Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Climate Crisis, Resources, Energy, and Transportation

I'd like to call this meeting order and appreciate the members who have shown up on time for this meeting. Want to just to explain to the audience, I'm also on the Elections Committee, which is meeting at this exact same time, which is why I keep ducking in and out of this room, and will need to do so probably multiple other times during the meeting here today. Welcome to Assembly Budget Sub Three. Today we're going to hear from the Department of Parks and Recreation.

We'll also hear from the Office of Planning and Research and the Strategic Growth Council. These entities are not normally heard in this subcommittee, but we approved funding over the past two years for extreme heat and climate resilience. So we will ask for an implementation update and vet the proposed cuts. We will also vote on 20 items that were heard at our March 22 meeting. We have three items that are planned to be heard for each presentation item.

I will ask each of the witnesses in the agenda to introduce themselves before they begin their testimony at the end of the presentation items, members of this subcommittee may ask questions or make comments on any of the 14 non-presentation items. After all the items are heard, we'll take public comment in regard to the departments before us today, first in the room, followed by phone testimony. Each member of the public will have 1 minute to speak.

The phone number is on the committee website and should also be on the screen if you're watching over the Internet. That number is 877-692-8957. The access code is 1315447. If you encounter any problems, please contact the Assembly Budget Committee at 916-319-2099 and a staff member will assist you. Can we take the roll?

[Roll Call]

We do have a quorum. Thank you very much for being on time. I know the extreme heat item is an important one for us and we're taking it even though it's going to be heard also in another committee. We'll take two motions for the vote-only calendar, and the first vote is to approve as budgeted vote only issues 4, 5, 7 through 11, 13, and 15 through 20. Can I get a motion on the consent calendar? It's moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

[Roll Call]

The second vote is to approve us budgeted vote only issues 1, 2 and 3, items 6, 12, and 14.

[Roll Call]

We'll leave the roll open for absent members. And now we're at issue one OPR General Fund solutions and implementations update welcome the panel. Yes, I did mine yesterday. Thank you for being here.

Thank you.

Administration, whoever would like to go first, if you'd please identify,

I will kick it off. Scott Morgan, I'm chief administrator with the Governor's Office of Planning Research, and I have Lynn von Koch-Liebert, who is the executive director of the Strategic Growth Council from the administrative side, and we'll go ahead and kick it off. I'm going to give a brief overview of the two programs that were brought on the agenda for the office planning research that includes the Extreme Heat and Community Resilience program as well as the Regional Resilience Grant program. Lots of R's in these programs.

The Extreme Heat and Community Resilience program will invest in local, regional, and tribal heat reduction and mitigation efforts. This program coordinates the state's comprehensive response to extreme heat and builds capacity for heat action planning and project implementation in the most heat-burdened communities, providing grant funding and technical assistance.

Could you be a little closer to the mic?

Sure. Certainly.

Let mic closer to you right in.

There we go. All right. The program also drives the state's work to implement California's extreme action plan through a comprehensive, coordinated response across state agencies for advancing equitable outcomes, including reducing economic and health disparities associated with extreme heat. Of the 100 million budgeted for this program, 90 million is allocated for grants and will be dispersed in two rounds of grant applications. The staff anticipates making round one awards in early 2024 and round two in 2025.

For implementation, staff will launch a formal engagement at the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Programs Technical Advisory Council meeting that is happening on April 14, coming up next month. After that, we will engage in staff kick-off a formal engagement through a series of workshops, listening sessions, and then we'll move to draft the guidelines and release them for public comment in fall of this year.

Staff is looking to release notice of funding availability and the application for the grants in the first quarter of 2024 with the hope that round one awards amounts will be announced in the final round one extreme heat and community resilience program guidelines at that time. So I will now give it over, unless you want to ask questions on that. I can give an overview of the regional resiliency program at this time.

Any members have questions on the first program? Okay, yeah, we'll do it all.

