Senate Standing Committee on Governance and Finance

Committee on Governance and Finance will come to order. Good morning, everybody. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and via the teleconference line. Today we have a pretty long agenda, so we're going to be moving pretty expeditiously. For individuals wishing to provide public comment, today's participant number is 877-226-8216 and the access code is 6217161. We are holding our Committee hearings here in the O Street Building.

I ask all Members of the Committee to be present in Room 2100 so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing. We're going to start today as a Subcommittee so that we can get through our voluminous hearing agenda. We're sharing the room with another Committee, so want to make sure that we can finish up as efficiently as possible. We have 22 bills on today's agenda with four proposed for consent.

The consent items today are Item Number 13: SB 778, Senator Ochoa Bogh, Item Number 14: SB 1, Senator Glazer, Item Number 21: SB 889 for the Governance and Finance Committee, and Item Number 22: SB 890, again, from the Governance and Finance Committee. Item Number Nine: SB 571 by Senator Allen was pulled from the agenda by the author, and it's going to be reset for a hearing at a future date. We will be limiting teleconference testimony to ten minutes due to our long agenda.

And the way that we'll be doing that is we'll be asking--these are the #MeToo's--the people that want to just say their name, their affiliation if they belong to an organization, and whether you're in support or opposition to the bills that we're hearing at that time. We will also be recessing for lunch and for the Senate Insurance Committee to take up their agenda in this same room. And so it's a little bit chaotic, but we want to make sure we can do it smoothly.

And just for your information, if we don't get to your bill by the noon hour, we'll be coming back sometime after that. So keep an eyeball out for us, and then we will be continuing with our agenda once the Senate Insurance Committee adjourns. So we need more Members to establish a quorum, and so we're going to wait to do that. Okay. So we're ready to hear from our first author.

And committees went late yesterday, and so I expect people will be trailing in when I've been asked to present on behalf of Senator Atkins, item number six on the agenda, which is SB 450. So I'll turn the gavel over to the co chair or Vice Chair. I'm sorry, I was here late last night, and I'll jump in and present her Bill.

All right. The first Bill we're going to be hearing is item number six. That's SB 450. Presenting on behalf of Senator Atkins is Senator Caballero. Whenever you're ready, ma'am. Go right ahead.

Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair and Members, I'm here today and it's a great honor for me to present Senate Bill 450 on behalf of the Senate pro tem. Many of you will recall a Bill that the pro tem previously authored, SB nine, the Home Act, which was signed into lawn in 2021. I remain a proud coauthor of that legislation and look forward to the good that it continues to do in widening the supply of missing middle housing throughout California.

SB nine sought to widen access to housing for California's working families by streamlining a homeowner's ability to build a duplex or split the residential lot, allowing for up to four units. Unfortunately, in the years since it became law, we have seen a number of local jurisdictions take some creative license with it, either by ignoring the new law in its entirety or imposing overly burdensome standards that seek to discourage the housing options provided by SB nine.

This Bill, SB 450, includes key provisions that would increase the effectiveness of SB nine by improving access and certainty for homeowners who wish to use the provisions of that law and increase the enforcement of existing law. I have with me here today two witnesses, GracieLA Castillo Kriggs from California, YIMBY and Jennifer Svec, California Association of Realtors. With that, I respectfully request your. aye vote.

Hi, welcome to our primary witnesses in support of the Bill. Madam, you may go ahead.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members Garciella Castillo cranks here on behalf of California YIMBY in support of SB 450. This piece of legislation, unfortunately, is necessary, is because of the flexibility that was given to local governments, and we are seeing some of the abuse, some abuse happen. One of the things that this Bill is modeled after is the success that we have seen with the ADU legislation. When that legislation first passed, unfortunately, it took a couple of iterations before we got it right.

But thankfully, because of the different efforts that the Legislature has moved forward and the cleanup that has happened, we are now seeing thousands of units being built. We believe that SB nine has the same potential to really make sure that homeowners can take advantage of it, be able to build additional wealth and provide additional units. So for those reasons, we ask for your support.

Thank you very much. Is there a second lead witness? Do we have another witness?

She may not be here right now.

Okay. All right, so with that, any other witnesses or any other people in the room that would like to wish or express their support. I was at only the 08:00 meeting last night. Express their support for this Bill. You can come to the mic. There being none, apparently. Okay. Is there anybody who wishes to be the lead opposition witness? I don't see anybody, anybody in the audience who would like to come up and express their opposition to this Bill? If not, at t operator, are you there?

I am here.

All right. If you can call at this time, we'll go ahead and take testimony from people via the telephone. If you are opposed or support, please state your name, your opposition or support, and any organization that you represent.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition, you may press one and then zero. We will go to line 22. Your line is open.

Martin Radosovich, on behalf of spur, build Costa and Habitat for Humanity California, in support.

Thank you. We do have one other one in queue. One moment while we give their line number. And again, this is supporter opposition. Your line is open.

My name is Jim Pinnegan. I'm an AARP volunteer, and we're in. Support of the Bill.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. And we have no further support or opposition in queue.

All right, thank you. All right, that brings it back to the dais. Any questions? There are no questions. Since we do not have a quorum, we will put this on hold, no, never mind. Well, we will keep this item open and until we have a quorum established.

Thank you. Good morning, Senator Portantino. Welcome to the Committee. You have File Item Number Three, which is SB 96, and you're on.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. SB 96 is the Historic Venue Restoration and Resiliency Act, and I'd like to begin by thanking the Chair and the Committee staff for working with my office on this measure and I'm happy to accept the Committee amendments in comment for the analysis. I appreciate all the hard work that everybody's put into this, what I think is a very important bill for the history of California.

As you know, we are home to a number of large, historic live entertainment venues, such as the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, which I'm proud to represent, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the California Memorial Stadium in Berkeley, amongst many others.

Senator Portantino, could I interrupt you very quickly? I believe we have a quorum, so if we could take the roll, please.

Absolutely.

We may never have it again.

[Roll Call]. We have a quorum.

We have a quorum. You may proceed, Senator. Our apologies.

Oh, no. You have to get a quorum when you can. As I mentioned, these historic venues are sprinkled throughout California. Many of them are over 100 years old or older, but they continue to be vital catalysts for our local communities and the state, as the venues support local hotels, restaurants, and enhance retail operations and, of course, tourism.

I can tell you how much fun it is when I go to the Rose Bowl every year, and folks from across the country come to California for the first time and they marvel at the foothill scenery and what it's like to be in our great state. Unfortunately, given the advanced age, these venues are in desperate need of reinvestment surrounding their infrastructure, environmental sustainability, patron safety, preventative maintenance, and accessibility. These venues have been critical to California's sports culture for over a century.

And in order to ensure that they survive for at least another century, SB 96 provides some of the sales and use tax generated during the qualified events back to the locals to improve and secure these sites. The bill defines a venue as being qualified if it was built before 1940, is designated as historic landmark, or as it's been used for live ticketed events for more than 50 years. And it also has a seating capacity of at least 15,000 and hosts live entertainment or sporting events.

Again, we've tried to make it narrow in a sense that we're really talking about these historic venues, but also to put some parameters about what it means to qualify. Simply increasing ticket prices or fees is not the answer to this. I mean, we don't want to pass the burden on to the consumer when there are so many other burdens already being placed on consumer. This is really a policy question for us, whether we value these venues for what they provide to the State of California.

Frankly, it's similar to what's been done with state fairs or the Mills Act, which was enacted to provide assistance to historic homes. I would argue that keeping these crown jewels of our local communities safe, reliable, and competitive with newer venues, and again, a lot of the newer venues, frankly, are being built and financed by wealthy owner groups. These historic venues don't have that luxury, and so that's why I think they're a special case. They're throughout the state.

They're part of our history, and they need our care. So with me today, I have Jens Weiden--is the CEO of the Rose Bowl, and we have Carlos Singer, Director of Government Affairs and Engagement for the LA Philharmonic, and would love to have you hear from them directly and consider this at the appropriate time for an aye vote.

Very good. Welcome. We're giving each witness--lead witnesses two minutes, so either use up the two minutes or the four minutes for both of them.

I won't take any of Carlos's time. I promise. Madam Chair and Senators, thank you so much for having me. I'm Jens Weiden. I'm the GM of the Rose Bowl Stadium, which turned 100 years old last year, celebrated its centennial, and I'm happy to say that it's as vibrant and relevant today as when it was built. We, over the past ten years, have doubled the amount of large-scale events that we do and have invested tens of millions of dollars in infrastructure and capital projects. Competition, however, has never been more fierce.

As the Senator mentioned, many billion dollar stadiums and arenas have been built across this state, and we continue to fight to try and get market share and events. That's why we're so excited about this bill. We feel that being able to take a small portion of the revenues that are derived from our actual events and invest those back in our buildings will enable us to compete in that market and still continue to drive economic impact.

There's an NBA playoff game that's going to take place not too far from here tonight. The restaurants will be busy, the hotels will be busy. People will be working. The same takes place at our municipal buildings when we do large-scale events.

And we believe that this bill will enable us to stay as relevant as possible because that's really what's important for us is that these buildings--they're not just still erected, that they're being used, and that people are going to them because we all own these buildings. They're municipal buildings, and as was mentioned earlier, sometimes our resources aren't the same as pro-sports teams and pro-sports leagues that are able to invest in their buildings. And so we really, really appreciate your support of these historic structures. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Honorable Members. Thank you again for your time this morning and for giving this bill your consideration. The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association is the proud steward of a number of iconic venues in Southern California: the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Ford Theater. Today, in particular, I'm representing the Philharmonic in its partnership with the LA County Parks Department in stewarding the Hollywood Bowl, a cherished venue that also just recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary.

As exciting as these venues are, particularly because ours is an amphitheater and exposed to the elements all year long and it requires a fair amount of money to be invested just to keep up with the elements, so this work, maintaining and making sure that these venues continue to be not just vital, but vibrant for future generations, it's time-intensive. It's resource-intensive. And so your attention to this bill is very welcome from our standpoint.

We believe that SB 96 presents a reasonable balance, like the Senator said, between the state's interest in its General Fund dollars and the public interest in keeping--preserving the vitality of these cherished venues for generations to come. Thank you again for your time.

Thank you very much. Want to see if there's anyone else who would like to speak in support of this bill in Room 2100. Please come to the mic. State your name and affiliation, please.

Madam Chair and Members, Alex Torres, Board Member of the California Capitol Venues Coalition, a unification of Brick and Mortar private venues and festival operators that partner with local governments to put on events. In support of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in Room 2100? Seeing no one, is there anyone in Room 2100 that would like to be a lead witness in opposition? Seeing no movement, is there anybody that would like to just speak in opposition? Seeing no one, we'll move to the teleconference line, and Moderator, if you could queue up anybody that would like to give testimony today on this bill, that would be terrific.

Thank you. If for support or opposition, you may press one and then zero. Again, that is one and then zero for support or opposition. And one moment; we do have one queued up. Just get their line number.

Line 45, your line is open.

Hello? Yes. You are in Committee.

Please go ahead.

I think we lost.

One moment. Please.

Go ahead. Yes, I'm in support of SB 4, and I want to. Or you have an organization that has over 70 churches of protest. I'm sorry, but I apologize. I think you're on the wrong Bill. We're on SB 96. Okay, thank you. We'll get to that down probably in a while. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Sure.

And we have no one left in queue.

Very good. I'm going to bring the matter back to the Committee. Questions? Comments? Concerns? Anyone? Motion. There is a motion, Senator Portantino, you may conclude.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Members, these venues don't have the ginormous, splashy accoutrements of these $1.0 billion stadiums. What they have is their history and their long standing contribution to the health and welfare and the sporting and entertainment culture of California. It's appropriate to reinvest some of the sales tax revenue that they actually generate back into their upkeep. And so that's what's important to note here. They're generating this.

They should share in it so we can continue to have them thrill us and entertain us for another century. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. Well, I appreciate the discussions that we had in regards to this Bill, and I'm going to be supporting it today. I think it's important. And with that, we'll take the roll.

Motion is to pass us amended to Appropriations Committee. Senators Caballero, aye. Seyarto, aye. Blakespear, aye. Dahle. Durazo. Glazer. Skinner. Wienerm aye. 4-0

Four to zero. We're going to put that Bill on call for the absent Members. Members, I'd like to take up the consent agenda. Items. Is there a motion? There is a motion that they are four items. Item number 13, 14, 21 and 22. Please call the roll.

Motion is adopt the consent calendar. Senators. Caballero, aye Seyarto, aye. Blaespear, aye. Dahle. Durazo. Glazer. Skinner. Wiener, aye. 4-0

We'll put that on call as well. So, Senator Portantino, you have item number four. My apologies. SB 834.

No problem, Madam Chair. And again, I want to thank the chair and Members for letting me present SB 834, which places a $25 billion voter approved General obligation bond on the next statewide General election ballot to finance homeownership opportunities and promote new homeowner construction.

