Dear Friends of Solano Land Trust,
Before you mail your ballot, I’m asking you to take one more minute and vote No on Prop 45. It’s the very last statewide measure on the ballot, so it’s easy to miss.
Many of you joined us this summer when a state budget trailer bill tried to exempt the proposed Collinsville shipyard from standard environmental review. Your letters, calls, and testimony mattered. On August 25th, the Solano County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to oppose the bill, and it stalled when our local legislators declined to carry it. That outcome happened because people in Solano County had the information and the opportunity to weigh in.
Prop 45 would weaken that opportunity statewide. It would roll back the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the law that requires large projects to study their impacts, disclose them to the public, and account for their true costs. For Solano County, that matters most for generational land use decisions like the proposed Suisun Expansion. Decisions that will shape our farmland, open space, water, and communities for the next hundred years should be made with full data, full transparency, and full community input.
Prop 45 would also make it easier to fast-track data centers and other large developments with less public review, and it would leave California more exposed as federal environmental protections are rolled back. When projects aren’t required to cover their full costs, the public often pays later. California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that Prop 45 would cost state and local governments in the high tens of millions of dollars a year to implement, potentially more than $100 million annually.
Nothing in Prop 45 requires lower housing prices, lower utility bills, or lower costs for consumers. What it does is reduce your voice in the decisions that affect your air, water, and land.
To learn more, visit the Get the Facts page on the No on Prop 45 website.
You have helped protect Solano County’s landscapes for 40 years. Please join me and more than 500 California leaders and organizations in voting no on Prop 45.
With gratitude,
Nicole Braddock
CEO, Solano Land Trust