Thank you. All right.

Sounds good.

So on the Regional Climate Resiliency program, this will fund local public entities, California Native American tribes, and community-based organizations that are planning and implementing regional-scale projects. So very a regional type of program, they advance climate resilience and respond to the greatest climate risks in their regions. So we're looking for multiple entities combining together to provide a regional scale effort on resilience. Over multiple funding rounds, the program will invest 125,000,000 into regions advancing climate resilience and responding to the region's greatest climate risks.

The program will fund both regional planning and program implementation effort. Project implementation efforts, excuse me. Round one will invest 21.3 million with at least 12.5 million specifically to support regional planning efforts. So, planning grants we are looking to make round one announcements in September 2021, sorry, September 2023. In the summer of 2022, staff held a series of regional listening sessions to inform the grant guidelines. With over 400 participants statewide, we established an interagency workgroup of regional climate grant programs to better understand the gaps in resilience funding.

In January of this year, staff released draft guidelines for public comment and held seven regional and community-specific workshops to solicit feedback. Nearly 300 people registered for those workshops. Staff is currently working to incorporate feedback, and the final guidelines are anticipated to be released on April 26. I will now hand it off to the executive director of the Growth Council to go over those programs that are listed in the agenda.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good Morning, Chair Bennett and Assembly members. Lynn Von Koch-Liebert for the executive director of the Strategic Growth Council. So there are two programs that I will be discussing today. The first is the transformative climate communities.

Can you get as close to that microphone also as possible? Thank you.

How's that?

Much better.

Much better. Thank you. So the Transformative Climate Communities program, or TCC, funds community-driven proposals for integrated resiliency projects in the state's most overburdened communities. The funding supports multiple integrated projects such as sustainable and affordable housing, clean mobility and transit, urban greening, building electrification, and air pollution reduction. In addition, funding supports community engagement through implementation, workforce development, displacement avoidance, and indicator tracking to evaluate the ongoing progress of the projects.

To date, TCC has awarded over $326,000,000 through 36 planning and implementation grants during rounds one through four, which has ranged from the years 2018 to 2022. Now, all 11 implementation grants are underway, and of the 25 planning grants, 15 have completed work. Five of the 15 planning grants went on to receive implementation grants that are currently underway, which is something we're very proud and excited of. The second program is the Community Resiliency Center or CRCS.

What's the second program?

The Community Resiliency Centers. This is a new program and this will fund construction and upgrades of neighborhood-level resiliency centers to provide shelter and resources during climate and other emergencies. The program will also fund ongoing year-round community services and programs such as food distribution or workforce development training that builds overall community resilience program staff have released draft guidelines and are currently incorporating feedback from stakeholders and subject matter experts into the final draft of the round one guidelines, which are anticipated to be adopted by the council in April of this year. Staff will then release a notice of funding, an application in spring of 2023 and anticipate making round one awards fall 2023.

Round one is intended to plan to provide both planning and implementation grants for the development of facilities to be used as community resiliency centers, as well as for services and programs associated with these centers. Per statute, grantees will be required to collaborate with community-based organizations and community residents in the design and implementation of these projects. Round one awardee amounts will be announced in the final round one guidelines in April. Thank you.

Thank you, Administration anybody else from the Administration?

Yeah, good morning. Kevin Clark with the Department of Finance. So I'll just speak to the four OPR climate items where the Governor's Budget include General Fund solutions for and these include the first being a reduction of 125,000,000 for the regional climate Resilience program, which leaves approximately 125,000,000 or 50% of the total appropriation the second being a reduction of 75 million for the extreme Heat and Community Resilience Centers program, leaving approximately $100 million, or 57% of the total appropriation for the program.

The third is a reduction of 105,000,000 General Fund for the Transformative Climate Communities program, leaving approximately 315,000,000 or 75% of the total appropriation for the program. And the fourth is a delay of 85 million General Fund to 2024-25 budget for the Community Resilience Centers program.

