Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

Okay, Diane, you ready? Okay. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing. I would like to remind the public that for this and future hearings, testimony will be in person only as we are no longer using a moderator to telephone service. We also accept testimony through a position letter portal on the committee's website. I would also like to go over the ground rules for appropriate conduct. The Assembly has experienced a number of disruptions to committee and floor proceedings in the last years.

Conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes orderly conduct of the hearing is prohibited. Such conduct may include talking or making loud noises from the audience, uttering loud or threatening or abusive language, speaking longer than the time allotted, extended discussion of matters not related to the subject of the hearing or bill or any other disruptive acts. To address a disruptive conduct, I will take the following steps.

If an individual disrupts our hearing process, I will direct them to stop and warn them that continued disruptions may result in removal from the capitol building. I will also document on the record the individual involved in the nature of the disruptive conduct. I may temporarily recess the hearing, and if the conduct does not stop, I will request the assistance of sergeants in escorting the individual out of the capitol building. I would like to welcome our Vice Chair to her first meeting of this committee.

It's a pleasure to have Assemblymember Dixon. Wave to the crowd. She follows directions well. We have 10 items on the agenda this afternoon. One of these items is proposed for consent. That would be item number one, AB 453 by Assemblymember Cervantes. We will hear all other bills in order, shown on our agenda. Unless otherwise noted. We will take up to two primary witnesses in support and up to two primary witnesses in opposition.

These witnesses will have three minutes each to provide their testimony. All subsequent witnesses should state their name, their organization, and their position on the bill only. So we don't have a quorum, right? Okay. We do not have a quorum yet, so we will operate as a subcommittee until we're able to establish a quorum. All right. The first item on our agenda. Let me see. I don't see Mr. Patterson here. Let me see who's here. We have Assemblymember Ting.

We'll start with Assemblymember Ting, file number three, AB 480. Welcome, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, let me just thank you and the committee for their amendments. We're happy to accept the committee amendments for AB 480. 480 deals with the Surplus Land Act. As you know, it's been a tool for many years to try to get more affordable housing by utilizing surplus lands of our public agencies to give affordable housing the first right of refusal, the first priority. AB 480 is a reintroduction to my bill last year, AB 2357.

It strengthens loopholes in the Surplus Lands Act around closing enforcement loopholes for lands that are leased and lands that are sold for less than market value. We also create a ministerial process for local governments to dispose of certain types of exempt surplus lands. And just for example, to give you an example of some of those lands, they are lands that are easily verified by looking at the parcel map, a project where at least 80% of the parcel is used for housing or land where residential use is prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration. Those are just some of the examples of the ministerial process that we have for the Surplus Lands Act.

Lastly, to increase public access to information on available land for development, the bill standardizes public notices of availability and requires all links be made available to local government's original listing. Again, we feel that with so much surplus land from all of our public agencies, this is a real tool that is underutilized and can be further utilized to provide more affordable housing in California. With that, we have two witnesses.

Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members. Brian Augusta on behalf of the Public Interest Law Project, one of several co-sponsors of the measure, and on behalf of those co-sponsors, I want to thank Mr. Ting for his continued leadership on this important issue, as well as the chair and her staff for continuing to work with us. As the Assemblymember just mentioned, this is a critical tool for addressing our affordable housing crisis.

When we look at what are our options, and there are many to try to address that crisis, one of the first places we can look is land that is owned by the local government that is no longer needed for that local government's purpose. And we can use that land, put it to work to solve our affordable housing crisis. And as the analysis notes, in the short time that we have further strengthened the law, again on Mr. Ting's leadership, we have produced 1800 units using this process.

So as we deploy it and as our organizations see how it's working in the field, we're spotting some loopholes. And this bill helps to close those. It helps make sure the public process is transparent. It helps create an easier process for what is essentially exempt land that no longer would need a public hearing to dispose of it.

And it creates additional clarity about what it means to declare land surplus and the many ways in which doing so could result in that land being disposed of outside of the SLA. And so we want to make sure that those enforcement provisions cover every potential disposition. So again, very thankful for your staff's assistance in helping to craft additional language that's identified in the analysis. And for those reasons, we would ask for an aye vote.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, I'll be brief. Abram Diaz with the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California, representing affordable housing builders across Northern California and the state as well. Affordable housing builders and community groups have long championed the use of public land for public good, and the Surplus Land Act is our key tool to advance that mission. And we really appreciate the good work of our author, his staff, and the committee in working with us on this measure. This Bill is an important step towards helping us house low-income Californians, and we urge your support for the bill.

Thank you very much. Is there any other in the audience for support of this bill?

Brian Sapp for United Way Greater LA, in support. Thank you.

Mark Stivers of the California Housing Partnership, in support.

Seeing no others, is there anyone in opposition to this bill? Oh, payday, Mr. Ting. Okay. Thank you very much.

We told him it's in the swing space.

You're right. Do we have any questions of the committee at this point? Although we will not be voting yet? Any questions? Any questions? Any questions? Yeah, go ahead Assemblymember.

Mr. Ting, does this clarify for me, does it exclude exempt airports?

Yes. Sorry. Looking to my staff. There's not a blanket exemption for airports, but it exempts airports that are exempt from the FAA. Not exempt from the FAA. I'm going to have my staff answer the question.

That's why we have experts.

Hello. Thank you, Assemblymember. The bill exempts lands that are restricted by the Federal Aviation Administration. So we're looking at airplane hangars, the Cinnabon in your airport. Those would be examples of exempt surplus land that would be eligible for the streamlined process.

But what about other land around the airport?

So land that is in the way of flight paths are not always restricted for residential use, and that would not be included in the bill. It must be prohibited by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Any other questions? Okay, seeing none. Would you like to close? We won't be able to do a vote right away.

Okay. All right. Thank you.