I'd like to start by accepting the Committee amendments to specify that a loan under this Bill could only be made when the final sales price of the property doesn't exceed either the county or state median price, whichever is lower, for new construction, which will target this program. To the most needy Californians, homeownership benefits are indisputable and lead to measurable improvements in health, education, security.

But we know our escalating home prices, severe production shortages, and generational barriers and inequity are squeezing many aspiring homeowners out of the market. Renters of all income levels, but especially those of Low and moderate income, frankly view home ownership as unattainable, and that's just not an acceptable sociological situation. So I think we have a responsibility to create more opportunities for first time and often left behind homebuyers to purchase a home, thrive in the middle class, and build generational wealth through equity.

It cannot be accomplished without addressing our housing production. And, of course, this Bill will help fuel both production and then also help folks get into those homes. So with that, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote when appropriate, and happy to have accepted your amendments.

Thank you very much for working on this as well. Do you have any lead witnesses in support?

I believe we do, yes, we do.

Very good.

Chair Members, good morning. Thank you for the hearing today. Beverly Yu, with the state building trades. We are in strong support of this Bill. I'd like to thank and applaud the author for bringing this Bill forward. This Bill provides thousands of jobs for our Members, provides mortgage assistance, new home construction, pre development work, and middle class wages and benefits so that workers building the new housing can afford one themselves.

The Bill will also make the dream of owning a home more attainable to more people at no cost to the state, who otherwise would be trapped in a vicious cycle of renting. For these reasons, we ask for your I vote. Thanks so much.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Jennifer Speck, on behalf of the California Association of Realtors, we're elated to work with the Senator on this particular Bill. It does create an opportunity for homeownership similar to the way that we did for the California dream for all. We do currently have a support if amended position, but we are working collaboratively with the author and we'll have amendments to you soon. But we're in a very good place with the Member and respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else in room 2100 that would like to testify in support of SB 834. Seeing no movement. Is there anyone that would like to testify as a lead witness in opposition? Welcome.

Good morning, chair and Members. Marina White with the California Housing Consortium in respectful oppose unless amended position on the Bill for a variety of reasons. The first is that all previous housing bonds have previously addressed a variety of housing needs. And this one by solely being focused on homeownership at the time when all of our affordable rental housing program funding is about to dry up. We would really like to see sort of a combination of uses for such a large housing bond.

Additionally, the Bill lessens the affordability requirements and broadens the income eligibility of families seeking SB 35, streamlining and overrides local inclusionary ordinances, which is also problematic. And lastly, we are worried that the skilled and trained workforce requirements would limit the breadth of the ability of using this tool. So look forward to continuing to work with you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak in opposition to this Bill?

Andrew Dawson with the California Housing Partnership. Similar comments as California housing consortium.

Thank you very much. Anyone else? Anyone else in room 2100 seeing no movement, we'll move on to the teleconference line, and if you could queue up Members of the public that would like to speak in opposition to SB 834.

Thank you for your supporter opposition of SB 834. You may press one and then zero. And we will go to line 48, your line is open. Line 48, your line is open. We will move on to line 50. Your line is open.

On behalf of the California Faculty Association in support. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Chair, we have no further supporter opposition in queue.

Very good. We'll bring it back to the Committee for comments.

I'm going to have a comment. I am going to be going to present in just a minute.

Very good, Senator.

So in the past couple of days, we've basically had $62 billion worth of bonds brought to us, and they're bonds that are well intentioned. The money is well intentioned because it's trying to take care of some of our foundational issues that we have problems with. The issue I have is that every time we have a foundational issue, we put it on taxpayers to borrow a bunch of money, and then when we have large surpluses, we don't spend those dollars to take care of the foundational issues.

And that's my concern here also. It's also interesting to me that every time we are trying to solve a problem, we have a CEQA exemption. What that tells me is that we have issues with CEQA, and that's one of the processes that is really creating barriers to building homes. Also, when we include provisions to increase the costs of building the homes and then we borrow money to cover those, we're going down a path of financial insolvency.

And so I'm going to be going to another Committee right now to present bills on financial literacy. And so you can tell where my mind is at. I think there is a way for us to address these issues without taking on enormous debt. And $62 billion is enormous, so total. And I know this is only the 25 billion part of it, but if you add them all together, it's $62 billion and counting. That is a lot of debt. And California already carries a lot of debt.

So I cannot support our bond requests to put them out when they do go out onto the ballot. A lot of times the ballot language is very misleading to people, and some people don't understand the bond process itself, and that that's debt that takes away from our ability to provide other services because we're paying interest on the bond debt. So with that, I am going to excuse myself so that I can go present in the other Committee. Thank you.

Very good. Other comments. Senator Blakespear.

I just wanted to ask about one of the comments that it excludes rental housing. Just understanding why you did that.

So, frankly, we have put in a number of policies and strategies over the last decade to increase our rental housing stock. But we have not, in my opinion, paid deference to first time home buyers. And I'm concerned that over time only focusing on rental housing is going to create a California that has no upward mobility. And when I talk to young families throughout California, Inland Empire, first generation Californians, they don't want to be lifetime renters. They want to have a piece of the American dream.

And wealthy people have assets. Hardworking people need to be able to buy a home and develop equity. So I think it's the key to upward mobility. And I think we've done a lot of work, and my colleague, Senator Wiener, has done tremendous work in increasing housing stock on the rental side. And I just think this is an underappreciated important aspect of a healthy economy.

Senator Wiener.

Excuse me. Thank you. And as I did it in housing Committee, I'll be supporting this today. I think obviously any large bond is going to be part of a broader conversation in terms of what goes on the ballot. I do want to just point out that the work we've done in recent years on housing, the funding side I'll acknowledge that is more on the rental side. Absolutely below market rate.

And the pro tem has done some work around this, around funding for first time homeowners, but funding has been more on the rental side in terms of our General housing policies. It's been both because, for example, the streamlining work, or has to do with also condos, townhomes, et cetera, which is also in your Bill.

So I think your Bill, whatever some of the concerns about it, if this funding makes it through all the prioritization process, it is a piece of the puzzle and helping people make those purchases. So I will vote to move it forward today.

Very good. If there are no more comments, Senator, I'll allow you to conclude.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I would like to comment on one of. Our colleague is not here to hear. But I do think it was actually fiscally responsible of us to put money into our rainy day fund and increase our reserves. I think that's a good thing to do. We shouldn't spend every nickel that we have when we know there's going to be years where we're going to need those reserves to tide us over.

And so last year, we certainly invested a large percentage of our surplus into structural issues, but we did put aside a historic amount into reserves, and I think that was a prudent thing to do. And using bond financing that's within our means to cover the debt service, again, I think is a responsible thing to do. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

I agree with you and we'll take the roll. Oh, yeah. We do need a motion. Senator Wiener, did you make the motion?

I move the Bill.

Yeah. You have a motion by Senator Wiener. Do pass, as amended, to appropriations. That amorphous Committee.

We'll see how it does there.

Senator Caballero?

Aye.

Caballero aye. Seyarto. Blakespear.

Blakespear aye. Dahle. Durazo. Glazer. Skinner. Wiener.

Aye.

Aye.

Wiener aye. 3 to 0.

We'll put that on call for the absent Members. Thank you, Senator. Madam Pro Tem. Welcome.

Madam Chair. Thank you.

And let me thank you for presenting SB 450 earlier. I so appreciate that. I am here, Madam Chair, colleagues, to present SB 519. It's a bill that will bring additional transparency and accountability to our county jails, specifically around in-custody deaths. In 2020, there were over 150 in-custody deaths statewide. And while SB 519 is intended to provide oversight for the whole state, I come to this issue from a local perspective.

Over a 15-year span, 185 people died in the San Diego jails, the highest rate of in-custody deaths in the state. In 2021 alone, there were 18 deaths in San Diego jails. In 2021, members of the San Diego Legislative Delegation called on the State Auditor to review the alarming and troubling deaths occurring in custody in San Diego. Last year, the State Auditor released its report providing a series of recommendations, primarily at the local level, to prevent future deaths.

The State Auditor also issued several state recommendations, one of which I, along with other San Diego Delegation members, coauthored last year with Assembly Member Akilah Weber to bring health and mental health expertise to the Board of State and Community Corrections. While many recommendations have been implemented at the local level, there are still lingering questions about how we can bring more transparency and accountability to prevent any further deaths. And many local jurisdictions across the state are actually grappling with the similar problems.

In 2022, 18 people died in custody in Riverside County's jail. In 2023, seven people have died in Los Angeles County Jail so far, and it's only April. Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Clara counties are under consent decrees. In fact, there are ten counties currently still under consent decrees. But local governments have limited control over the policies and procedures adopted by a sheriff's department, even though a county board of supervisors is required to approve a sheriff's department's budget.

Interestingly, county boards of supervisors bear the responsibility of settling lawsuits involving in-custody jail deaths and have limited authority in requiring the Sheriff's Department to enact policies to reduce in-custody deaths. For example, San Diego County Jail deaths and injuries have cost San Diego taxpayers more than 50 million dollars in legal settlements and jury awards in the past five years. SB 519 is intended to provide local governments and the public important information in order to help address these issues at the local level.

Specifically, it would do three things, and your analysis and staff did a great job of pointing out the history as well as what this bill does. But specifically, 519 would do three things: it would ensure that full reports of investigations relating to in-custody deaths are publicly accessible. This is consistent with the State Auditor's report. It would restore a county board of supervisors discretion to establish a local Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation headed by an executive officer if the Sheriff's Department is unresponsive in addressing problems with its county detention facilities.

The bill spells out what that would be. It would expand the mission of the BSCC to promote the legal and safe conditions for youth, inmates, and staff in local detention facilities. So with me today, with your permission to testify in support of the bill, is Paul Parker, who is the Executive Officer at the San Diego County Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board--we call them CLERB--and Julia Yu, an attorney who's represented families who've died in custody. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much. I'd like to welcome you to the mic. Thank you for being here.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Paul Parker, and I'm the Executive Officer with the San Diego County Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board, CLERB. We provide civilian oversight services to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. We conduct independent investigations into all in-custody deaths. In 2021, there were 18. In 2022, there were 19 or 20, depending on whose statistics you cite. And so far this year, unfortunately, there have been three.

Also, unfortunately, CLERB, family members, community members, and media representatives are not privy to internal affairs or administrative investigation reports conducted by the Department. This lack of transparency, combined with statutory and case law limitations placed upon California civilian oversight entities, prohibit the public disclosure or discussion of these investigations and leave family members in the community without answers to the most basic of questions. For example, what preventative measures were undertaken by the Department? What did it do well? What could it have done better?

Most importantly, was the death preventable? Was anyone responsible for it? If so, were they held responsible, and how? Were policy changes implemented or other actions taken to prevent future deaths? While this bill addresses issues in San Diego, as Senator Atkins has said, it's also important statewide. I have over 20 years of experience in the medical examiner coroner field, both as an investigator and an executive in California and the southwestern United States.

I've interacted with thousands of grieving family members during the past few decades, and I know that they're provided minimal, if any, information during and after the investigation into law enforcement-related deaths. These investigations can last several months to several years. Many times, litigation is the only option for these families to get any answers to their questions.

From my medical examiner experience, I know all too well that when a family member is not told details about a death, they'll fill in the blanks for themselves, oftentimes with conjecture, speculation, and many times coming to incorrect conclusions. Finally, sheriff candidates currently meet certain requirements, but none of them include detention facility management or expertise. Persons in county custody are certainly vulnerable. They're reliant upon the county for their care and their well-being.

Allowing boards of supervisors to create departments of correction and appoint executive officers with applicable detention facility management experience will result in more control at the local level, a quicker response to detention facility issues or concerns, and most importantly, the potential saving of lives. Waiting years for the next sheriff election in your respective jurisdiction to address immediate concerns is simply not a viable option for folks in custody and their families.

CLERB supports Senator Atkins's efforts to increase and improve transparency around detention facility-related deaths and better management of those facilities. SB 519 may not prevent all deaths or relieve the pain that families experience in the event of a death, but will certainly help to solve the mysteries unanswered and the stories left untold by the status quo. I thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, please.

Good morning. My name is Julia Yoo. I am the President of the National Police Accountability Project, which is the largest civil rights attorney organization in the country. I also serve on the board of directors of CAOC, the Consumer Attorneys of California, and I'm also a partner at Iredale and Yoo, a civil rights law firm based out of San Diego, and for the last two decades I have represented victims and impacted families of people who have been killed or catastrophically injured in the county jails.

And while San Diego may be the worst, it is not alone. We have a statewide problem requiring a statewide solution. This is why SB 519 has the broad support of civil rights organizations, community activists, and most importantly, the impacted families and victims themselves. As evidenced by the auditor's report, we are experiencing a crisis, and time has come for a meaningful reform. The culture of inaction in these jails is pervasive. But also pervasive is a breakdown of trust between our communities and law enforcement.