So the Administration really had to make some tough decisions to meet our constitutionally required mandate to have a balanced budget, though the Administration still supports all of these reductions and delay, and that's why we're including these reductions and delays in a trigger that would restore these cuts if the fiscal outlook changes. Happy to answer any questions about the reductions and delay and leave it there.

Thank you very much and thanks for clearly identifying the reductions. So we have that read into the record LAO.

Good morning. Rachel Aylors with the Legislative Analyst's Office. Our comments on these proposals are pretty similar to what you've heard us say in the past few weeks. We think generally they're reasonable, you've got a budget problem you've got to face that causes some difficult decisions. The proposals from the governor focus on new programs, large programs, so scaling them back probably makes some sense.

In our report, we also, as we did in the other areas, identify some alternatives or additional reductions you could make as you craft your own package, which is our primary recommendation, that you put together a package that reflects your priorities, not the governor's, but yours, which programs are most important to sustain and which you might want to scale down. One of the alternatives we identify for you, as noted in your agenda, is the funding for a public awareness campaign specific to extreme heat.

While we think that outreach is important, there is an existing program at OPR with ongoing funding, specifically around public outreach and communication. So you could look at whether that funding could be leveraged for this specific activity, rather than needing additional funding that maybe that could be built into the activities that that office is already undertaking. We also raise just a flag for you on the regional climate resilience program, which, as you heard, is being proposed to be cut in half from 250,000,000 to 125,000,000.

This is a new effort that was a legislative priority to try and look at planning across regional boundaries. As we know, climate impacts don't stop at the city line. So these types of multi-jurisdictional planning and projects are essential to responding to climate change impacts. And so as you're thinking about your priorities and making these decisions, that could be an area where you want to have a little bit more funding than what is proposed by the governor. Obviously, that means trade-offs elsewhere.

But we think that type of effort is really important for the state to be beginning to undertake. And then the final point I'll make is just on the topic of extreme heat. The last two budgets are really the first time the state has invested specifically in this specific climate challenge, which is really one of the most dangerous climate impacts we're facing in terms of public health.

And so because we don't really know yet what works in response to this challenge, because it is a new effort and a new challenge we're facing, this is an area you might want to think about some additional data collection and reporting and kind of testing of these pilot efforts that we are in the middle of beginning. Just so we do know a little bit more about what works and what doesn't work, thinking about how we're going to respond in the future.

And we kind of sprinkled money through a lot of different efforts in response to extreme heat to try and test out what might work. And so just making sure you're comfortable with the amount of information you're collecting so that as we're facing this challenge in future years, you know where you might want to make investments. Thanks.

Thank you very much. I'll turn it over to members. And Member Rivas.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this update. While it's raining right now, in a few months we're headed into the summer where many communities will be experiencing extreme heat. This is a priority and has been a priority for me for the last few years. I've had bills related to extreme heat and also advocated for some of these programs to be included in this prior year budget. And it's mainly my community suffers from this. I represent the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

It's very hot in the summers and lots of vulnerable people that don't have air conditioning or access to anywhere to go to stay cool. We have very few trees, unfortunately, in our area. And so that's one of the reasons that I have pushed. And like you mentioned, this is dangerous. It's happening right now, and it's something that, like I said, is a priority for my district. But there's so many communities across California that need us to take action and mitigate the effects of extreme heat. There's increased hospitalizations during these summer months or when we have these heat waves. Public health, it's a public health issue.

And I feel that the Administration had an extreme heat action plan that I thought was groundbreaking work the first time we're addressing this in California. But with these cuts, my question is, how is the implementation of that plan going to be affected because of the cuts? What's not going to happen?

Generally, across the board, we're looking at a reduction in the total number of grants that we'll be able to make to local communities across these programs. Not necessarily. We had looked at less money per grant, and that didn't seem to really be a feasible alternative. So it's going to basically be less grants per program that will be available across the board.