Not at all. Again, we worked with the committee last year. We worked with the Committee this year. We appreciate the amendments. We're trying to continue to fine-tune this act because it covers so many different types of public agencies. We've got a lot of feedback since I did my second bill on this issue a number of years ago, and we continue to get that feedback and try to keep refining it to make it as adaptable and as helpful for a number of different types of agencies.

Well, this should be no surprise, but there's many of these bills coming through this committee this year, so hopefully you all can work together. But I want to thank you for your continued work on the bill and steadfast commitment to this issue. The Surplus Land Act is an important law, but there are many provisions that continue to need refinement and clarification, as evidenced by the three bills we'll be hearing today.

I know several local agencies recently expressed concerns regarding the scope of land subject to the SLA and the changes to the penalty provisions. I'll be supporting the bill when it's time today, but ask that you continue to work with the opponents and with committee staff as the bill moves forward. Okay, you know what? We have a quorum, and if you don't mind holding tight, we'll do this real quick. And go ahead, Secretary.

[Roll Call]

Okay, we have a quorum. Do we have. The motion today is to do pass as amended to the housing community development. I need a motion and a second. We have a motion by Assemblymember Ramos. We have a second by Assemblymember Pacheco. Okay, secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Currently it's 32. We'll wait for the missing members, MIA.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, let me see who else I see in the audience right now that we can. Patterson has arrived. Okay, guess what? We're going to have another Surplus Land Act. Would you like to join us up here? This is file number two, AB 457. Assemblymember Patterson, you can begin when you're ready.

Great. Well, thank you very much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. Here to present AB 457. I want to thank the committee staff for working on this bill with my team. AB 457 is a district bill and creates a very, very narrow exception to the Surplus Land Act by simply making it clear that a city can lease a property for longer than five years when identified for future planned transportation projects and it meets other limiting factors.

So much so, it might only be this single parcel in the City of Rocklin. Under current law, this existing parcel under two acres would just sit while the city raises the necessary funds, tens of millions of dollars, to build an overpass. In the meantime, it allows the city to put the land to use and raise revenue. Today, I have with me Rocklin Mayor Ken Broadway and our City Manager Ali Zimmermann to testify in support of the bill and answer any questions. Thank you.

Welcome Mayor.

Thank you. Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of AB 457. I'm here representing the City of Rocklin, a community of approximately 73,000 located just east of here in Placer County. Rocklin is home to two higher education institutions, a world-class public school system and 37 parks, and we even have more on the way.

We love to boast about the parks because we have a park that's within walking distance of every home in our city. Rocklin is nearing buildout and with no opportunities to increase our geographic size. Still, we work hard to provide housing opportunities at all levels of affordability. In the past two years, the city issued building permits for 1,078 housing units, including 295 units that are deed-restricted for low and very low housing. Additionally, entitlements have been approved for another 997 units, of which 385 are affordable.

Finally, we are working on a community housing works program or with community housing works to bring forward an affordable housing complex on a former redevelopment agency property. We've committed land and funding to that project and we hope to see it receive entitlements this calendar year. I mention all of these housing statistics because I want to ensure and assure the committee that Rocklin is not trying to avoid building housing. As evidenced by this information, we're working diligently to achieve our RHNA numbers.

We've also worked with HCD to follow the Surplus Land Act regulations when processing both exempt and nonexempt properties. We understand the importance of adhering to the guidelines. However, we've recently encountered difficulty working through the Department of Housing and Community Development when attempting to determine if city-owned property should be exempt from the Surplus Land Act. The city owns a property of about 1.7 acres in size that is actually sandwiched between car dealers in a commercial area and also butts Interstate 80.

The property sits vacant as the city acquired it for future construction to address traffic congestion by constructing an actual overcrossing across Interstate 80. The Dominguez Overcrossing Project is part of the city's adopted general plan circulation element and circulation, also known as traffic impact fee circulation, but the anticipated construction of this project is years out. However, the property in question will be needed when the project does come to fruition, and therefore it currently sits vacant

Nearby business owners have approached the city in order to lease the parcel for complementary uses. However, they would like to be able to lease that for an extended period of time exceeding five years, which triggers the Surplus Land Act and requires the first offer of the property for affordable housing. This does not make sense for Rocklin due to our planned project.

Therefore, the land sits vacant, creating blight in the area and eliminating a revenue source for the city, as well as a way for us to support the existing needs of our businesses. We believe that in narrow circumstances, such as those that have been identified, there should be the ability to have an exemption to the SLA, and we worked with Assemblymember Patterson to craft the language.

The City of Rocklin wants to be a part of the solutions that make California a wonderful place to live, and that includes doing our part to produce housing while retaining the ability to utilize vacant parcels on a long-term, temporary basis to support our local businesses and reduce blight. I want to thank you for your time, and I look forward to working to address this issue.

Thank you very much. City manager, would you like to add anything?

Nothing to add to the testimony, but we're available for questions if you have them.

Great. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in the audience to support the bill? All right, seeing none. Anyone here to oppose the bill? Welcome.

Hi, Committee Chair and Assemblymembers, we actually don't have a position on this measure. Again, Abram Diaz with the nonprofit Housing Association in Northern California. We did want to express we appreciate the author's office reaching out to us early to talk about this measure and appreciate the latest amendments that have been done. We look forward to working on this with the author. We recognize the unique circumstances, but also the City of Rocklin is trying really hard to address their affordable housing needs.

There's a lot of SLA bills this year, so we look forward to continuing to work on this and appreciate the author and the committee's staff work on it so far.

You're welcome. Okay, anyone else in opposing the bill? Do we have any questions from the committee? Seeing none entertain a motion. Okay. Assemblymember Pacheco made the motion seconded by Assemblymember Dixon. All right, would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay. Well, thank you for bringing it forward. There are several SLA bills that I've already said today in the committee this year, and we're really spending some time and careful consideration. Thank you for working with our committee to ensure that the SLA exemption is created in your bill is appropriately tailored to address future roadway construction, including the project in your district. I'm happy to support your bill today. The motion is due passed to the Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Right now we're at 5-0, and we'll keep the roll open for absent members.