And that is because the information surrounding the deaths and the subsequent investigations are shrouded in needless secrecy. Grieving parents should never be forced to file a lawsuit in federal court just to find out how their children died. This is torture for them. There is pervasive frustration that no one in the county is taking any action, and a perception that our elected leaders have turned a blind eye.

The boards of supervisors need to engage the community and be responsive to the public, and they need to be given the tools to do so. We need leadership, and we deserve answers and proactive changes. SB 519 will provide critical steps in addressing this statewide crisis. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for being here today. Is there anyone who would like to add on as a me too? Please come forward.

Natasha Minsker, Smart Justice California, in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Graciela Castillo-Krings, here on behalf of the California Public Defenders Association, in support.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in room 2100? Seeing no one moving. Is there anyone who would like to speak in opposition as a lead witness? Seeing no movement. Is there anyone who would just like to testify in opposition as a me too, although there hasn't been a lead witness? Seeing no movement.

We're going to move on to the teleconference line and ask if there's anyone on the conference line that would like to testify.

Thank you. For in supporter opposition of SB 519, you may press one and then zero. We will go to line 70. Your line is open.

This is Deb Roth with Disability Rights California, in support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 73. Your line is open.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Elise Fandrich from TrattenPrice Consulting representing the Consumer Attorneys of California in support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 20. Your line is open.

Good morning. Rachel Mueller with Weideman Group on behalf of Next Gen California and Immigrant Defense Advocates in support of SB 519.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, go to line 66, your line is open.

Thank you. Brittney Barsotti with the California News Publishers Association, California Broadcasters Association, First Amendment Coalition, Media Alliance, and Oakland Privacy in strong support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Line 68, your line is open.

Good morning, Chair and Senators. Anthony DiMartino, on behalf of Californians for Safety and Justice, in strong support and thank the author.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Line 49, your line is open.

Good morning. Spencer Clue, resident of San Diego County, in support.

Thank you.

Thank you. And we have no further support or opposition. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Very good. We're going to bring the discussion back to the Committee. Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank you for bringing this Bill. I didn't have an opportunity in public safety to make remarks on it, although I did vote for it there. This is actually an incredibly important Bill and addresses a very real issue that in California, sheriffs run these huge systems. And because of our failures around mental health, the county jails are often the largest mental health providers.

We know the LA County Jail, which until recently, until the voters acted, had a disaster of a sheriff. The voters made a change, which was good. That's the largest public mental health provider in the entire country. It's an indictment of our whole system, but it's the reality we face. And yet in California, the only people who are eligible to run for sheriff, to run these huge health systems are people with post certificates. You have to be a law enforcement officer to even be eligible to run for sheriff.

It wasn't that way until the late 80s. The sheriffs got mad that San Francisco elected a non-law enforcement officer sheriff who ended up serving for 30 years, and they changed the law to box everyone else out. And that means it's a very limited pool of people. You can't elect a health professional to run your county jails. You can't elect someone with a strong administrative background unless a law enforcement officer happens to have that. So it's a bad situation.

We tried to change this a few years ago. The Bill got stuck in this Committee, previous iteration of this Committee, and I'm really glad this is approaching it from a different approach to just allow the counties to act and to separate it out. And so this is really important, and I would love to be added as a co-author.

Thank you. Very good. Any other comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion. We do have a motion, Madam Pro Tem, you may conclude.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, colleagues. I want to thank all the speakers today that were here, my key speakers and those that came on board, as me too's, many community members representing the community. But I also want to share with this Committee. I think we have responsibility in this arena. That 10 counties have consent decrees is not just on the sheriffs.

It is really on the counties, and it is on us in terms of the resources we provide for those critical issues mentioned by my colleague from San Francisco, mental health issues, et cetera. So I just want to make sure that you know and this Committee knows I am working with law enforcement. Probably the reason you don't see the sheriffs and some here speaking today is because we are keeping an open dialogue, because this is a problem we all need to solve.

This is not pointing fingers at anybody. We have a problem. And it is our communities that have started to tell us these are regular, everyday people up and down California saying we are not doing a good enough job. So I think this helps for information. The County of Napa actually has. The county has their own Department of Corrections, so there is an example of that. But again, I thank you for your time. I thank you for the thoughtful discussion.

I thank all the people engaged in this discussion. We can do better, and I hope this legislation puts us in the direction that we're doing a better job by the public. I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. We do have a motion. Call the roll, please.

Motion is to pass to Appropriations Committee. Senators Caballero? Caballero aye. Seyarto? Blakespear? Blakespear aye. Dahle? Durazo? Glazer? Skinner? Wiener? Wiener aye. Three to zero.

We will put that on call for the absent Members. Can we also take up item number 6, which is the Bill that I presented earlier by Senator Atkins? Is there a motion? Thank you, Senator. Senator Blakespear moves. It is item number 6. I did that earlier. Please call the roll.

Motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. Senators Caballero? Caballero aye. Seyarto? Blakespear? Blakespear aye. Dahle? Durazo? Glazer? Skinner? Wiener? Wiener aye. 3-0.

Has three votes. We'll put it on call. Here we have Senator Laird here. You're up. Item number 5, SB 272. Welcome.

I haven't seen you in a long time.

Actually, the last time I saw you was in this room at 11:30 last night.

A little detail.

Yeah. So, thank you, Madam Chair. And I was going to say and a Member, and I'm not sure how long that's going to last. This Bill will boost our state's coastal resiliency by ensuring California's coastal communities are planning and prepared for sea level rise. I know Senator Caballero knows it very well, but in my district alone, in the atmospheric rivers, a seawall was wiped out for the 6th time. Two piers went down the iconic Westcliffe Drive in Santa Cruz. A lot of it fell into the ocean.

The Big Sur highways are still closed. Carmel had sewer pipes shooting out in the air in a neighborhood, out of a sewer system for a very long time. Pismo beach had things falling. If the water recycling plant had been working on so long, hadn't opened in Morro Bay, it was just three weeks in when the ocean overtook the old sewage treatment plant. And we would have had a catastrophic failure if that switch hadn't happened.

And that's even not taking into account the Santa Cruz wharf, which is about 20ft above sea level. And as the waves were breaking over the end of the wharf, which is almost a mile along, they frantically got hundreds of people off the wharf to make sure that they were safe. This is now.

This is before some of the sea level rise that we're reading about, due to the fact that the Arctic and Greenland and other places are melting faster where land based Ayes is going into the ocean. And so it's up to us to plan. Senator Atkins did a Bill that really deals with state agencies. What this Bill does is deal with coastal plans and Bay Area plans, with the Coastal Commission and with the BCDC. That really governs the Bay Area.

And right now, local governments do plans, but they're not required to update them, they're not required, necessarily to include certain things in them. And when I was resources secretary, the Administration worked hard to update the local coastal plans for this, but there is no requirement to update them. As new science becomes available, facts become available, we see what's actually happening on the ocean.

So this Bill requires a local government within the coastal zone or the jurisdiction of the BCDC, to address sea level rise planning, or in the San Francisco Bay shoreline coastal resiliency by January 2034, with a goal of completing plans by January 2029.

And a plan would have to include the use of best available science, a vulnerability assessment, a sea level rise adaptation plan, a timeline for updates based on conditions and projections, and this Bill also incentivizes local planning, making local governments eligible for prioritized sea level rise project funding. This Bill might look familiar to you.

As I introduced it this year, it landed on the governor's desk, and it is still a bone of contention with me, as at the last minute, we added money for sea level rise planning. But the Governor said there was no money in the budget to Fund this Bill. Let's just say exasperation. Without going into further detail. And as an aside, this year the Governor cut the coastal resiliency money in his proposed budget by 43%.

In his defense, he did that before the first atmospheric river hit on the coast. And so there is money there for local coastal planning before restoring the cut. But I think we're really looking in the budget as a companion item, to have whatever cut is that match the cut to all other programs, not the disproportionate cut that has been applied to local coastal resiliency.

And we have formed, and the Senator is a Member, a central coast caucus of 10 legislators that represent the five counties along the central coast. This is a priority. This has been outlined because it really affects every district. I worked hard last year to address concerns of the League of Cities and the State Association of Counties, and after those negotiations, they went neutral.

We're in conversations with a coalition of opposed, unless amended, and we are working and will take or are taking amendments that address most of their issues. But let me call out the one that they're still unhappy about. They want there to be an explicit statement that there's not a penalty in this Bill.

Well, there happens to be not a penalty in the Bill, but I think making the explicit statement weakens it and might even cast on the regulatory agencies deciding whether or not to prove the plans with strong statements. So I have not taken that amendment, even though I've been flexible on the rest. I have a primary witness today, Miho Ligare from the Surf Rider foundation, and we have broad support of the Bill, which is included in your packet. I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much, Mr. Ligare, if you'd like to come forward. Madam Ligare, welcome.

Thank you. Good morning, Members of the Committee. My name is Miho Ligare with the Surf Rider foundation, and I'm here to support Senate Bill 272, SB 272 keeps California beaches in existence by requiring local governments to plan for sea level rise.

Sea level rise are rising, and rates will accelerate dramatically in the next 10 to 20 years, as demonstrated by this year's run of atmospheric rivers, elevated seas and storm surges have had dramatic impacts on the quality of life, habitat, infrastructure, and well being along the coast. The Bill mandates local coastal program updates by 2034. This timeline makes the critical task of planning for sea level rise more than manageable for local governments.

We know that planning for sea level rise must happen locally due to the need to comprehensively think about public resources, infrastructure, property and the local environment. The Bill does not come with the price tag. Funding will get allocated to local governments through Ocean Protection Council sea level rise grants in the future, and this is complementary to Senate Bill one, which the Legislature passed in recognizing the need to plan for sea level rise in California due to the enormous risk to quality of life, resources and infrastructure.

Californians care about the coast, and we must urge forward thinking and planning to preserve our coastline. If we do not act, fail to plan, instead respond to emergency armoring, our beaches will disappear. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Currently, there are areas where we can't safely recreate, walk, or access the ocean.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone that would like to add on as a me too here in the room 2100?

Good morning, Committee Members. Steve Goldbeck, deputy Executive Director, San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, or BCDC, which is in support of the Bill.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Abigail Mighell, on behalf of the mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District and the California State Parks foundation, in strong support.

Thank you.

Chair and members. Nick Rommel, on behalf of the League of California Cities, reaffirming our neutrality. We respect the Senator's leadership on this issue. All that's balanced on making sure that the timelines and the budgets are there to match the need for this. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to speak in support of this Bill?

Michael Jarrett, on behalf of the California Institute for Biodiversity, in support of this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in room 2100? Seeing no movement. Is there anyone who would like to speak as a lead witness in opposition?

Madam Chair Members Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association, we're part of that. Opposed unless amended. We've really appreciated the amendments that we've seen to date. We are looking at those. I think we received them in the last 24 to 48 hours. So we're looking at them and look forward to coming back to you and having more discussion. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Madam Chair Members. Alex Torres with the Bay Area Council. What Mr. Ferrari said. Thank you.

Very good. I like it. Anyone else seeing no movement? We'll move on to the teleconference line. Moderator, if you could cue people who would like to speak either in opposition or in support.

Thank you. For your in support or opposition of SB 272, you may press one and then zero. We will go to line 67, your line is open.

Pamela Heatherington, environmental center of San Diego, strong support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Line 60, line is open.

On behalf of the City of Santa Monica in support.

Thank you. Line 29, your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and honorable Members of the Committee. My name is Ashley Eagle-Gibbs with the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin in strong support for SB two. 72.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

I have me, too to list. I have a few more to go.

Oh, very good. I'm sorry about that.

Building on the NGO support letter sent March 17, in addition to support from Surffrider Foundation, Anthony Tersell, Monterey Chapter Surf Writer Foundation, Nina Atkin, SF Chapter Surf Rider Foundation, Susan Jordan, California Coastal Protection Network, Cody Phillips, California Coastkeeper Alliance, Adriana Guerrero Brown Girl Surf, Scott Webb, Turtle Island Restoration Network. The following additional groups also support the Bill.

Thomas Valdez, Azul, Pam Heatherington, Environmental center of San Diego, Samantha Samuelson, Ottawa, California, and Jennifer Colt, Humboldt Baykeeper. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you so much. The way to do it.

Thank you. Next line 27, your line is open.

Thank you. My name is Aaron Pang, representing save the bay, and we support SB 272.

Thank you. Next. We'll go line 64, your line is open. Line 64, your line is open. Okay. And Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Very good. Well, we're going to bring the matter back to the Committee, and it could be your happy day or you're not happy day. We have no other Committee Members, so there are no questions for you today. When I get Members that can make a motion, we will do so. I appreciate you bringing this Bill forward. I think it's an important step to kind of close the loop on some of the planning that we need to do in order to address the very issues you talked about.