And are you collecting data report like the LAO mentioned that we should be collecting to see what works, what's most effective? How will you evaluate these?

Yeah, for sure. Across the programs we collect, number of applications received a number of those applications that were eligible and could potentially become grant awardees, and then obviously the number of grants awarded. So we'll be able to look at how many people actually need the money, how much money we could put out across the board, and then a variety of metrics associated with that, right? Was it planning grants? Was it implementation grants? Was it to build facilities? The different types of projects or programs within each grant will be tracked as well.

Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you. And for the community resiliency centers, there will not be an impact in the number of programs that are awarded. It will just effectively delay the number of grants that would be provided from two years over three years. So we would see the same impact just with a one-year delay.

For the transformative climate communities, I think there's an opportunity to be able to access federal funds that will be able to help us fill the delta between what was envisioned in the last year's budget and this year. The transformative Climate Communities program was recognized nationally as being a model to be able to really deliver state dollars locally in a way that really responds to community needs and priorities.

And so the Federal Inflation Reduction Act includes a $3 billion program that largely looks like the transformative climate communities program. So we are going to be proactive about putting a technical assistance contract in place. The request for proposal was released yesterday to be able to provide direct support and assistance to communities all around the state to access those federal dollars with the goal of really backfilling and providing an increase in the number of support through programs like TCC.

My community is a TCC community, Pacoima, Sun Valley, and we're very excited about that award that was done a few years ago. And I've already started to see the implementation of the TCC and definitely support that program. And it's something that we really need. It's the most disadvantaged and vulnerable communities that are bearing the brunt of climate change, right, and not necessarily the ones that are responsible for climate change.

If I may just respond, Assemblymember, to your question about the data collection and evaluation. Collecting how many entities apply for a grant and how many grants are awarded won't tell you whether it's more effective to plant trees or build a community resilience center or provide grants for heat pumps. What is the most effective response to extreme heat? That really takes an additional level of analysis and rigor and study and something that state departments typically aren't kind of well equipped to do.

You really need an outside researcher, which costs money. So I think thinking about is that a priority for you. It may require setting aside some additional funding and direction to the departments to do that. But if you don't start collecting the data at the outset, you may lose the opportunity to do some of that evaluation.

So I think the reason, obviously, research is great in all cases, but I think the reason we highlight it here in particular is because this is a new effort for the state to address this challenge. And there really is thus far, kind of a lack of research around what are the most effective interventions.

I agree. And that's something that I think we should prioritize. We don't want to just give out grants and not know what was effective and what wasn't. This is something I think that the state is going to have to continue to invest. Right? It's not just a three-year extreme heat isn't going away. Vulnerable communities will need this or vulnerable people. There will continue to be hospitalizations during the summer. But what is most effective to reduce deaths, right? To reduce those emergency room visits during this weather. And thank you for that. And I will definitely continue to advocate and push that. We do evaluate what's working, what isn't, or what was most effective during those heat waves. And we're talking about several of the programs, like the resilience program, the extreme heat. How do all of those programs fit together? How do you see them all fitting together?

So on the extreme heat, there's a variety of working groups that across the resources agency, OPR, everyone involved in that, that we have staff members that sit in to really think about, how do they all coordinate? So we're not overlapping, we're not having duplicative programs, as well as having members from other agencies be part of our grant awards and review process as well.

So really thinking about that collaborative approach of cross-agency coordination to make sure we are, I don't want to say staying in our lane, but our grant program is not duplicative of others. And how do we make sure those are all integrated? And so there's been a lot of work on the extreme heat side to make sure that we're working together. We're understanding who's funding what and how those can interplay together as opposed to being duplicative.

Is there other ways that they're supporting each other, these programs?