I appreciate it. Welcome. All right. Okay. Let's move on to file number five. AB 759. Mr. Grayson. Okay. Should I say it right now? That's okay. Right now you don't care? For now. Okay. Welcome, Assembly Member. What do you want? We got to have a little humor in here. Absolutely. It's the afternoon, so. This is file number five. AB 759. Assembly Member Grayson, welcome.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair and Members, good afternoon. I would like to begin by accepting the Committee's proposed amendments that are described in the analysis.

Thank you.

AB 759 is a simple measure that would enable a sanitary district to establish its own protocols to authorize the disbursement of funds to better reflect modern accounting practices. This Bill would remove outdated language from the 1940s, requiring the board President of a sanitary district to approve check registers at a board meeting prior to payments being dispersed. This requirement is redundant and impedes the ability of sanitary districts to maintain a reasonable flow of public business.

In reality, the check registers that are being approved are for payments that have already been issued. As these districts must issue payments in a timely manner. The ability to establish protocols to disperse funds is something that other special districts have the ability to do. The Legislature has previously established this ability for community service districts, park and recreation districts, and even cemetery districts.

In addition to giving sanitary districts more flexibility, this Bill will also require these districts to develop these guidelines with proper internal controls to prevent fraud and ensure accountability with measures that conform to generally accepted accounting principles. I do have a witness to the chair. I do have a witness to self introduce.

Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Madam Chair and Members. My name is Jessica Gogger. I'm with the California Association of Sanitation Agencies. We are the proud sponsor of this. I just want to take a moment to really express gratitude and appreciation to the chair and the Committee staff for really spending a lot of time with us over the last couple of weeks to develop a really thoughtful solution to modernizing the sanitary districts act, which is clearly overdue. And so thank you very much for that.

And happy to answer any questions if there are any. But with that, I would just urge your Aye vote.

Okay. Thank you very much for your testimony. Anyone else in the audience in support of this Bill?

Good afternoon, madam. Good afternoon, madam. Chair Members. Marcus Dettwiler with the California Special Districts Association in support.

Thank you. Is anyone else in support? Seeing none. Is there any opposition to this Bill? Okay, seeing no opposition, we have a second by. I think it was someone. Member Waldron. Okay, do you have any questions? Anyone? Doesn't look like we have any questions. I guess it's really kind of nice you get to put the abacus away and you can come up to technology time. Right. Anyway, thank you for working with the Committee. We really appreciate on this Bill and the committees taking the Committee's amendments.

I think these amendments allows more flexibility in how sanitary districts expense funds, but provide sufficient safeguards to protect against fraud and abuse. With amendments, I will be voting aye on your Bill today. The motion is do pass as amended. Secretary, please call [Roll Call] Bills out. Okay, your bills out. And we'll keep the roll open for missing mias. Thank you. Okay, we are up.

Let's see. Mr. Patient. File number six. Mr. Alvarez, AB 837. Thank you.

Thank you. You know me well. I am patient.

You are patient. Thank you.

Madam Chair and colleagues appreciate the opportunity to present AB 837 to you today. I want to start by acknowledging the work done by the committee with our staff and accepting the committee's amendments and thanking you and your staff for the work on the bill. Over 30 years ago, the city of Chula Vista began the process of a vision and a dream of bringing a university to the region with its general development plan that all of our cities adopt.

Since then, it has procured over 300 acres of land and codified these efforts through its sectional planning area plan. Developing a university in Chula Vista will go a long way in combating a lack of access to education in our region. Chula Vista is the only city, the only city in California with a population over 200,000 residents, now getting closer to 300,000 that does not have a nonprofit or state University within its limits.

The South Bay communities of San Diego County are home to over 500 residents whose educational attainment is necessary to sustain regional growth and meet our future workforce needs. Of course, there are concerns about how this bill will impact the Surplus Lands Act. You heard about a couple of those earlier today and its essential role in ensuring the surplus land is prioritized for housing development. I recognize that as a strong advocate for increasing the state's housing supply, I am sympathetic to that view.

That is why I have crafted this bill and happily accepted the committee's amendments to ensure that only this piece of land for this specific purpose will be exempted. As I noted before, this is a lack of access to education issue, not a housing issue. Chula Vista has been a regional leader in compliance with arena numbers and has entitled a portion of this project specifically for student housing residential units to meet staff and housing needs.

I look forward to continuing to work with those who have concerns to ensure that this impact on the overall goal of the Surplus Lands Act and affordable housing is mitigated without sacrificing such a needed regional project as a University would be to the South Bay. Thank you for your time. We have Maria Kachadoorian, she is Chula Vista city manager, here to provide some testimony as well.

Thank you.

Welcome, city manager.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Maria Kachadoorian, and I am the city manager for the city of Chula Vista. I'm here today to urge you to support Assembly Bill 837. Since the adoption of the Otay Ranch General Plan in 1993, the city of Chula Vista has pursued a vision of locating a University within eastern Chula Vista. Over this 30-year period, the city has successfully secured 383 acres for this purpose.

This vision is further refined and reflected in the University Innovation District plan approved by the city council in November of 2018. The University Innovation District plan envisions accommodating up to 20,000 students with a mixed-use innovation district, including academic space, commercial space for business, innovation uses, and development of the student, faculty, and market-rate housing.

Chula Vista is the only city in California with a population greater than 200,000 residents that does not have a nonprofit or state university within its city limits, and the South Bay communities of San Jose county are home to over 500,000 residents whose educational attainment is needed to sustain and grow the state's economy. Creating education opportunities, especially for place-bound students in the South Bay, is therefore critical and necessary to ensure equitable access to higher education and to prepare the local workforce for the jobs of tomorrow.

