By Katy Grimes
In September 2020, while California was still suffering under Governor Gavin Newsom’s oppressive COVID restrictions of lockdowns of business and school closures, the Joint Legislative Committee on Rules held a hearing on the plans for the $543.2 million renovation of the State Capitol while ignoring actual state business urgencies. Notably, the project has ballooned to $1.5 billion – that we know of.
The entire state budget is about $321.1 billion in total state spending.
Then-Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R-Granite Bay) told the Globe, “The issues we should be holding hearings on aren’t happening. But the Legislature can spruce up its own digs.”
The State Capitol Annex Project entails a great deal, and it should for $1.5 Billion. According to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the project demolished and is reconstructing the existing 325,000 square foot existing Capitol Annex building with a new approximately 525,000 square foot building. A new underground visitors/welcome center will be located between 10th Street and the west steps of the Capitol. Existing basement parking under the Annex will be abandoned and replaced with new underground parking (approx. 200 spaces) on the south side of the Capitol.
In a 2022 Globe interview, according to Paula Peper, a now-retired Urban Ecologist for the U.S. Forest Service, and then-appointed member of the Historic State Capitol Commission, the underground parking for the new annex sacrificed 150 to 180 trees surrounding the Capitol, including two huge Southern Magnolia trees with circumferences of 61″ and 31″ each. Peper said trees of that size and maturity cannot be transplanted. And the cost to even try is at $100,000 each.
“People from the Capitol who came to our public meetings were all under non-disclosure agreements.” She said as the process kept going, the commission was statutorily unable to talk to the public about the destruction the Capitol Annex project would cause the grounds.
Ah, the non-disclosure agreements. There are 2,093 people who signed the Capitol Annex non-disclosure agreements, Ashley Zavala with KCRA reported a few years ago.
But the investigations by most media outlets into the Capitol Annex project costs and NDAs have gone nowhere. California Public Records requests have gone nowhere – most were denied for “security” reasons.
The real story is that the governor and elected Democrats responsible for the project don’t want the public to know about their squandering taxpayer funds on a vanity project. Lawmakers just wanted fancier digs, with no concern about the taxpayers who are footing the bill.
Tuesday, Zavala asked Gov. Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta about the Capitol construction project at a news conference. “Both Bonta and Newsom mentioned or criticized Trump’s White House ballroom construction in their remarks,” Zavala reported.
“Trump has made clear he’s more focused on tearing down a historic building to build himself a gold laden ballroom for lavish parties and ensuring American families can put dinner on the table,” Bonta said.
So naturally, Zavala asked about the excessive cost and secrecy of California’s Capitol Annex renovation.
Trump Ballroom Syndrome
Newsom and Bonta have been pontificating their outrage over President Donald Trump’s privately funded White House ballroom construction, but they have been notably silent about California’s Capitol Annex construction, while lawmakers have kept the cost hidden from the public.
Gov. Newsom was characteristically condescending to Zavala:
“For you to conflate or compare or contrast, with all due respect, that I would separate from the ballroom and the desecration and the process that evolved, and the fact that he secured $300 million under curious circumstances from the annex and what the Legislature is trying to do,” Newsom said.
“I’m not trying to defend those actions,” Newsom said, about the annex.
“I didn’t know they were not talking to you, that members of the Legislature were not talking to you,” Newsom said.
As Ashley Zavala reported, “The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment in KCRA 3’s story earlier this month with similar questions asked in Tuesday’s press conference.”
She posted to X: “Spokespeople for the following CALeg leaders have ignored my request for comment on this: California Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, Joint Rules Chair Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, Senate Chief Admin Officer Erika Contreras, and Assembly’s CAO Lia Lopez.”
It’s Governor Newsom’s project. He can’t run from it. He’s the governor. He approved it. It’s way over budget. And it is massive, begun under the cover of his Covid lockdowns.
Why wouldn’t any member of the media question Newsom comparing the two projects? Trump’s ballroom versus Newsom’s office building. Newsom’s is publicly funded, and therefore deserves greater scrutiny.
The Joint Rules Committee led by then-Assemblyman Ken Cooley ignored the Environmental Impact Report, and bypassed California’s Environmental Quality Act in the process. The project began under Governor Newsom, during the Covid lockdowns, so he can’t feign ignorance of the Capitol construction project.
What a maroon.
Ironically, Peper told the Globe “you can sign up for the newsletter on the Capitol Annex website, but there aren’t any newsletters.”
The Globe signed up long ago to the Capitol Annex newsletter subscription, but to date, has not received any.
