Wilson Signs Firefighting Bill After a Few Scorching Words for Democrats

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Pete Wilson, with a swipe at lawmakers who held up the bill for more than five weeks, signed a $71-million measure Friday to let the state firefighting agency pay its bills.

The measure had been held up for weeks in a legislative squabble over whether to give state workers a 3% raise.

“I have to point out that this issue could have been resolved long ago had the Democratic majority in the Legislature not insisted on holding the bill hostage in pursuit of totally unrelated amendments that were designed to please their union constituency,” the Republican governor said in a statement.

“Democrats voted for the bill several times,” replied Sandy Harrison, press secretary for Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). “Republicans held it up by sitting on their hands. Apparently, they’d rather let the state burn down than treat working people fairly.”

The Assembly gave final approval Thursday to the deficiency bill for 1996 fires and ended the delay that caused the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to cease paying its suppliers two weeks ago.

The bill routinely passed the Assembly for the first time in March, but Senate Democrats amended the bill to add the pay raise. Republicans refused to vote for the bill with the raise and Democrats would not approve it without one.

The Senate last week ended the deadlock by approving the raise in a separate bill, which is pending in the Assembly.

The department says its firefighting bill for 1996-97 is $117 million. The federal government is paying $18 million and the department’s budget passed last summer contained $30 million.

There were 7,931 fires in 1996, up nearly 13% from 1995 and 9% higher than the five-year average. The fires burned 232,541 acres, nearly 87% more than in 1995.