After years of dedicated investment into our vision, and because this land is not surplus, going through the requirements of the Surplus Land Act would be detrimental. The inability to control the disposition of the land would impede our ability to finance the infrastructure that is needed to move forward in a greenfield development such as this one. In addition, the city of Chula Vista is a leader in housing development, and this plan reflects that.

The University Innovation District includes approximately 4,000 housing units and meets state housing goals at all levels of affordability, which is really the purpose of the Surplus Land Act. Without AB 837, the city will not be able to pursue the largest economic development in the city's history, nor expand educational access to the South Bay region. Thank you for your consideration. I urge you to vote yes on AB 837.

We'll be bringing Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership, also speaking today on behalf of the San Diego Housing Federation and Western Center on Law and Poverty, who aren't able to be here.

Great. Thank you very much for your comments. We will have anyone else in support of this bill seeing none. Are there any witnesses in opposition? You can join us at the table if you'd like. I'm happy to do here.

As we talked about in the first bill, the Service Lands Act is a critical tool to develop affordable housing. So, any exemption we must view with great care. The bill that was in print was overly broad. That was introduced was overly broad. We greatly appreciate the Assemblymember amendments that he accepted today that the Committee helped draft. We were going to reevaluate those, and we will share any concerns that we continue to have with the Assemblymen and the sponsors. So thank you very much.

Abram Diaz with NPH, and we echo the comments of our colleagues here and look forward to working with the author and with the leaders in San Diego on this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, next.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in opposition to the bill? Seeing none. We have any questions from the committee? Yes, Assembly Member Waldron.

More of a comment than anything. I want to thank the Assemblymember for bringing this forward.

If you're familiar with county, you know, you go down to the southwest corner of the county, and the students and people who live down there have to either jump on a train or a bus or sit in really bad traffic to try to get to an educational opportunity somewhere else in the county. And I know because I'm all the way up on Northeast County, and as a student, when I was trying to get to SDSU, it was just outrageous.

But now we have Cal State San Marcos, we have Palomar College. We have all those opportunities in the north, but down in the south and western part of the county, there is really no university, as you're saying. So it gives a lot of opportunity for students there, and you also look at the fact that the poverty rate is 9.1%, and per capita income is 35,000. Only 30% of that population has a bachelor's degree.

It'll help a lot with economic development as well as more housing opportunities in the future and people who can actually afford housing. So I'm supportive. Thank you.

Any other comments? Anyone want to do a motion? All right, we have a motion by Assemblymember Ramos, second by Assemblymember Pacheco. Would you like to close?

Yeah, I'd just like to say thank you. I appreciate the support. Assemblymember Waldron just identified what the long-term commitment and vision is for this region. It's been a region that hasn't had access. It's been a work in progress way before the Surplus Lands Act existed. And we hope that with your support, this is the first major step in what will be a long, long journey of bringing educational opportunities for children and for families in this part of the state of California. I ask for your vote.

Thank you for bringing the bill forward. You do have unique circumstances on this bill for your me. While I appreciate the concerns raised by some of the opponents, I'm also concerned that the current implementation of the SLA penalizes cities like Chula Vista for honoring legal agreements they entered into years ago and sometimes even decades, even before major revisions were made to what the SLA is today.

[Roll Call]

Your Bill will allow the city to abide by its prior legal commitments and documented land agreements governing the disposition of properties noted in the bill without violating the SLA. I'll be supporting the bill today, but ask that you continue to work with the opponents and the committee staff so we can get this move forward. The motion is do pass this amended to the Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the role.

The bill is out 5-0, and we need a few more votes, and it's on call. Thank you. Am I right there? It's not on call. I apologize. It's out. I couldn't read it: the writing.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. I'm here today to present on Assembly Bill 1025. Assembly Bill 1025 will authorize outside legal representation to be approved by the Board of Supervisors to assist the treasurer tax collector in the performance of their duties. In any case where the county attorney or District Attorney would have a conflict of interest in representing the treasurer tax collector, this proposal does not authorize a treasurer tax collector to unilaterally hire outside counsel at the expense of the county.

Okay, who's next? What? While we have Ms. Dixon get ready, why don't we do the consent calendar? Have a motion. Okay, we have on consent file number one, AB453. [Roll Call] Okay. Welcome. This is file number seven. AB 1025. Assembly Member Dixon.

The board first either concurs with the conflict and moves to procure outside counsel. If the board does not concur, the treasurer tax collector may request the presiding judge of the Superior Court to opine and if a conflict is confirmed, the judge would select an appropriate counsel. Elected county sheriffs, assessors and auditors are provided a safeguard in the statute in the rare circumstances that County Council faces a conflict of interest in representing that countywide elected official.

This is because county council is accountable directly to the Board of Supervisors and not to any county Department head or countywide elected official. The county Auditor was most recently added to the statute in 2018 through AB 3068 this Bill received a vast majority of support in both houses. My primary expert witnesses to speak in support of the Bill is Lake County Treasurer tax collector Patrick Sullivan. Yes, and he will be followed by Tehama County Treasurer tax collector Patrick Hunt Parker. I keep saying Patrick Parker.

And Patrick, thank you very much. Would you like to go first?

Yes. Thank you for. I Thank you. And I appreciate the opportunity to speak here today. It's Patrick Sullivan. I'm the newly elected treasurer tax collector for Lake County. I just want to bring up that when a conflict arises, sometimes early access to outside counsel prior to litigation could save everyone time and money. In the end, in Lake County, there were potential legislative and other administrative solutions that were never considered when our issues arose. But by the time litigation began, it was too late to take any action with them.