The disaster that you talked about is all of the infrastructure that is going to be needed to be repaired. But there's also the fact that so many people come to California because of its iconic beauty, and as was mentioned, you start losing the beaches and you're in trouble. So I'll allow you to conclude.

I will just thank everybody that supported and for the discussion and would just say that having been in this room for 46 bills yesterday in one hearing, why was there not only one Member for about the last 20 bills.

That is true. Thank you.

But thank you. I really appreciate it and respect and request, and I vote at the appropriate time.

Absolutely. Will do. You feel prepared to make a motion on this one? That's wonderful. We do have a motion, which is 'do pass to Appropriations.'

[Roll Call]. Two to zero.

We'll put that on call for further add ons. Senator Becker, you are up. We're on Item Number Two: SB 634. Welcome to Committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Every day in Sacramento, every day, including this morning, I walk by unsheltered, unhoused people living in doorways mere steps from our State Capitol. And it's just heartbreaking that California has the highest rates of both homelessness and unsheltered homelessness in the country. And I believe it's incumbent on us to do everything that we can to bring people indoors. I don't need to tell all of you that people are literally dying on our streets now every day.

At the same time, I think we have a model here that's working and shows great promise, and that's what we're here today to talk about, expanding that model. I'd first like to start by accepting all the Committee amendments outlined in the analysis, and I want to thank your Committee staff for working with mine on the bill. This bill will define Opportunity Housing and statute and help the state expeditiously address their homelessness crisis while we wait for permanent housing to be built.

It will be very clear that I'm very supportive of every effort to build permanent housing, and I think we should be putting more money, frankly, from our state government to build permanent, affordable housing that's truly affordable. But our lack of adequate shelter contributes to a high senation on shelter rate, with 67 percent of Californians that are homeless experiencing unsheltered homelessness.

At the same time, state and local agencies sit on vast quantities of land that is vacant, meaning that it's not currently being developed, and it could be utilized to help our homeless population. This bill does the following. Number one: defines Opportunity Housing and statute as low-barrier navigation center that is non-congregate, relocatable, reserved for people who are homeless or at risk of experiencing homelessness, and is on land with no demonstrable use for the next five years.

Second: requires local agencies to respond to requests to develop that land for Opportunity Housing. Third: creates a streamlined approval process to develop these units quickly, and finally tasks HCD with reviewing building codes to expedite and reduce construction costs of Opportunity Housing while maintaining health and safety standards. By doing so, we hope we can rapidly scale an optimistic, hopeful, inexpensive solution to get people indoors as fast as possible. And with that, I have two witnesses, Elizabeth Funk from Dignity Moves and Alex Torres from the Bay Area Council.

Good morning. I'm the founder and CEO of Dignity Moves, and we've been building housing such as this that we are calling Opportunity Housing today. In one of the richest and most innovative places in the world, we can't figure out how to get roofs over people's heads. Surely we're standing in our own way. We need to take a step back and think more innovatively. We also need a dose of optimism. This can be done. I feel like that's been left behind.

Innovation is going to give us that optimism. As Californians, we know that we desperately need more permanent housing, but the cost to build that is so astronomical and it takes so long. It's just not realistic to expect to be able to get everyone indoors immediately, even if we had unlimited resources. The crisis is now, and it's exacerbated every day that people languish on the streets. Cities are working diligently to build that housing, but we need to empower them with a broader set of tools.

By holding out that permanent housing is the only viable solution, we're letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. In the meantime, while that permanent housing is coming online, we need solutions that are fast, effective, scalable, cost-effective, and scalable. In San Francisco, our project at 33 Golf Street was permitted in less than three weeks. Surely that's a historic first. And we had heads in beds from the start of construction in less than two months. That's the kind of fast solution that we need.

At 50,000 dollars per room or under 100,000 for a studio with bathrooms, these are within the range of private money. Philanthropy can contribute to it. That's the kind of cost-effective that we need. And in Santa Barbara County, we are literally building enough interim housing for everyone who's unsheltered across the entire county in one initiative, primarily funded by philanthropy on county-owned land. That's the kind of scale that this problem needs. And there are dozens of manufacturers just in our state alone.

Together, this industry is booming. It's almost infinite supply of these modular units. This innovative model of using vacant land and relocatable housing has already been proven in places like San Jose, which has been a leader in this model, San Francisco, and Santa Barbara, and we're seeing a surge of interest from cities across the state. This bill is needed. Let me give you a few examples.

Matt Mahan, the Mayor of San Jose, says he's been trying to get the Valley Transit Authority to let him use vacant land, and they're dragging their feet. Supervisor Manu Koenig from Santa Cruz County ran on the proposition of building interim housing and he's drafting his own ordinance to allow tiny homes to be built in more zones, particularly, for instance, commercial. So local municipalities are asking for this. I think we need to provide and pave the way for them at the state level.

I do believe some local municipalities may take it even further in additional ordinances, but we can provide the guardrails and pave the path to guide them. We are all about empowering the local--

I ask you to wrap up because I think you're starting to run into the next witnesses.

Okay, sorry. We are about trying to empower local municipalities to do what they're trying to do and build housing for people immediately. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate your testimony.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Alex Torres of the Bay Area Council here, and we are proud to cosponsor and help advance this measure. I think if you look outside that room, you see a good cross section of the workforce that will build the permanent supply of housing that our state needs into the future. But we need to talk about what we're going to do in that interim step to keep folks off our streets. Over 170,000 Californians experience homelessness on any given day.

As my colleague Senator Becker stated, this opportunity housing consists of non-congregate housing that takes months to build and install but not years. The units are engineered for residents to stay years, not months, if no permanent housing options is available. Hopefully decision this Committee and the Legislature makes will make that permanent supply online in the near future, but we need to do something, as I said, in the interim.

Opportunity Housing units are built without foundations that can utilize temporarily vacant and/or excess land at little to no cost, a twelfth of the cost of permanent housing. These units have been approved by state and federal regulators to provide transitional housing for people experiencing homelessness and people at risk of becoming homelessness.

SB 634 would encourage this development while permanent and affordable housing is under construction by defining this in statute, requiring local agencies to respond to requests to develop the land for this housing type, create a streamlined approvals process, and task HCD with reviewing building codes to expedite the construction of this housing.

We worked with Committee staff on amendments to improve the collaboration with local government, including granting local governments final say over the proposed projects on public lands. For these reasons, Bay Area Council, again, proud to be a cosponsor here. Urge your support here today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. #MeToo's add ons. Welcome.

Hi, everyone. Leora Tanjuatco Ross, here on behalf of YIMBY action. We also support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Ross Buckley, on behalf of Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, in support.

Thank you.

Morning, Madam Chair and Members. Michael Gunning here with Lighthouse Public Affairs in support for SPUR. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Todd David, on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, in support.

Thank you very much.

Danny Curtin, California Conference of Carpenters. Boy, I should have that down by now. I do want to add one comment, if I may. We are in support, but we want to make sure that we do not confuse the concept of prevailing wages in the manufactured facilities conversation. I don't know if that was brought up or not, but we are in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else in Room 2100 that would like to testify in support? Seeing no movement, is there anybody that would like to serve as a lead witness in opposition? Want to invite you to please come forward.

Good morning, Chair and Members. On behalf of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, Housing California, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Western Center on Law and Poverty, California Rural Legal Assistance, and Public Interest Law Project, we are respectfully opposed unless amended.

Just to be clear, we fully support this concept for interim housing, and we could even support the bill if it were just focused on interim housing. We were fully supportive of provisions in current law around low-barrier navigation centers and a by-right process and housing element law that allows shelters and other interim settings to be cited by right.

We agree with the author that people should not be kicked out of shelter settings, and nothing in current law requires people to leave interim settings during the day or after a certain period of time. However, the text of SB 634 and the bill author indicates these tiny homes should receive state prioritization and favor as permanent or transitional housing, and for this reason, we are opposed unless amended.

Thank you very much.

The state has provided affordable housing with streamlining process in the past because of the public good that affordable housing provides, but nothing in this bill has affordable housing provisions, and sponsors have indicated they'd like to charge rent even as an interim setting. The sponsors have indicated they'd like to create transitional model of housing and be able to end someone's tenancy whenever they choose, which is contrary to our current housing law.

That would result in tenants who have been homeless to lose their status as homeless, which will mean they will be ineligible for many housing programs dedicated specifically to people experiencing homelessness, like any number of federal programs and the HAP, Homekey, and many other programs the state provides. Further, one of the sponsors operates tiny homes now in some segregated communities that have little access to amenities or jobs, which makes it untenable for longer term housing.

Transitional housing is no longer funded by the state or the federal government for a reason because it does a model that does not work. It's been found to actually result in more people returning to homelessness than any other model, including interim housing. The model typically and often does not have plumbing and are typically placed on a cement slab or dirt, and building materials do not last very long, which makes it actually more expensive per square foot than affordable housing that is constructed on foundations. We have offered amendments to the author's staff and met with his staff, and we hope that they'll be amenable to addressing our concerns. Thank you very much.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Chris Lee here on behalf of the Urban Counties of California and today on behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California, also with an opposed unless amended position on the bill that's in print. Really two issues. First, in terms of this being a potential model for interim housing, don't want to get in the way of that, but do want the by-right process to be similar based on the existing process for the low-barrier navigation center.

So that was the first requested amendment that we called out in our letter. On the second, I heard a lot of conversation about how we don't want to compete with permanent supportive housing here, and I think that's fine, but on Section Six related to the use of public lands, we think this is actually giving this model a more preferential treatment than any other type of housing, including permanent housing.

There's a lot of bills proceeding this year about the use of public lands, putting pretty significant limitations on the ability to lease lands without first offering them to permanent affordable housing developers, and so we've asked for that section of the bill to come out. It sounds like there might be some amendments today that help resolve that as well, but we look forward to reviewing those and we'll reassess our position, but currently opposed unless amended.

And also, I've also been asked to iterate the position of the California Special Districts Association: oppose less amended related to those public land provisions. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Jason Bryant, League of California Cities. I certainly echo the comments made by my counterpart over at the Urban Counties. Appreciate the author considering amendments. We look forward to seeing those in print and we continue to work on the measure. Appreciate it.

Okay, thank you. Well, I'm the last woman standing here up here, so now I've taken over. So we will go to the teleconference line in support.

Thank you. For in support, you may press one and then zero. And we will go to line 25. Your line is open. Line 25, your line is open.

We'll do that after.

We will move on to line 13. Your line is open.

I'm in support. I'm in support.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 82. Your line is open.

This is Doug Zucker with Gensler Architects. I'm strongly in support of this. We are obviously very interested in long-term housing, but it doesn't solve the need, and this is something we're incredibly focused on.

Thank you for your comments, sir. This is just the opportunity to say support or opposition.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 94. Your line is open.

Hi. This is Lynette Lee Eng. I'm a council member with the City of Los Altos, and I strongly support this bill.

Thank you. Line 84, your line is open.

Hi. My name is Rebecca Eisenberg. I serve as a director on the Santa Clara Valley Water District in Santa Clara County, and I strongly support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 88. Line 88, your line is open.

All right, and next we'll go to Line 44. Your line is open.

Hello? Yes, hi, I'm Councilmember Kitty Moore of Cupertino, representing myself only. And I'm calling in support. Thank you.

Okay, we have no further support in queue.

Okay, thank you. Do we have anybody in queue for opposition?

Thank you. If you're in opposition, you may press one and then zero. And we will go to 86. Your line is open.

Hi, my name is Catherine Moy. I'm the mayor of Fairfield, California, and I'm actually calling to support.

Thank you. And we have no further in queue.

Okay, thank you very much. So now we will return to committee comments. Seeing nobody but me, I will comment. So I very much appreciate the creativity in this bill. I think you said it at the beginning, which is don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We have a clear humanitarian crisis on our streets. We have encampments within the shadow of the capital.

We have property that is available for short term, midterm, five years or less housing. We should be utilizing that. So I am very enthusiastic about this, and I would encourage those who are in opposition to reconsider that, to think about the hope that was communicated from the first woman who testified, suggesting that we can do a lot, and we should do it with energy.

So I think there's a lot of potential here, and I'm really grateful that you and the sponsors in the committee have come up with this idea. So with that, I will move approval. Would you like to close?

Sure, I will close just for a moment, just address some of the other comments. First of all, thank you, and I really appreciate your comments and your support. Obviously, I think serving as a local elected informs that, and I really appreciate it. And, yeah, we're certainly happy to continue. The opposition sort of says we have the same goals, and that's great. I think we do have the same goals, and we want to get people off the street. So we're happy to continue conversations.

