaign to pick up?

The grassroots effort to qualify our water initiative for the November 2022 ballot is underway. This is an effort that unites everyone that wants to live with water abundance instead of water rationing. It unites everyone who wants to ensure that California has a water system that is resilient to prolonged droughts and extreme weather. If the American Southwest is destined to have fewer storms, and smaller snowpacks, then we need a diverse, robust and expanded infrastructure to capture, produce, store, treat, and supply water.

Everyone working on this campaign so far is a volunteer. Every business owner putting petitions in their lobby is a volunteer. Every person circulating petitions is a volunteer. And every one of us on the campaign steering committee are volunteers. We are doing this for just one reason: California needs more water.

Expect this grassroots effort to reach from the farms of the San Joaquin Valley, where the funds from this initiative will repair the aqueducts and recharge the aquifers, to the classrooms of Los Angeles Unified School District, where the funds from this initiative will replace the toxic pipes that currently deny students and staff safe drinking water.

Support from Californians everywhere is going to defray millions in costs to qualify this initiative. Thousands of activists, collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures and making small donations to this campaign, are going to reduce the costs to qualify this initiative by millions of dollars. But they, we, will serve another purpose. They will send a message to big donors who are still watching from the sidelines: Californians want more water now. Californians need more water now.

This initiative was crafted with input from experts all over the state. The only opposition to the final language in this initiative is coming either from extreme environmentalists who oppose the very idea of abundant water, or from special interests that profit from water scarcity. Responsible Californians who put the interest of normal working families first are overwhelmingly in favor of this initiative. The question more frequently asked is “can this win?”

To answer that question we now have a recent voter survey conducted by one of the most reputable polling firms in the state. The findings were unequivocal. The survey found that 73 percent of Californians support this initiative. Even after hearing opposition arguments, this initiative wins in every case we evaluated.

Which brings us to the crucial question. Is there a critical mass of big donors willing to step up to fund paid signature gathering and direct mail efforts to complement volunteer signature gathering? With only six months to work with, taking into account the time it takes to get up to speed and taking into account the time required to do a final sort and turn signed petitions in to the county registrars before the April 29 deadline, this campaign has to collect nearly 10,000 signature every day. That’s not easy.

So where are the billionaires and the multi-millionaires who have stepped up so many times to get an initiative on the California ballot in past elections? Where are the business interests that have done likewise? Where is the recognition that the initiative process is more expensive than its ever been, but the rewards in this case make the result worth the cost?

If this initiative passes, California has a chance to ensure its citizens have safe, affordable, reliable, abundant water for generations to come. For the next 10-20 years, it will create tens of thousands of good jobs in construction, to build assets that will ensure not only water, but affordable food, because food is water. For example, the cheese we eat is water, with only the alfalfa and the cow in between. Ditto for poultry and pork, and, of course, every fruit and vegetable on earth.

To the volunteers who want more water, know this: Your signature counts. Your donations count. But more than that, what counts is your presence, your passion, and the message you send with your commitment. Big donors: Can you hear us? Because we can’t do this without you. Will you make this happen?