As a treasurer tax collector, I can state that it'd be comforting to have the ability to petition for outside counsel when needed. The case here involves situations where, because of the decades long backlog and tax defaulted properties, any treasurer tax collector would be faced with potential breach or violation of a statute. No matter what path forward they choose, it can be difficult to have those discussions with the Board of Supervisors and county council standing alone, knowing that litigation is potentially coming against you.

Between the board your office, and in our case, a local city. I can also speak from the perspective of being an attorney, and I can state that I understand the complexity and difficulty of managing these conflicts that county council has to go through. It's a real burden in smaller rural counties to create that ethical wall. County Council's offices are small. They often only have a few attorneys. People have to wear multiple hats, and there's often turnover.

So when you're trying to split up that representation between different offices, that just becomes a complex job. I would say in our case, our county council did an admirable job, and I really appreciate the work they did. To summarize, there's now a six year long settlement in Lake County's case that just started. This settlement stretches our short staff office to the breaking point with a mandate to auction 1000 properties per year.

Soon, year after year, the auctions will consist solely of parcels that are results of fraudulent land developments on our hillsides over a century ago. There's often no access, no infrastructure, and generally, these parcels are substandard or unbuildable. Now I'm going to be in a position of incurring the expense to auction them. I'm basically hoping no one actually buys them at the auction since you can't do anything with them. And I'm hoping to avoid this outcome. I'm working with all parties.

I enjoy good relations with all sides, and through negotiations and other legislative solutions, I hope to find an alternative path. But that potential need for outside representation is always present as we get through this six year long settlement. And just finally, I would highlight that this Bill, there are existing systemic safeguards in place to monitor expense or potential costs. The presiding judge can carefully weigh any requests for outside representation, and I don't think any treasurer tax collector would make this request lightly.

We're aware of the expense involved, and I think the seriousness of the situation. So, again, I would thank you all for your time today.

Thank you very much. Did you like to comment?

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members, my name is Parker Hunt. I'm the elected treasurer tax collector for Tehama County, and what I'm asking for is equity. Our colleagues in the county that deal with property tax and financial matters, the assessors and the auditors already have these protections. And I came from Glenn County, where it's a combined office, and we had those protections at Glenn County. So when I came to Tahema County, I was unaware that the same provisions weren't afforded to my office.

Importantly, on the treasury side of things, I have a fiduciary responsibility to the treasury pool of the county, which includes the county itself, but other involuntary and voluntary participants. For our county treasury pool, the county only has about 30% of the deposits. The remainder are 65% to the school districts and the rest to other local governments. So this fiduciary responsibility could put me at odds with the board, and it's happened before, and it has potential to happen in the future. And facing personal financial ruin for flame, my oath office is unequitable. So I ask you for your Aye votes and consideration. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience in support of the Bill? Sure.

Madam Chair, Committee Members, my name is Tristan Butcher, Placer County treasurer, tax collector, and I'm in support of this Bill.

Thank you. Thank you, Members. Thank you, chair. Thank you, Members. And I ask you for your Aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Is there anyone in the audience in opposition of the Bill? Seeing? None. Let's see. Do we have any questions of the Committee? None. And do we have a motion yet? Entertain a motion? Second. Okay, we have a motion by assemblymember Ramos, second by Assemblymember Wilson. And would you like to close?

So nice to see some of my colleagues here. Thank you for authoring this Bill to ensure our elected treasurers and tax collectors receive proper legal counsel when a conflict with the Board of Supervisor exists. I will be supporting your Bill today. The motion is do passed to the Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll. [Roll Call]

All right, next we will have item number four. We'll backtrack a little bit here and we'll go to assemblymember Bonta. AB 722. I will be stepping out, and my Vice Chair will be taking over.

Okay, we're now on. Hold on. Let me flip to the right page here. Assembly Bill 1132. And we're ready to go. All right. Excuse me. 22. 22. AB 722. Yes. zero, I see you moved up there. Okay. Yes, please, Assembly Member. Go. Proceed. Thank you.

Chair and Committee Members, Alameda Health System is a public hospital authority administering hospitals in Oakland, Alameda, and San Leandrio. Currently, by statute, Alameda Health system cannot contract out the services provided by unionized physicians without evidence that doing so will be cheaper and more efficient. This requirement will sunset on January 12024 while AB 722, as written, removes the January 12024 sunset date.

I want to share with the Committee that my office, the Bill sponsors and the Alameda health systems have been in conversation about this Bill, and there is an agreement that to just extend the sunset date to January 12035 rather than eliminate it entirely. I will be taking these amendments on the floor should this Bill pass. Out of the Committee here today to testify on behalf of the Union of American Physicians and dentists is ASTMi locals 206 Dr. Milton Loric.

Good afternoon chair, Vice Chair and Members of the local government Committee. My name is Dr. Milton Loric, a psychiatrist who worked for Alameda Health System AHS for over 35 years. I have served with the Union of American Physician dentist, UAPD as a shop steward, contract negotiator, and Executive board Member for much of that time. I want to thank Assembly Member Mia Bonta for introducing AB 722. AHS has contracted out UAPD employed physicians three times during my career there to vastly more expensive contractors.

Each time, UAPD prevailed against AHS, but at great time and cost. In 2012, AHS planned to move our doctors into a new medical group, thereby eliminating our contracts and the Doctor's retirement plans, which prompted the passage of a predecessor Bill, AB 1008. But for AB 1008 and the current AB 1538, UAPD would have lost positions during the third and most contentious contracting out action by HS, which began in 2016.

In July 2018 2 years after that process began, an arbitrator decided decisively in the union's favor, and that was only because of AB 1538. Only thereafter did AHS negotiate in good faith with our union over a long expired contract. Without such contracting out protections, AHS will again have the opportunity to waste taxpayers money on more expensive of contractors at the expense of our UAPD represented physicians. We request that the Committee allow UAPD NHS to continue to cooperate by voting I on AB 722. Thank you.