There may be some miscommunication or some confusion because we don't say anything about any people's tendency. So I don't know where that comes from. And the notion that this is somehow more expensive is just not true. And we can go through the economics of that. But again, fully supportive. And certainly we'll do everything in my power to build more permanent, affordable housing. And I think we should allocate more money from our state government to do that. But in the meantime, this is, as you said, an optimistic, hopeful solution. And I respectfully request an aye vote.

Okay, great. Well, so let's move to the vote. I just made a motion. Okay, well, I still made a motion, but as the acting Chair, I can still make a motion. Yes, so I did.

Motion is to pass this amended to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

All right, here's our next author. Senator Min is here and so is Archuleta. Who is first? Okay, that measure will be on call. All right, next up on the docket, we have File Item number 7, SB 475 by Senator Min. Senator Min, when you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Acting Chair, Committee Member. This is a barn burner of a bill. SB 475 would authorize the City of Laguna Woods to utilize a portion of the city center parkland for the construction of a new Orange County Fire Authority fire station, while allowing the city to reinvest in the remaining parkland. The only fire station currently serving the city is located on its eastern boundary, but in recent years, there's been an increase in call volume, community growth, and traffic.

This has led to longer response times for the western portions of the city, as well as the nearby canyons that are very, very prone to wildfires. As a result, there's a significant need to have a second fire station strategically located within the city for improved delivery of services. A 2022 analysis of undeveloped sites that could physically accommodate a new fire station determined that the City Center Park would be the best location to serve the western part of the Laguna Woods City.

The city did receive $125,000 in state grant funds in 2011 to make various improvements to the City Center Park. While these funds were only a small portion of the funding used to improve the park, the receipt of these bond funds restricted Laguna Wood's ability to lease these park properties for non-park purposes, permitting, thus, the need for state legislation.

Permitting the construction of a new fire department at City Center Park will improve response times, accommodate the growing public safety demands of Laguna Wood residents and neighboring areas, while also maximizing underutilized City Center Park Land. Today I have with me Chris Macon, city manager from Laguna Woods and the legislative affairs manager for the Orange County Fire Authority, to testify in support.

Welcome, Mr. Macon. Thank you for making the trip up.

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for your time today. On behalf of the City of Laguna Woods, I just wanted to provide a couple of contextual comments on this to give you an idea of City Center Park. It is about a half acre. If you can imagine a rectangle that's slightly narrower at one side and slightly wider at the other side and runs uphill. That is the property we're talking about. It was acquired in 2001 from the Ralph's grocery store company.

Prior to that, it had been intended for use as a private truck accessway to a grocery store that had been planned for an adjacent shopping center, but was ultimately never constructed. In 2001, the city was deeded that property by Ralph's Grocery, sat vacant for a number of years, and ultimately, in 2004, the city was awarded Proposition 40 per capita funding to make some improvements to that park area that was tied together with some city general fund monies.

And the end result is a park that essentially consists of a concrete walking path in a kind of serpentine configuration, some landscaping, and other passive amenities. It's not an active use park at all. This is not sports fields, restrooms. There's no lighting. It's very much just a landscaped area with some walking mobility. The funds were used in 2011 for that purpose. Originally, 220,000 of that 125,000 was carried forward to a second agreement with state parks. Fast forward a couple of years.

The Orange County Fire Authority identified a clear need for an additional fire station based in the City of Laguna Woods and specifically on the western side of Laguna Woods. You'll hear from my colleague at the Fire Authority in a moment about more of that process. But I wanted to make sure you know that we worked side by side with the Fire Authority to screen locations throughout the city.

And ultimately, as the senator mentioned, City Center Park was identified as the best location for it and quite frankly, the only feasible location in Laguna Woods. So we're proposing taking about 0.32 acres of that 0.56 park site, turning that into a fire station, and then reinvesting in the remnant park to the tune of at least $212,000, which was the appraised value of the park property proposed for use as a fire station.

So from the city's perspective, we absolutely believe that the proposed fire station is critical to the safety and welfare of our predominantly senior community, and we respectfully request your support today.

Thank you for your testimony. Chief, why don't you come on up?

Good morning. My name is Jay Barkman, legislative affairs manager for Orange County Fire Authority. Orange County Fire Authority is a joint powers authority. We are consisted of 23 cities in Orange County and the county unincorporated areas. We are the EMS and fire service provider to those cities and to the county.

And as the senator and Chris mentioned, we did identify a need several years ago with the growth and the increase in traffic and call services in that area for the western end of the city that's being underserved right now. The one fire station located on the eastern end is also located near the 5 and the 405 junction, one of the busiest areas of the state, probably traffic-wise.

So that station is what we call a big house, receives a number of calls, and is involved in a number of extrications and EMS calls across the city. So it is busy. And we do need another station to help assist the residents in the western area to meet our standards of response. So with that, we've been working with the city, and we look forward to working with the senator and state parks going forward to address this issue and get a station there to serve the residents. So thank you very much. Appreciate your support.

Thank you very much. All right, is there anybody else in the room that would like to add a support, me toos? If there are none, we'll go to opposition. Is there anybody for lead opposition on this issue? If there are none, is there anybody in opposition in the room? If there are none, ATT&T operator, let's get people on the line for them to express either support or opposition. And if you're calling in, please, just your name, the organization you represent, and whether you support or oppose the measure.

Thank you. For support or opposition, you may press one and then zero. And this is on SB 475. One and then zero for support or opposition. And we have no one in queue at this time.

Okay, then we will bring it back to the dais for any questions, comments, anybody? If there are none, we have a motion to move the bill. And my only comment is, I don't know if I can get behind the whole fire station concept in my background. This is tough. No, absolutely supportable. This is something that's needed out there for the growth and everything. And so thank you for bringing this to us. With that, if you have any closing?

Thank you, Senator. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right, we'll go ahead and call the roll.

Motion is to pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, we'll hold that open for other Members to add on. And then next up, we have another author here, Mr. Archuleta, Senator. This will be Item number 8, and that's SB 563 by Senator Archuleta. Sir, whenever you're ready.

Very good. Morning, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. I'd like to thank you all. I'd like to begin by obviously accepting and notifying you that I've accepted the Committee's amendments. And I thank the Chair and the staff for working with my office in this very, very important issue. Today I'm presenting Senate Bill 563 which will ensure the air districts are able to apply for funding opportunities from the State and Federal Government.

California's 35 local air districts are responsible for regional air quality planning, monitoring and facility permitting. Under current law, the terms district, special district, dependent special district, and independent special district are all defined. However, these definitions are ambiguous and sometimes contrary. Some statutory definitions categorically exclude air district, while others definitions include them. As a result of these conflicting and confusing provisions, local air districts that would otherwise qualify as independent are currently not eligible for funding.

This continues to have negative impacts on the air district's eligibility to receive vital state and federal funding. As an example, during the pandemic, federal funding was made available through the American Rescue Plan act to provide fiscal relief to local public agencies for unanticipated cost and revenue losses occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of these funds, the American Rescue plan gave states and local agencies the authority to transfer a portion of these funds to the special districts.

This federal legislation did not define special districts as independent or dependent. Despite this, in California, this federal funding was appropriated through an annual budget act and directed specifically to independent special districts only. Due to this contradiction and ambiguous definition, air districts were deemed ineligible to apply for this type of funding. This Bill is critical because it will even the playing field for these air districts to supply and apply for funding when available.

Air districts ensure that air we breathe is healthy and we are vital for helping California meet our ambitious environmental goals. It is only fair to give them the opportunity to access necessary funding. This Bill has no opposition. With me today to testify is Lisa Tanaka O'Malley on behalf of South Coast Air Quality Management District, and Alan Abbs on behalf of the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time.

Well, thank you very much, Senator. Ms. O'Malley, Tanaka O'Malley, you may proceed with your testimony. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good morning, Chair and Committee Members. Again, my name is Lisa Tanaka. I'm the Assistant Deputy Legislative and Public Affairs Officer at South Coast AQMD. We are in strong support of SB 563. Thank you, Senator Archuleta, and we are so pleased to be the sponsor of this Bill. As Senator Archuleta, so aptly had pointed out, the definitions of districts are confusing and ambiguous.

And that confusion led to air districts, including South Coast AQMD, from being eligible to apply for American Rescue Plan Relief Funding, which left us with difficulties in carrying out our operations and missions as we did not receive any COVID relief funding. As a result, we're seeking this legislation to give us the opportunity to apply for future state and federal funding so that we can continue to serve our constituents and reduce air pollution and protect public health.

And with that, we respectfully and strongly urge your support of the Bill. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. And second primary witness, go ahead.

Good morning, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee, Alan Abbs with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. And just to add to what my counterpart from the South Coast had to say, so during the COVID rescue funding negotiations, we worked with South Coast and Congressman Garamendi to help get past a special districts portion of the COVID rescue Bill, which made sure that special districts were allocated some of that funding that came to states, cities and counties.

And as part of the press release, Congressman Garamendi specifically said 2700 special districts in California would be eligible to apply for funding as part of the COVID rescue package. And so the intent was always there that air districts would be eligible to receive that funding. And by all accounts, the Bay Area AQMD is an independent special district serving nine counties in the Bay Area with 24 board members with its own separate revenue and expense, and not relying on any city or county.

And so with that, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. And we thank Senator Archuleta for introducing this Bill. Thank you.

Very good. We appreciate your testimony. Now's the time for people who are supporting this Bill to come up and add their me too's. Sir.

Mr. Chair and Members, Brendan Twohig, on behalf of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association. That's the executive officers from all 35 local air districts. We support the Bill in print and look forward to continued conversations to ensure it includes all air districts. And we appreciate all the work that's gone into this.

Great. Thank you. Anybody else in the room in support? If not, is there anybody in opposition that would like to speak as the lead opposition witness? If there are none, anybody in the room at all that just wants to come up and say they oppose? If not, we're going to go to the AT&T operator for folks to phone in. When you're phoning in, remember, we just need your name, the organization you represent, whether you support or oppose the Bill.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of SB 563, you may press one and then zero. Again, that is one and then zero if you're in support of opposition. And we have no one in queue at this time.

Oh, great. That brings us back to the dais for comments, questions or a motion. Any comments? We have our motion to move the Bill by Senator Glazer. Mr. Archuleta--Senator Archuleta--if you'd like to close.

Mr. Chair, thank you, Committee Members. I ask respectfully, ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Madam Secretary, can you call the roll, please?

Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. Senators Caballero? Seyarto? Seyarto aye. Blakespear? Blakespear aye. Dahle? Durazo? Glazer? Glazer aye. Skinner? Wiener? Wiener aye. 4 to 0.

Thank you. So we're going to hold that open for others to add on to. Senator Blakespear, would you like to present at this time? Okay. All right, next up on the docket is Item number 17. That's SB 7 by Senator Blakespear.

Just jump. Jump over.

And thank you, Senator. Whenever you're ready.

So thank you, Acting Chair. And hello, colleagues. I'd like to thank the committee for its extensive work on this bill. This is SB 7. I'm accepting the amendments proposed in comments 2, 4 and 5 contained in the analysis, and I'm looking forward to finalizing the language around the questions raised in comment 3 with both this committee and with the Housing Committee. So with these amendments, SB 7 ensures grant funding is more equitably and fairly distributed across the state.

I want to thank the Chair, who's not currently here, but the committee staff, and the advocates I have engaged with for strengthening this bill. So no one deserves to be without a home. We all agree about that, I think. No one deserves the loss of dignity, the loss of safety, and the adverse impact on physical and mental health that homelessness causes. We also all deserve to have our public spaces free of people living in them.

In a state of $3.8 trillion, which is the fourth largest economy in the world, the question really is not whether we can afford to help our neighbors who are struggling. We can. The question is whether we will do what is necessary. Today I present to you SB 7, which would obligate local jurisdictions, which is cities and counties, to plan for and provide housing to their unhoused residents according to the point in time count numbers.

While there is currently a lot of effort and money devoted to actually helping our unhoused neighbors from both the public sector and the philanthropic sector, there is no mandate for cities and counties to actually house our state's homeless population. And there are many cities that are hoping that another city will take the obligation of housing their unhoused population so that they don't have to have it in their city.

So we do not need a mountain of evidence to know that the best way to get people off the street is to provide housing. It's common sense policy, and we also know that Housing First works. So this bill requires cities and counties to provide housing according to the number in their point in time count, and they must integrate this into their Homeless Action and RHNA plans. HCD would be the responsible oversight.

HCD would evaluate proposals and distribute funding from the Homeless Housing Obligation Fund to local, nonprofit and public agencies, prioritizing the cities and counties that jointly apply for funding, as the Chair has recommended. This obligation applies to cities and counties that are receiving state funding through this program.

And local jurisdictions can meet the obligation to house unhoused Californians in a variety of ways, including by building housing, providing housing vouchers, incentivizing landlords to accept vouchers, converting motel and hotels into housing, providing operating subsidies for existing affordable housing units, and providing opportunity housing. This bill is still a work in progress as my staff, sponsors, and I continue to collaborate with advocates and incorporate input to achieve our shared goals.

