I’m a small business owner. I live with real budget accountability every day. Sacramento doesn’t.
There is a job title on the payroll of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s $114 million pedestrian bridge project — the so-called “Butterfly Bridge,” or “wildlife bridge to nowhere” — that I cannot get out of my head: fungi habitat designer.
I have owned a small business in California for 10 years. Every month I make payroll, pay rent, negotiate with vendors, and file taxes. I know what it means to justify every dollar.
So when I learned that the state hired someone to cultivate fungus — on a bridge, over the 101 freeway — while California is staring down a $2.9 billion budget deficit, I did not laugh. I filed a petition.
This is the Butterfly Bridge in Agoura Hills. Initially sold to Californians as a project that would be funded by private donors with some state funding, taxpayers have once again been baited-and-switched into funding the majority of the project. Worse, the $54 million costhas ballooned to $114 million— more than double — and it is still not finished.
When project leaders were asked to explain the runaway costs, they blamed tariffs and inflation.
A fungi habitat designer. Indigenous seed scouts. A soil scientist paid to make dirt feel more natural.
All on the bet that some wildlife may figure out how to use a 165-foot-wide bridge to cross over 2.7 million feet of Los Angeles freeway.
Seventy-seven million dollars in state funds have already been released. For a dirt path over a highway. In a state that cannot finish a high-speed rail project after burning through almost $20 billion; cannot reduce homelessness despite pouring money into it year after year; and still cannot account for billions lost to unemployment fraud during COVID (the state just raised taxes on me and other small business owners to pay for its carelessness).
The Butterfly Bridge is not a quirky line item. It is a pattern. It is what happens when no one is watching the money — and no one is held responsible when it disappears.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