Do we have any other witnesses in support? Please come forward. Do.

Good afternoon, chair and Members, Christophe Mayer with the American Federation of State, county and municipal employees. We are a co sponsor of AB 722. Thank you.

Any other witnesses in support? Any witnesses in opposition, please come forward. Seeing none. Questions? Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions from the Committee? Seeing none. All right, I'll entertain a motion. zero, you already made a motion? Do we have a second? Yes, I do.

We do, Mr. Ramos. Okay. Any closing statement, please?

Thank you. I respectfully request your, aye vote.

Very good. All right, Clerk will read the call roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay, the Bill will be on call. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Now, are we going to 1132? I'm sorry? 1297 going back up or going here? All right. AB 1297, please proceed.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. I'd like to thank the Committee for their work on this Bill. This is our third time around working towards bringing access to public bathrooms. This Bill is much narrower, and we are presenting AB 1297 public restrooms. This Bill requires cities, charter cities, counties, and defined special districts, parks and libraries to report to the Department of Public Health an inventory of the local government's accessible public restrooms that are available to the General population to access and utilize.

So let me be clear. This is not a mandate to build bathrooms. This is not a mandate to open bathrooms that are not already open. It's to put on a website which bathrooms are already open. Now, if I had it my way in my past two versions, I would say we should be having more access to public bathrooms. We have thousands of people in our community and across the State of California who are homeless. So one of the questions is, where are they going?

None of us like to address that. But it isn't only individuals experiencing homelessness. We are talking about parents with toddlers. We are talking about seniors going to a park, wanting to go to an event, parents going to soccer games and baseball games. Many times at these parks and areas where we bring the public, there simply are no public bathrooms. When we walk around our capitol right here in Sacramento, there are sometimes porta potties brought in for events, but then they're taken away.

So this question remains is if we cannot provide basic services like access to bathrooms, then what are we doing with our public tax dollars? Basic needs include shelter, water and food and a place to use a restroom. The Department of Public Health will take the data that is acquired by maintaining user friendly website where the public will be able to search the database for public restrooms by zip code.

So imagine an app where you simply I'm at Pearson park in Anaheim and I want to know if there's a bathroom because there's a festival and they can go on and look by zip code. And what you're going to find is that many times there won't be any bathrooms open, but at least that information would be given to parents, seniors and others who need to have an accessible restroom. Restrooms are central to our daily personal lives and public infrastructure.

Many of us can mistakenly take our access to bathrooms for granted. None of us in this room have an issue with public bathrooms. We can run down the hall, go upstairs. We all live in homes where we have this, and many of us, if we can't find a public bathroom, can go to Starbucks, buy a coffee and get the code to the bathroom. But imagine that you can't do that. So that's what we're looking at.

We're looking at seniors and parents limiting their activities because there are not safe, clean bathrooms. Again, this Bill does not ask that we build bathrooms with that I have today to provide testimony. With me is Mr. Ron Hochbaum, an issue area expert and assistant clinical Professor of law at the University of Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

Esteemed Members of the local government Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide expert testimony today. Like the assemblywoman mentioned, I teach at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law, where I direct the homeless advocacy Clinic and teach poverty law.

In 2020, I published an article entitled bathrooms as a homeless rights issue, concluding that the ability to use a bathroom in private is central to our conception of human dignity and is precisely why bathroom access has been part of every civil rights movement of the last century. In the article, I draw a distinction between the availability and accessibility of public bathrooms because an available bathroom, I. E. One that is physically present, is of limited utility if not accessible.

One barrier to public bathroom access is that their locations are poorly publicized. Local governments publish centralized lists of maps of parks, schools, public transit lines, polling places, libraries, but bathrooms are noticeably absent. This is partially because cities and counties themselves are invariably not maintaining or collecting this data.

AB 1297 would rectify that while promoting bathroom accessibility for people who do not work in offices such as delivery drivers or gig economy workers, people who must access bathrooms with increased frequency, including seniors, pregnant women, families with children, and people with particular medical conditions, and communities that both historically and presently are denied bathroom access, such as communities of color, women, people living with disabilities, transgender people, and people experiencing homelessness.

And I'd be remiss if I did not mention that the wave of transphobic legislation sweeping the nation at the moment, or given the wave of legislation sweeping the nation, AB 1297 is an opportunity for our state to reaffirm its commitment to being a welcoming, healthy, and safe community for our Trans brothers, sisters and siblings. AB 1297 would stimulate the economy, promote public health, protect workers, and correct legacies of discrimination. At its core, it's good governance, and I strongly encourage you to support its passage.

Move the Bill. Second.

Is there anyone else in support of the Bill? Seeing none, is there any opposition for the Bill? Welcome.

Good morning or good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members Damon Conklin with the League of California Cities. While we're not opposed to the Bill, we do have some concerns with the Bill. We do not disagree with the policy merits outlined by the author and the supporters. We just feel that to truly realize those benefits, that statewide restrooms should be included in that inventory. So if we really are going to be eliminating barriers and increasing accessibility to these restrooms, that statewide inventory should be included.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions of the Committee? Assembly Member Pacheco?

I'm just curious. It's a good Bill, but I'm curious. The information that's being provided to the public as to where restrooms are relocated, is there going to be a potential requirement for cities to post it on their websites or for them to create some kind of apps?

This would be a standalone website, so each city would not have to post it. But once they have the information, I would think that some of them will. I'm just going to use Fullerton as my example. Fullerton has about 20 parks and then, of course, two public libraries. So when we think of city by city, how hard would it be to gain this information? Both of us have served on local government.

You would simply call your maintenance and your parks and rec and find out how many are open. So we actually have done that to find out we know how many total bathrooms we have, but then how many are open, and we know there's definitely sunset or sunrise to sunset in parks. I would not be asking to extend any of that, but just what's available. And then cities can choose to put that on their website, but this would be a standalone website.