I'd like to thank the committee again for their research, technical assistance, and analysis. And with me in support today, we have Mahdi Manji and Deon Turner from the Inner City Law Center, as well as Dexter O'Connor from the Safe Place For Youth, and I respectfully urge an aye vote.

Okay, we'll call our first primary witness in favor of the bill. Support of the bill, go ahead, sir.

Cool. Good afternoon, chair and Members. My name is Deon Turner with Inner City Law Center. We are proud to sponsor Senate Bill Seven. Inner City Law Center is Skid Row's pro bono legal services provider. Every day, we help people who are homeless, or are at the precipice of becoming homeless, find and secure housing through free legal services.

SB 7 will ensure that every locality is required to build housing for residents experiencing homelessness within their jurisdiction. Every locality in California is either home or a place of work for low-income Californians. The pandemic has shown us that our essential workers are the heart of California's economy. Nevertheless, Low-income Californians are most likely to be rent-burdened and fall through the cracks of homelessness.

A 2022 report of the California Department of Housing and Community Development found that we need to build 1.2 million affordable homes over the next decade to meet our housing goals. LA County alone is short over 500,000 homes that are affordable to lower income households. An economic roundtable study found in 2018 that almost 600,000 LA County residents are in poverty and spend 90% or more of their income on housing.

When folks are spending drastic amounts of income on housing, they are one parking ticket away, one medical bill, or one mishap from a spiraling through the pit of homelessness. A 2020 USC study found that three-fourths of LA homes are rent burdened, spending over 30% of household income on rent and utilities and half being severely rent burdened, spending over 50% of their income on rent and utilities. Almost half delayed their bill payments or took on additional debt just to make rent.

Any homelessness in California will require the scale of production and funding of affordable housing to a significant scale. We must move rapidly to provide affordable housing to our unhoused neighbors living on the streets and struggling families alike. SB 7 requires localities to build sufficient affordable housing to meet the housing needs of all our residents. SB 7 introduces a variety of means to accomplish affordable housing goals, including master leasing, provision of rental subsidies, hotels and motels conversions, and building new affordable housing.

In addition, SB 7 creates a fund to support cities meeting the needs of their unhoused residents. And should locality fail to meet these published goals, SB 7 allows a diverse range of housing modalities to be developed through a streamlined process. And for these reasons, we respectfully urge an aye vote on SB 7.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Next witness in support. Primary witness in support. Only going to be one.

Would you like to? You can. Okay. Apparently it's on the phone, or is that not--

We're not doing for the primary witnesses.

Well, Committee Members, we're hoping to have Dexter O'Connell from Spy Speak, their homeless service provider out on the west side of City of Los Angeles. What I will just add on to what my colleague Deon has said is the need for affordable housing is extremely dire in LA County and throughout the state. And we are really, really proud to support Senator Blakespear in this effort, and we really hope the committee is able to support this bill. Thank you very much.

Great. And thank you for trying to step up for the person on the phone. Sorry that we were unable to accommodate that.

Of course. Thank you very much.

All right, at this time, we'll take other support in the room for me-toos. If you can come up, state your name and your organization and your support for the bill.

Andrew Dawson, the California Housing Partnership, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Amber-Lee Leslie with Housing California, support and concept. Thank you.

Is there anybody else in the room who wishes? Yes, sir?

Yep. Ralph Sonnenfeld, on behalf of EMB action and support.

Great. Anybody else in the room in favor of the bill, who'd like to come up and wish? Nope. Okay, so we're going to go to opposition. Are there any primary opposition witnesses? You have two minutes each or four minutes total. I forgot to mention that before, but they stayed under their time, so we're good.

Mr. Chair, Members. Jason Rhine, League of California Cities. We do not have an opposed position, but we have expressed some concerns to the author's office, her staff, and the sponsors. We have two primary concerns. One is that we already do a lot of this planning in arena now. So we just want to make sure that we're not going to duplicate efforts with this proposal, that it complements that planning process we already do.

The second thing is really identifying that funding source. We share the senator's desire to identify funding, to get funding to locales in order to address homelessness. It's been a top priority of organization for nearly five years now. So we want to work with you in order to accomplish that. The funding is going to be incredibly critical. If we do not have the money, we will not be able to house individuals. So we look forward to working with you on this measure and hopefully we can get to a spot where we can actually support the bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Next primary witness in opposition.

Good morning, Vice Chair Seyarto and Senators. Cornelious Burke here with the California Building Industry Association. We are California's home builders. We are in respectful opposition to SB 7. We oppose the bill for three reasons. First, RHNA already requires planning for housing for extremely very low-incomes, which is zero to 50% of AMI. You really can't get any lower than 0% of AMI.

Secondly, homeless individuals generally don't have measurable and knowable income, and most aren't looking to immediately rent or purchase a home but are looking for rapid housing and shelters. This bill doesn't do anything about services. It's important that when we think of housing for the homeless individuals, we think about colocating housing with supportive services. And just lastly, the intent of SB 7 is already in current housing element law, government code Section 65583.

Section A, subsection seven requires a thorough analysis of homeless needs and identification of adequate sites for housing for homeless. We all can agree, as the senator mentioned in her remarks, that we need to work together to address our state's homeless crisis. But we also have a housing crisis. And our major concern is that without funding and with additional requirements, it's going to fall on the backs of home builders with additional fees, taxes, inclusionary zoning.

So we already had great conversations with the senator's office and the sponsors. Looking forward to continued conversations. Our major opposition to this bill is that it being a RHNA requirement, but we really need to work together, home builders, everyone in our State of California, to address our housing crisis and our homelessness crisis and make sure we do everything we can to not impact negatively housing production. Thank you so much.

All right, thank you. Is there anybody else in the room in opposition to the bill that wishes to come up and simply state that? There being none, we're going to go to the phone lines. AT&T operator, if you can get people on the phone and, folks that are calling in on the phone, please, your name, the organization you represent, and simply, whether you support or oppose the bill.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of SB 7, you may press one and then zero. We will go to Line 111. Your line is open. Well, we will move on in one moment while they get their line numbers. Again, this is for support or opposition of SB 7. We will go to Line 113. Your line is open.

Hellow. Dexter O'Connell, with Safe Place For Youth in Los Angeles. As Manji and Deon mentioned, we're in strong support of this legislation.

Thank you. Next. Go, Line 120, your line is open.

Good morning. My name is Douglas Leach. I'm a resident of Danville in support.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to Line 112, your line is open. Line 112, your line is open.

Hey, this is Isaiah Madison with Liberal California and South LA opposed to unfunded state mandates. Thank you.

And we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Okay, so we will bring this item back to the dais for emotion. Questions? Comments? Do I have a motion? Comment. Senator Glazer.

Just quickly. First, I want to express my appreciation to the author for her passion and commitment to this issue. The bill is more than a statement of principle. I think it's also a statement of our great aspirations for what we should be doing, to do this right by our citizenry. I want to also note that you've acknowledged it's a work in progress.

These questions in the analysis and number three are all very pertinent and important, some of which were raised by the League of Cities representative. I want to give you the time to be able to continue to work on this. And so I want to be sure that the bill can move forward from out of this Committee. But I know that we have to ground our desires and goals here.

And that's a tough thing because you're not the first to have these concerns here in the senate, and it's been a tough one to get our hands around successfully, as we all can see in the communities in which we come from. So with that, I'm happy to move the bill.

Okay, thank you. And I'd like to just address, if I could, some of the responses.

Would you like to address in your closing?

Sure.

With no other comments, we have a motion by Glazer. Would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you. Well, thank you for your comments. So I just want to ground the point of this bill in saying that the RHNA process, as it exists, might require a thorough analysis of needs. But essentially those are just words. That is not an actual obligation to provide anything for people who are unhoused. And I think it's important to recognize that the RHNA process could be providing housing for people who are already housed exclusively.

So having a local government focus on the unhoused population that is actually on city and county streets, so the land uses where people are currently living are within cities and counties. Having the nexus be cities and counties are providing the housing for people so they're not in encampments, to me, makes a lot of sense, but we don't actually have any requirements for cities and counties.

So the idea that, I believe, coming from local government, the mayor of a city, relatively small, affluent city, is that the barriers to providing homeless housing are siding and money. And so the siding issues, putting this in the RHNA process puts it back into a local control circumstance, which is what RHNA is, that cities decide for themselves where they're upzoning, where their services are located, but there's an obligation to actually do that. And then the state would be providing money for this housing to be provided.

There's still work to do around. What do cities do to comply? What type of housing? Is it only permanent? Is it interim? Is it temporary? All the different variables of that, that's definitely still something that's being worked out. But I just want to directly address the BIA's statement, which is that there's no intention to have inclusionary or fees be what covers this. So the idea that the private market is going to bear this on their back, that is really not the case. So with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay, so we do have a motion by Glazer. Go ahead and call the roll, Madam Secretary.

Motion is to pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That item has three votes, and so we're going to leave it on call. Senator Limon, your item is up next up. This is SB 584 by Senator Limon. Welcome, Senator.

Thank you, Chair and Senators. First, I'd like to accept the Committee's amendments and thank the Committee and the Chair for their work on this bill. In addition to all California has done to address the housing crisis, it's important that we also consider a model in which the government plays a greater role in building and rehabilitating affordable housing projects that are publicly owned and financed.

I have heard repeatedly from my local governments for years that they need an ongoing funding source to meet our housing goals, especially for affordable housing. This bill creates a statewide assessment on the commercial use of residential homes and the apartments for transient occupancy or short-term rentals. SB 584 will provide a budget-proof source of income for more affordable housing that California desperately needs.

With me today in support of the bill, we have Beverly Yu from the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, and Shanti Singh from Tenants Together to speak in support of the bill.

Welcome, Ms. Yu. Go ahead with your testimony.

Good afternoon, Mr. Vice Chair and Members. Beverly Yu on behalf of State Building and Construction Trades Council, representing half a million members statewide. We thank the author for bringing this forward and her hard work and her staff's work on this bill. As you know, California is facing a severe housing crisis. We are a proud sponsor for this reason.

We believe one of the many reasons why California is not building affordable housing units is because we do not have a dedicated, budget-proof funding source to do so. In the last decade, California's population grew by over two and a half million, but the creation of new housing units has not kept pace, creating a shortage of affordable units for both renters and homeowners alike--homebuyers, excuse me--alike.

In the last three years, despite all the progress California has made to build housing, the state is only funding 16 percent of what is needed to get projects off the ground. The bill creates a statewide assessment on short-term rental transactions to partially replace permanent occupancy units that are not available.

Under the Committee amendments, the funds would be collected by CDTFA and ultimately distributed back to local jurisdictions proportionate to the amount collected in those respective counties to be used by public entities and local housing authorities to pay for the cost of construction and rehabilitation of laborforce housing. Laborforce housing is publicly-owned, publicly financed. It allows housing for a mixed range of incomes, from the very lowest income levels all the way up to moderate income levels who cannot afford market rent.

This bill has strong tenant protections and strong labor protections as well for the construction. SB 584 presents a real solution to our state's housing needs, taking the profit motive out of keeping people housed, allowing families to grow their savings, and stabilizing communities. We ask for your aye vote. Thanks so much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Members and Committee staff. My name is Shanti Singh. I am the Legislative Director at Tenants Together. We are a coalition of almost 60 renter-led community organizations across the state, and our members represent California renters and working families in big cities, suburbs, exurbs, farm communities, and everywhere in between.

The tenants and workers that we're working with across California are working two or three jobs and moving into their cars because their housing is not secure, because they are receiving prohibitive rent hikes, or being evicted without protection. Our rents go up while our wages continue to stagnate.

Without the consistent public investment that SB 584 would provide, we will not be able to build or preserve enough affordable housing to meet the 1.2 million unit shortage that Housing California has identified as the need for low to middle income Californians. We can't only build housing when the economy is booming. To solve our housing shortage and our homelessness crisis, we need to be building and acquiring housing for our working class, even when the market is down.

Speculative behavior around short-term rentals has contributed to a shortage of stable affordable housing, not just for long-term renters, but also for prospective owners in communities across the state. SB 584 simply asks the beneficiaries of skyrocketing rents and housing speculation to pay their fair share and prevent homelessness. We see that California voters are passing local affordable housing initiatives to raise countercyclical revenue in places like San Francisco, Los Angeles, and hopefully many more soon, but they cannot do this locally alone.

We need consistent revenue and investment at the state level. We are the world's wealthiest subnational jurisdiction, and we need to pass SB 584 to prioritize millions of Californians, whether extremely low income or middle income, and everywhere in between who are burdened by their housing costs. This bill will build wealth by putting money back in the pockets of California renters to invest in their families, their small businesses, and their communities. We respectfully urge your aye vote on SB 584. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll move on to #MeToos, anybody who would like to testify in support here in Room 2100.

Chair and Members, Shubhangi Domokos for the California Labor Federation, in strong support.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else? Welcome.

Good morning. Kevin Ferreira, Sacramento-Sierra's Building Construction Trades Council, and we are in strong support of this bill as well.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Aureliano Ochoa with the Insulators Local 16, in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Mark Plubell with the Heat and Frost Insulators, Local 16. Stand with the Building Trades in strong support of this bill.

Thank you.

Morning. My name is John Hershey with Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 447 in Sacramento in support of 584. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Fortino Curiel. I'm with Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Union Local 16. We're in favor of this bill.

Thank you.

Good morning. Zak Noonan, Local 447 Plumbers and Pipefitters, and I'm in support of this bill.

Thank you.

Alex Lantsberg, San Francisco Electrical Industry and member of the San Francisco Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board, in support of this bill.

Thank you.

Good morning. Anthony Viscuso, also with Local 16 Heat and Frost Insulators, also in support of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else that would like to testify in support of this bill in Room 2100? Seeing no movement, just checking to be sure. We're ready to move on to opposition. Is there anybody that would like to speak in opposition to the bill and would like to serve as a lead witness?

We're in a tweener.

That works for me.

Madam Chair and Members, Camille Wagner, representing Airbnb. As I mentioned, we're in a little bit of a tweener position. Certainly appreciate the author's goals of the bill, but as proposed to be amended, we do have significant concerns, chiefly with the 15 percent tax on short-term rental guests.

At this level, we are concerned that it creates a severe competitive imbalance in the marketplace, in particular for our hosts. We're also concerned that the amendments could treat rentals done through a platform and off platform differently. So some areas within the language that we are hoping to get clarified, but certainly as proposed to be amended, we do have significant concerns. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Andrew Dawson with the California Housing Partnership. The partnership is a state-created nonprofit for the public mission of increasing supply of affordable housing for low income households. We are very sympathetic with the goal of increasing the production of affordable housing. We have a couple of issues with the bill. One is we would like to dedicate the revenues to existing affordable housing programs, and the second being substituting the labor requirements to something like the ones in AB 2011 of 2022. Thank you for that.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Marina Wiant with the California Housing Consortium. We're also a tweener. We have several concerns, both related to some of the language around the affordability requirements, as well as unnecessarily limiting who can use the program and as well as around the labor requirements, but very supportive of new funding to enter into assisting in our broad affordable housing needs.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody else that would like to testify in opposition in Room 2100? Seeing no movement, we'll move on to the teleconference line. Moderator, if you could queue up people that would like to testify in opposition or support of SB 584.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of SB 584, you may press one and then zero. We will go to line 118. Your line is open.

Good morning. This is Danny Wright, business managers of the Plumbers and Pipefitters UA Local 246 at Fresno, representing Fresno, Madera, and Kings and Tulare County workers. We are in support of SB 584. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 61. Your line is open. Line 61, your line is open. And we will move on to line 128. Your line is open.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. This is Richard Markuson for the Western Electrical Contractors Association. We oppose of the PLA mandate in the bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Line 80, your line is open.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Karim Drissi, on behalf of the California Association of Realtors, in opposition. Look forward to reviewing the proposed amendments. However, at this time, we must respectfully request a no vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 74.

Yes? Can you hear me?

We can hear you. You're in.

Yes. My name is Jonhenry Lopez. I'm with UA Local 246, representing Fresno, Madera, Tulare, and Kings County, the Plumbers and Pipefitters, and we stand with the Building Trades in strong support of SB 584. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 53. Your line is open.

Yeah. My name is Wyatt Stiles, representing over 1,000 members of Local 398 Plumbers and Steamfitters, and we stand with the Building Trades in support for SB 584.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go line 119. Your line is open.

Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Brandon Lovenburg, business agent, Local UA 246, plumbers, pipefitters, HVAC techs of Fresno, and we stand with the State Building Trades in strong support of SB 584. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 125.

Hello?

Yes. You're in Committee.

Hi. Good morning. This is Miguel Castellon with the Ironworkers Local 433, business agent, and we stand with the Building Trades and support SB 584.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Very good. We're going to bring the matter back to the Committee for comments, questions, concerns. Senator Wiener.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The author and I have had various conversations about this bill, including when it came to Housing Committee. I'm going to be supporting the bill today to move the conversation forward. There are two aspects here. First, this bill is labeled as a social housing bill. I don't know. It's unclear to me that whether it's more social housing or simply affordable housing.

But whatever the label, there are now three bills labeled as social housing bills, one by Senator Wahab, one by Assembly Member Lee, and this one. And so as we noted in our Housing Committee analysis, these bills are going to have to be harmonized at some point. That doesn't have to happen in the first House, but they're going to have to be harmonized.

The second piece, which I indicated and we talked about at length in our Housing Committee analysis, this bill sets a precedent that for the first time that I'm aware of ever in California, skilled workforce would be attached to affordable housing funding. We have never done that before as a Legislature, and we'll be having this conversation a little later in the hearing.

That standard can potentially exclude a huge number of construction workers from working on these projects because I would like to see the construction workforce unionized at a much higher percentage. It's at about nine percent now. So 91 percent of construction workers don't qualify. And so that creates various challenges and equity issues that I think are going to have to be dealt with, but as I indicated, I'm voting to move this forward today to continue that conversation.

Thank you. Good. Senator Seyarto.

All right. Thank you for trying to address, especially the building of the housing part. The issue that I really land on is: who funds it, and where this money comes off. In other words, on whose backs are we doing this? A couple of questions about your bill. When you're talking about Airbnb rentals, are you talking about owner-occupied or not owner-occupied?

This is for all vacation rentals. It's not for just one single company. So I just want to clear that up. And at the moment, the amendment that we took from this Committee sets a de minimis of 100,000 a year for the facilitator of the rental if the operator does not use a facilitator, and so that's really the basis as opposed to renter or owner-occupied.

So, when you mean facilitator, you mean--

A facilitator can serve. It could be a company. Like Airbnb. It could be. Yeah.

So if they use Airbnb and they are an owner-occupied Airbnb where the owner is actually on site, that owner has to pay another ten percent TOT on top of the twelve percent they're already paying?

Yeah. If it's over 100,000 dollars.

See, this is where I struggle with a lot because a lot of the owner-occupied ones, they don't necessarily want strangers in their home, but at the same time, that might be their only way of staying in their home if they have high property taxes, et cetera, and not have a job anymore--that's their income. And so this affects them, and with them being part of this, that concerns me a lot.

The other one is, a lot of these--you have vacation rentals and things like that that are legacy homes. They are not going to be part of the affordable housing solution at all, and families struggle to hang on to those. And we keep finding more and more ways to make that even harder. And having them reintroduced back into the vacation rental home pool to be sold is not in any way going to make an affordable housing dent.

What will make a dent in our affordable housing is the things--is taking down the barriers that we have created over the last 30 years to prevent housing from being built and making it very difficult, making it very costly. And I just don't see this moving the needle on being able to get there with that. So I will unfortunately be opposing this measure today.

If it does go forward, I would really strongly advise that you find a way to carve out the single proprietor, whether they use Airbnb or stay home or whatever it is because that creates us fixing or trying to address the funding of one issue on the backs of people and having them lose their properties. That's not fair. So anyway, those are my comments. Thank you for answering the question. I appreciate it a lot. And like I said, I really do appreciate all of the efforts that everybody's making to try to address housing, but some of the things are difficult to get behind. Thank you.

Senator Blakespear.

Thank you. Yeah, I just want to clarify that an owner-occupied home where somebody goes on two week vacations a year and rents out their place is not going to make over 100,000 dollars. So 100,000 dollar threshold, especially for owner-occupied if somebody's renting out a room in their house or part of their house is just not going to hit that threshold. So I think it's important to make that clear that the vast majority of people who are in that owner-occupied situation will not be affected by this.

Yes, depending on whether or not they use a platform. That's a caveat. So there's a lot of caveats in this, but you are correct that it's over 100,000 dollars for the facilitator.

Senator.

Just to follow up on that point, but as I understand it, this proposal would raise a billion dollars a year.

It could at the--

A lot of people are affected by it.

So it could, depending on the percentage we land on, we are taking amendment for 15 percent assessment. I think that it's important to have a conversation. I think it's also important to recognize this bill has allowed for a conversation, first of all, on what type of funding our local municipalities need as seed money to be able to do this, and so there's no doubt that if it raises close to a billion dollars, it will be used by our local communities.

I got it. I'm just trying to get the facts on the table. So another fact would be if it's projected to raise a billion dollars at a 15 percent assessment, what does that equal in terms of how many nights that person's renting them out? How many nights is that?

I can't give you a number for how many nights, and I don't know that the state could give you a number. So part of what this bill has kind of uncovered is that the numbers are all different, that the industry has a set of numbers. Our communities who have some type of regulation in place also have different numbers, and it's based on counties and cities. We don't have an aggregate number for the state.

But this doesn't prevent a platform from passing through those costs to the individual homeowners, does it? So this is an assessment on individuals who are putting their properties up for rent or short-term rent, whatever it is.

For more than 100,000 using facilitators.

But if they use a platform, that's still individuals?

Correct.

The platform may be the collector, but it's a new assessment tax on individuals.

Right, and I think it's important to recognize that at the end it's the consumer.

Yeah. That's going to be paying it.

The consumer. Right. So those who rent. Those who rent--

Fair enough. Fair enough. Marketplace will dictate that, but it will have impacts. But I guess I wanted you to respond to two things that witnesses spoke to earlier. I want to give you the chance. The first one was the fact that it would create a competitive disadvantage. You have huge competition in the marketplace for vacation rentals, whether it's at an Airbnb or whether it's at a hotel, but you're not applying this fee to lodging at hotels. I wanted you to speak to that, and then I had a second question.

Right. So the lodging and hotels already have fees. I think that if you talk to them, they feel that they've been put at uncompetitive space by this new market, and so I think it just depends on really the perspective. I think that in some communities, we also have to recognize this would be a statewide program.

But some communities--our municipalities are not large enough to be able to take this issue on themselves and don't have some of the guidance or regulations or direction on what they do. So not all communities collect. So I think that this is a more statewide, universal approach and I think opinions are going to vary on who's being advantaged or disadvantaged. But I think it's also important to recognize that what you are seeing today is part of an ongoing conversation.

So we will continue to have conversations about some of these elements to see if it changes and if a number changes or if a word changes--of course, only through the permission of the Committee and Chair--then that perspective on how much of a disadvantage or if there's a disadvantage may change in the future.

Okay, fair enough. I mean, certainly if you're competing on price and one establishment has to pay 15 percent in taxes higher than the other establishment, there's going to be a competitive disadvantage. The lodging establishment, the hotel establishment may be unhappy because short-term rentals are in their marketplace. So I could see why they feel like that's competition they don't want. But when it comes to price, this is going to create a differential on price.

Whether it's, as you might argue, smaller at the end of the day versus larger, it still kind of seems like it does create that. My second question that was raised by a witness earlier was that why aren't you using existing housing programs that we've invested so much time and energy into propping up and helpfully making them effective versus a brand new created program that also seems to have had built in higher cost elements?

So I think that this was really an idea of what we have is not enough. We have to create more opportunities to build housing and especially for our local communities. So really, this is where this came from. I think that we'll continue the conversations to see where it leads, but this was really a new idea for--I guess it's not a new idea. Others have tried, but it's an idea to create a new fund, not to supplant, but to supplement.

Great, thank you for that feedback, and I certainly appreciate your efforts in this space because we have a serious problem out there and I know you're working hard to help us solve it. So thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the comments and the discussion. I see it a little bit differently and the reason that I'm so supportive of the bill--and I think there's a lot of things that Senator Limon is working on to try to get right--the number 15 was a plug number because there was no number in the bill. I expect it's going to change over time. But you're comparing apples to oranges.

Number one is the longer term stays or the rental units, houses, condos--they have amenities that hotels just don't have. And I say that because I've used them before. It's great for a family. You can cook. There's a refrigerator and a stove, and there's more room to spread out. And so you can have more people come and stay with you, especially grandchildren. So it's an opportunity and option to be able to enjoy traveling and having a different type of unit.

But what's happened in California is that we have seen because of the beauty and the allure of California and tourists, we've seen our homes being bought up and being used as investments to be able to make money and property is always a good investment. And in many of the communities, the number of units--I won't use any names--but the number of units that have been taken off the market and are being used similar to a hotel is phenomenal.

And what it's done is it's crowded out--it's increased the cost to live in those communities. It's dried up available housing units. It's become a cash carry type of transaction so that it's very hard for the average worker that lives in that community be able to bid for a house against corporate entities, hedge funds that are coming in. And I think it's significantly impacted many, many communities.

If that's the case you start looking at, well, maybe we set limits on how many units in a community can be utilized for that purpose, and beyond that, you can't do it. Or do you set up a regulatory process that helps you provide an opportunity to do some building? And so I really appreciate you bringing this bill forward. As I said, I'd like to be added as a coauthor.