Thank you.

Yeah. Excuse me. Yes. Assembly Member Dixon.

Hi. I commend your efforts to want to make sure that cities have restrooms available for anyone who needs them. And having all of us, so many of us, served on local government, I've actually gone through this myself. I represent, as a City Council person, a part of Newport Beach, which is the beaches, and 11 million people a year come to our City of 87,000 people. So bathrooms are. I've lived through bathroom needs.

So believe me, and particularly when the bars close at 02:00 a.m. There's a need for a nearby restroom, and not just for homeless people. It's for anybody who's leaving the bars at 02:00 a.m. So I recognized this when I was doing a ride along at 02:00 a.m. And to 04:00 a.m. When I was first elected to City Council ride along with the police. And I said, where are the bathrooms? Because people use alternative natural methods. And so as a result of that, I have two conclusions.

When we were building a new fire station on the peninsuLA in the last three years, when I sat down with public works, I said, I want to be sure there is a bathroom in this area, and there is a public bathroom adjacent to the new fire station on the peninsuLA in Newport Beach. But the larger point I want to make is mean.

I think cities and City Council and public works people know where the bathrooms are needed because they're picking up if they're cleaning the streets and the sidewalks in the front yards, and people complain about that. And so there's an awareness already. So my concern is just another mandate to the cities. I'm a local government person, so I've just to put an inventory together and put this information on the website, assuming anybody knows who go to the website. I just think it's just a burden.

I think residents, public works, City Council people are aware of the problems with their bathrooms. And especially in a city that gets a lot of tourism, it's really critical that we address that issue. So I will be voting against it just on the basis that we ask cities to do so much. And I just don't think we should impose this on them because I think they're already doing much of that same work.

So thank you. Thank you, Assembly Member, summary Member Waldron. Thank you. I just had a clarification question. I was going to ask how the cities felt about it, and then the League of California cities came up. And I'm just wondering because the State Department of Public Health is the one that's required to compile everything and put it online. And then it'll be a searchable database. So he had mentioned a statewide database. But isn't that the same thing, or is it not?

Or are there other bathrooms that we don't know about that would be added to create a statewide data? I'm just trying to find out what.

Well, there are California State rest stops that, how many of you have used a rest stop and how many of you are really happy that it's open and it's clean and that is run through by our state. But he is correct in we are asking in this particular Bill, cities, special districts and counties, and we have not included the state. We've had a very direct conversation about that. We want to inch our way there. And I definitely agree.

We shouldn't be asking cities and counties to do something if the state is not going to do it already. But we are trying to move this incrementally. So if we have success here and we can actually get this, like I said, this is our third time. And if we can get this through, I can say we could also do a companion piece. But I do hear my colleague from Newport Beach on the local mandates, and I understand this.

I think that this will be much simpler than we think. A lot of the cities already have this data because they have to go out and clean the current bathrooms that are open. But I hear you on that. Thank you.

Any other comments from Committee? Okay, seeing none. Would you like to close?

I do. And I get a little impassioned about this because it's also to me, as mentioned by my colleague from Newport Beach, it's a sanitation issue. If you think about that across the State of California. And just think about the bar, aftermath of a bar. But just think about people who are getting up in the morning, who are homeless. There isn't a place, and we see that around here all the time. But I would just end with two articles, if I can share them.

Here is one from the New York Times. Why are public restrooms still so rare? That just came out last week and an opt ed by the LA Times. Opt ed. Public bathrooms are a basic human right, but many cities aren't even trying to meet the need. And with that, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. And third time's a charm. I'm hoping for you. You've worked really hard on this Bill. I'll be supporting the Bill today. And the motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee secretary. Please call the roll.

The motion is by Bernard Horvath and second by Assembly Member Member Wilson. [Roll Call] Your bills out 60.

Yes, you can do your next one since you're sitting there. Excuse me, 61. I apologize. That was 61. All right, so since you have the hot seat there, file number 10 AB 1308.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members, I'd first like to thank the committee for working with us, and we will be accepting the amendments. Current regulations in the majority of cities and counties require any single family resident owner to add two covered parking spaces for any remodel update or add on. So we're talking remodel, update or add on. This rule creates an inequity for homeowners seeking to build additions that often do not generate any additional parking demand.

Assembly Bill 1308 prohibits a public agency from imposing a new minimum parking requirement on a project to remodel, renovate, or add to a single family residence, as long as the project does not exceed maximum size limits, such as height and floor to area ratio. California has a housing crisis, and we need to consider all options to reduce the overall cost of housing. Mandatory parking requirements also worsen California's severe housing shortage by raising the cost of housing production.

Parking structures on a single family residence can cost upward of 25,000, take up vital land space, and the property left in many families are building to add on to their existing home. And we're not talking ADUs here. We're not talking a separate union. We're talking an addition on a single family home. AB 1308 does not prohibit property owners from building parking.

It would simply give them the flexibility to decide how much parking to build based on their need and affordability, and instead of requiring them to comply with a one size fits all mandate.

Are there any other supporters of this bill in the audience? Seeing none. Anyone opposing the bill? Seeing none. Are there any questions of the Committee? Yes, Assembly Member Dixon.

As long as the same principle, local control. I just have to say, I'll be a broken record on this. We're now continuing to get into mandating rules for the cities and telling them how to zone for their construction. I get your point in terms of no additional incursion into square footage, but still, this is a city zoning responsibility currently, and I'd like to just keep it in cities hands. We're just taking away all this power from cities. I just respect our city planners to accommodate the parking needs or non parking needs. In my district, parking is a premium anyway. It's just the principle for me on local control. Thank you.

Do you have a motion? Yes. Assembly Member Boerner Horvath.