I think it's got a lot more work to do because I think there are some issues that have been raised that need to be dealt with, but in the end, any way that we can help our local communities to--well, first of all is that maybe this will help stem some of the purchasing for speculation and for activity that doesn't really help families that are working in the community to be able to live in the community that they're working in. And maybe this will help provide resources for us to be able to build affordable housing. So with that said, I'll let you conclude.

Thank you, and I will just say that you're all thought leaders in this space, and certainly there's two chairs of two committees, and we'll continue to work with the committees. I think this is really important because this is a needed conversation.

We as a state have passed a lot of legislation to help us fast forward the building, but our local communities are still looking for, what's that seed money? What's the funding? How do we make all of these laws and ideas on how we can build fast come to fruition? And they're looking for funding. And so this is an attempt, and I hope that we could continue to support this attempt to have a really important and needed conversation.

I suspect that this bill is one that will have ongoing engagement with the opposition, with the supporters, on how we move something forward to better get to a place where we all understand that there's a collective impact, but also a collective investment that we're trying to make in terms of solving one of California's top problems. So with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Very good. Is there a motion? Motion has been made by Senator Blakespear. Please call the roll.

Motion is 'do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee.' [Roll Call]. Three to zero.

We'll put that bill on call for the absent Members. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your patience. We're trying to organize how to proceed here.

Okay, we'll call up Senator Caballero to present SB 565, item number 20.

So I'm going to go back to Education.

Thank you so much for taking over the helm. I'm pleased to present SB 565, which requires the Franchise Tax Board to implement changes to the free e-filing tax system for low-income Californians. Many of these filers are eligible for a variety of tax credits, such as the California Earned Income Tax Credit, the Young Child Tax Credit, and the Foster Youth Tax Credit.

These credits provide significant cash benefits to low-income individuals and families, and they target specific populations most in need and are proven tools to combat poverty. The long-term research shows that these programs, these tax credit, provide incredible assistance to individuals that are struggling economically and that the long-term prognosis is really good for providing them.

For example, a qualifying individual under Cal Earned Income Tax can earn as much as $3,417, the Young Child Tax Credit up to $1,000, and the Foster Youth Tax Credit is up to $1,083. Despite the significant benefits these credits provide, many complexities exist that discourage residents from filing their taxes to obtain the credits.

In 2020, I authored SB 1409 which tasked the Franchise Tax Board to provide a report to the Legislature with recommendations on how to reduce barriers that low-income or no-income filers often face that discourage tax filing using free and state-sponsored services. In the study, FTB outlined a number of different issues that lead to lower-than-anticipated filing rates for low-income Californians.

For example, taxpayers surveyed reported that tax return preparation is costly and that free tax preparation services are not readily accessible, or very low-income taxpayers that don't have a filing requirement are unaware that they are still eligible to claim the tax credit. FTB also reported operational challenges that reduce access to filing to claim tax credits, such as a lack of statutory authority to implement new strategies like data, pre-population, and taxpayer outreach.

SB 565 is a simple tool that begins the process to improve the state tax filing process by requiring FTB to enhance CalFile to create a more user-friendly experience. This Bill will authorize the Franchise Tax Board for the 2025 tax year to expand the Cal file system to pre-populate known information from past tax filers that would be eligible to receive these tax credits. It does not automatically file the taxes and provides each filer the opportunity to fully review and change information as needed.

This step will modernize CalFile and is the first of many to begin a transition to a reliable and safe filing process that encourages greater access to the state's free filing system for low and no-income individuals. With me to testify in support is Kristina Bas Hamilton on behalf of Economic Security Project Action.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Kristina Bas Hamilton. I'm here testifying on behalf of Economic Security Project Action. Thank you to Chair Caballero for her continued commitment to removing barriers to the tax filing process. The Economic Security Project Action advances policies that give people the freedom and stability to thrive, and chief among those are the tax credits that put money directly into the pockets of people who need it most.

Like the CalEITC, the Young Child Tax Credit, and the Former Foster Youth Credit, refundable tax credits are some of the most important antipoverty tools that our state has to offer working families providing 1.3 billion to over 4.2 million Californians.

However, what's important to understand is that as the Legislature has created these tax credits and implemented these policies that are to benefit working people and low-income people, there are hundreds of thousands of Californians who are simply not accessing the credits and are losing out on what they have earned and what they are eligible for. They are the people who need them the most.

They are hidden in virtually plain sight, already known to government agencies through other benefits, but are still not receiving this direct cash resource. In one analysis, it was found that nearly half a million CalFresh recipients who are eligible for the CalEITC did not receive it. A major reason that takeup is low is because filing taxes is daunting. It's time-consuming, intimidating, confusing, and, unfortunately, often expensive, especially for low-income families, immigrants, and people with language barriers.

These families remain outside the tax system, locked out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars in benefits that they are eligible for. Others end up paying tax prep fees that eat up part or even all of their actual credit. We can do better. SB 565 would allow the FTB to make improvements to CalFile to develop a truly free and simplified tax filing option for qualifying taxpayers, making it easier for people to file their taxes and get the refunds they're owed.

This proposal is aligned with efforts at the federal level to simplify tax filing and close the gap of the takeup rate for these credits. The IRS has improved on its pandemic-era simplified filing for nonfilers and is contemplating the development of a broadly available free and simplified option. Members of the Committee I would simply offer that the Legislature has taken wonderful steps forward in promoting direct cash in the form of low-income tax credits.

However, we have to make it available to people who are eligible for it and who need it the most so that they don't basically not get the help that the Legislature is intending to give them. SB 565 puts California at the forefront of state policy measures that streamline access to this tax code and maximize the impact of the existing investments on poverty-fighting tax credits. I urge an Aye vote. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Any additional support testimony? Seeing none. Is there any opposition to the Bill? Please come forward.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Peter Blocker with the California Taxpayers Association. I want to start by thanking Senator Caballero and her staff, as well as the Committee staff, for listening to our concerns and expressing a willingness to work with us to hopefully, possibly address our concerns and help us possibly support the Bill. Although we are opposed to the Bill, we support the effort to ensure that all Californians that are eligible for these tax credits can claim them.

Our main concern is with the FTB using pre-populated returns for taxpayers. Cal Tax has always been opposed to the idea of a tax agency filing process and reviewing and adjudicating the tax returns. We believe it's vital that there be a separation between the taxpayer and the agency to ensure fairness, objectivity, and accuracy. Tax returns can be complicated, even for low-income taxpayers, and it's unlikely that FTB has all the information necessary to accurately fill this information out or populate this information on a tax return.

This can result in taxpayers receiving fewer benefits or receiving an overstatement of credits requiring them to be repaid with penalties and interest. Taxpayers may not have the confidence to challenge the tax agency if it presents them with a version of the return they may feel is incorrect.

So although we can understand and appreciate the ability for a taxpayer to review the pre-populated return before filing, we still think that there's still an issue with the taxpayer feeling as though, possibly feeling as though they cannot, comfortable challenging the return. We also have a concern that this may pose a problem with claiming federal credits, as you need to file both a California return and a federal return, which would be necessary to claim those benefits.

So in saying that, we are hopeful that we can continue to work with the Senator, her staff and the Committee staff to try and make this Bill as effective as possible. Thank you.

Any additional opposition? Seeing none, we'll go to the phone lines.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of SB 565, you may press one and then zero again. That is one and then zero. For support or opposition. We will go to line 137.

Hi, my name is Andre Castanovo, Local 34 and I'm in support.

Thank you. That is one and then zero if you're in support or opposition. And we have no one else queuing up.

Great. We'll bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments? Do we have a motion? Okay. And that is a motion to pass to the Appropriations Committee. Motion by Senator Blakespear. Senator Caballero, you may close.

It was Durazo.

Oh, did I? I'm sorry.

It's all good.

My apologies, Senator Durazo.

I really appreciate the comments today. Continue to try to work to make the Bill better. The bottom line is that the simpler we can make it and with instructions for individuals that just don't have the resources to hire somebody to do it and to make it a process that they feel comfortable with, the better we're going to get money that is due to low-income people into their hands. And I respectfully ask for your Aye vote.

Thank you very much. We'll call the roll.

Motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee. [Roll call]. Four to zero.

Okay, we'll put that on call.

Senator Durazo, I think you're up. If you're ready. Senator Durazo, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good morning to everyone. I want to start by thanking the Committee for working with us on this measure, and we will continue to stay engaged. SB 52 requires cities of two and a half million residents or more to establish an independent redistricting commission to draw its City Council district lines. While this legislation is not directly for a specific city, the City of Los Angeles inspired it. For decades, the existing LA City Council redistricting process is plagued with inconsistencies and biases.

The released audio tapes this past summer serve as a glaring example how the interest of a few bypass, have continued to bypass the good of our community, and it has led to eroding public confidence in local government and jeopardizing the distribution of vital public resources. Already, redistricting office boundaries for state and several counties, including Los Angeles County, are based on independent redistricting commissions. Currently, major cities, including Los Angeles. Actually, Los Angeles is the largest remaining local entity yet to adopt independent redistricting.

There were, a legal question was raised by some with regards to the issue of charter cities like Los Angeles. This bill is based on extended legal research, including UC Berkeley law advice and consultation with UC Berkeley Law Dean Chemerinsky and our own state Legislative Council who agree that this bill has strong legal standing based on case law. First, we must decide that it's, or establish that there is a statewide concern, which there is. Let me just move on here.

My office has engaged with various stakeholders on this measure and will continue to do so with an independent redistricting model. SB 52 will provide a fair, transparent, and unbiased City Council redistricting, which captures equitable representation for the city and will mend the relationship between the community and our government. With me to testify in support is Christoph Mair, Legislative Advocate for AFSCME AFL-CIO.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, Committee Members, and staff. Christoph Mair, Legislative Advocate for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. I appreciate the opportunity to stand before you in support of Senate Bill 52. A report commissioned by the ACLU, Common Cause California, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and the League of Women Voters was released in January of this year. The report analyzed redistricting at the local level and found that independent redistricting commissions are the gold standard, producing the fairest and most representative maps.

As Senator Durazo mentioned, cities are responsible for the implementation of important statewide policy and handle considerable public funding. So it's important that we make sure that the process for electing these folks is as transparent and equitable as possible. Additionally, local jurisdictions are the proving ground for elected officials seeking higher office. As I understand, most members of this Committee rose up through local government. And so you understand the power and the platform that's provided to you in these elected positions.

Senate Bill 52 will ensure that the district maps the City of Los Angeles are drawn independently and fairly and do not favor incumbents or particular demographics. This bill will improve transparency and voter confidence in the City of Los Angeles and other large charter cities in the future. Thank you for their time, and I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody that would like to testify in support here in room 2100? Anybody in support? Seeing no movement, is there anybody that would like to testify in opposition and serve as a lead witness? Seeing no movement, is there anybody that would just like to say, I oppose? This is great. Let's go to the phones and see if there's anybody that would like to testify on this bill.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of SB 52, you may press one and then zero. Again, that is one and then zero for support or opposition. And no one is queuing up at this time.

Very good. We'll bring this back to the Committee. Are there any questions, concerns, discussion? Motion? There is a motion by Senator Wiener. The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. And I'm assuming that you're taking the. I'm sorry. Never mind looking at the wrong piece of paper. Do pass to Appropriations. No amends. My apology. Had you nervous there for a minute. You may conclude.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I just want to conclude by also mentioning that this bill includes a clause which recognizes that if a city were to adopt its own independent redistricting commission with an amendment to its charter, then our bill would not apply. So with that, I ask for your aye vote.

Please call the roll.

Senators Caballero. Aye. Caballero, aye. Seyarto. Blakespear. Blakespear, aye. Dahle. Durazo. Aye. Durazo, aye. Glazer. Skinner. Wiener. Wiener, aye. Four to zero.

Four to zero. Going to put that on call.

Thank you.

Senator Allen, good timing. We'll start with file item number nine, SB 571, if that works for you. Okay, never mind. We're just ripping through this agenda. It's file item number 10, SB 676.

Got you. Okay. Right.

I was thinking, yeah, I might have to make up a whole new Bill. All right, this is SB 676. Let me start by thanking the chair and the Committee for your Flexibility, your work with my office on this Bill. You may remember SB 414 relating to incentives and rebates for turf installations. That passed out of this Committee a few weeks ago. So, we discovered that the Committee amend that.

We took in Committee that sought to limit the bill's application to only cases where state funds were used was effectively already the policy of the State Department of Water Resources. Grants for community turf replacement programs already stipulate that funds cannot be used for artificial turf. So that kind of rendered the Bill meaningless. Now we're bringing this new policy forward for the Committee's consideration with a different vehicle. Now, the Legislature passed a law at the height of the drought, swimming.