Yeah, I wanted to ask the author, I looked at this and I generally don't support reducing parking anywhere, but even in a city like Encinitas, I know if you do an addition, as long as you're within the maximum floor area ratio, there's no additional requirement for additional parking. So do you have a list of cities that do require?

This actually came from our colleague from La Canada, we said yesterday her area or from Los Angeles, who brought this to me as she actually indeed was trying to build an addition onto her property. Is she here? Oh, there she is. Is it La Canada? Oh, Glendale. Our colleague from Glendale and was talking about the expense because of the addition to add the parking.

I had a similar, but not similar with my own property where we wanted to build an ADU. So different there, but we would have to build a garage because it was a detached. Now we've clarified that language, but we already had a garage on my property that was not attached. And if we wanted to build a junior ADU, we'd have to build a garage. So it didn't make any sense, which in my area, to build a garage, we're talking well over $25,000. So it's city by city. A lot of cities already allow this.

So, yeah, I would say maybe there are some bad actors and this bill is necessary. I don't think any of my cities do. Increase parking requirements for additions or renovations or add ons.

And some of your cities are pretty. I know that some of your cities have led the way on some of the ADUs already having plans ready, shelf ready plans, so forth.

Just for clarification purposes. I know Adus was mentioned, but this bill doesn't include ADUs.

No, I'm just confusing. Okay.

Just making sure.

Do you think if you confuse everybody, it'd be okay? Okay. Yes. Assemblymember Waldron.

Assembly Member Boerner Horvath brought up an interesting thing, but it does say in the bill that it will go as long as it does not cause the single family residents to exceed the florida area ratio restriction imposed by the public agency itself. So that's its own protection built into the bill to prevent that. Because I was like, Oh, that's a good point. So I looked and I can see it there. So thank you.

You're welcome. Do we have a motion? Who did the motion. Oh, then we have a second. Okay. We have Assembly Member Rivas with a motion and a second by Assembly Member Pacheco. Would you like to close?

I just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much for bringing it forward and working with our Committee on the bill to get it nice and tightened up. I'm happy to support the bill today. Motion is do pass has amended the Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The bills out 7-1.

Thank you, member.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember. Now we will move on to file number eight. Assembly Member Friedman, AB 1132, and begin whenever you're comfortable.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. AB 1132 simply extends the statewide cap on solar permit fees leveled by municipalities by legislation I introduced a while back. So, this would extend that from 2025 to 2034. The purpose of the original bill was because we were getting reports across the state that when people would want to put rooftop solar, some cities were price gouging. So a permit that might be $300 in one city, you go one city over, and they're like, well, that'll be one.

$200 to permit that roof. Simple rooftop solar. So we worked with the industry, we worked with the cities to craft a bill that gave cities exceptions if they could show why the installation was more expensive for them to permit, or they had a very unusual situation, or it was a large installation, of course, they were able to charge more for the permitting, but we're trying to get people to put solar on their roofs.

The last thing they should have to worry about is paying some crazy fee when it doesn't cost the cities that much to come out and inspect for a simple rooftop solar installation. This cap has now been in effect for a number of years. We haven't heard of any problems with it. We'll continue to discuss any concerns with the municipalities, but it's a simple bill, and I would request aye vote. I do have a witness today: Benjamin Davis from the California Solar Storage Association.

Thank you. My comments will be brief. So today, 10% of properties have rooftop solar. And that figure needs to grow rapidly for the state to meet its clean energy goals. And there's many homes and businesses, nonprofit schools, churches that go solar for environmental reasons. But the price tag must also be reasonable. And prior to the original bill that Assemblymember Friedman mentioned, high permitting fees. They were pushing solar outside the budgets for many homes and other properties.

Welcome.

And once the permit fee caps were established, solar has become more attainable for more Californians. So AB 1132 is needed today to keep solar permitting fees reasonable and to keep solar growing. Thank you.

Thank you. Witnesses in support?

Madam Chair and Members: Tony Gonzalez, representing ADT Solar, very grateful for the introduction of AB 1132 in support of the Bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. John Moffatt, on behalf of GAF Energy, in support.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in support of the bill? Seeing none, are there any witnesses in opposition? Okay, seeing none, are there any questions from the committee? So it's a quiet committee today. You're pretty lucky, Ms. Friedman. We have a motion by Assemblymember Bernard Horvath and Assemblymember Pacheco. Thank you very much for bringing the bill forward and your commitment for expanding solar energy and reducing GHG emissions.

I'm pleased to support your Bill today and would like to be added as a co author. The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thanks for your help.

Bill is out 8-0. Congratulations.

You're very welcome. Okay, we are going to take up bills. Okay, so we have to take up bills on call, right? Okay, we have a few bills on call and the consent calendar, too. Are we done?

Okay.

We'Re going to do the on call. Secretary. AB 480 T [Roll Call] Yes, it is. That Bill is out. Add ons. Okay, we'll now take up on add ons on the bills. Secretary, please proceed. Consent calendar. AB 453. Cervantes. The vote is currently 5-0.

[Roll Call] Vote on consent calendar. Final vote. zero, final vote 8- 0. Excuse me, the Bill is out. I got to see better. AB 457, Joe Patterson. The vote is currently 5-0. [Roll Call] 80 bills out AB 457 Patterson 80 AB 759 Grayson. The vote is currently 5-0 [Roll Call] 8-0 AB 759 Grayson out 8-0 AB 837 Alvarez.

The vote is currently 5- 0[Roll Call] 80 Bill 837 Alvarez is out 80 AB. 1025 Dixon. The vote is currently 6-0 [Roll Call] 8-0 Bill 1025 Dixon's out 8-0 consent calendar, consent calendar, we just consent calendar. AB 453 Cervantes consent calendar. Yeah, we just did that. Okay,

We're done. Local government adjourned it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. How are you feeling? You got the same thing I have. Coffin. There's a lot of. Excuse me.