I can touch on that, Assemblymember. When we look at the process that many communities take in terms of going through the process of accessing state funds and investing in extreme heat readiness and resilience, we often see that there's a pathway that starts with baseline readiness, capacity building that happens through the planning process. And so we've designed a lot of the programs to be essentially tackling different parts of the readiness process in an order.

So really focus on planning and community organization and then advancing through to pre-development and readiness and then getting to implementation. And so what you see with a lot of the way that these programs work is that there are different phases in those cycles. So that then there's essentially a program that will meet every community where it's at.

And then our job at our organization is then to really help with communications and clarity around what's a good project at a right time for a community that's working to meet its needs. And how do we communicate, which is a good place to enter. And then also, as you go through the planning process, for instance, then what would be the next step that you could go into that would then be thinking about investing in pre-development or going towards implementation? So I think we also think about it in terms of the lifecycle and making sure that we have many entry points depending on where a community currently is.

And one last question. While this is new for the state, there are other areas where we can be thinking about heat, like how can our state support development that is resilient to heat. Have you thought of that or any ideas on that?

Yes. So there's actually a separate budget change proposal that's going through the process right now for OPR to update our general plan guidelines, and that is long-range guidance to cities and counties on updating their local general plan, which is how do you develop over the next 20 to 30 years? And part of that effort is looking at all of the statutes that have been changed that include extreme heat to look at those local developments, and how do we provide guidance on those types of things related to extreme heat and other hazards as well.

So when will those guidelines be made public?

That's part of the proposal to the Legislature is funding to do it. Yes. So we have an existing draft that was updated several years ago. There's about 150 different bills that have been passed since 2017 that touch on local development. And so we're looking to incorporate how do we look at the General plan guidelines to advance local planning. That includes a variety of resiliency efforts, including extreme aid.

Assemblymember I would add also that within the program's guidelines as well. While currently funded through the General Fund for the Transformative Climate Communities program, we carried forward all the requirements for when this program was funded through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which includes very specific requirements around reducing greenhouse gases as part of construction and the way that the buildings and the infrastructure investments are made.

So if you look at the TransformativeCclimate Communities program, it includes a number of resiliency efforts built into the requirements for how to construct, where to construct, how to design and integrate all the project parameters so that you have a comprehensive greening resiliency mitigation plan in place as part of how that investment happens. So that's really baked into how the project works itself.

Yeah. Well, it seems like then we can start with those guidelines and can inform the others.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you.

Any other questions from members? I have a number of questions that I have. I'm going to start with just sort of an overall thought and comment that relates to many things that we do in state government, but there simply is no substitute for professional public servants out there trying to make sure that we're spending our dollars properly.

And the reason I say that is a program like the program like the extreme heat can so easily be abused as those dollars work their way down through the system. And all it takes is one headlines about the abuse, and there goes the public support for a program or public support for government programs, just in general. Over and over again, I am impressed by how often public servants are really dedicated to trying to make sure we're spending these dollars well.

So I very much appreciate that we need to get data, that it's helpful to have data and helpful to have research, even with the data and even with the research, it just takes common sense professional public servants to make sure, because there are just so many variables to factor in. And in my experience with research data is, it's usually fairly narrow or there's a number of caveats, how they did the study, what data they had in terms of whether it's valid in this particular situation.

So I really just ask you, as I ask sort of everybody that works in state government to just take back, these are really precious dollars, as Assemblymember Rivas points out. These are going to the lowest-income people who have no other options. And I've seen those programs, the transformative communities programs, the national recognition. I've seen low-income people have their lives changed because their house got insulated, and they never could have insulated their house on their own.

And suddenly they were warm in the wintertime and they were cool in the summertime with a program like that. So we never have enough money for all of this, which is why it's so important. So if you'll just take back that point, and it's both for the public servants, and I say professional public servants, I mean, people working in the government, but also people working in the nonprofits that are receiving these grants from the government as it goes forward.

And the question of what is effective is the fundamental question that public servants have to just keep asking themselves all the time. And we have to keep asking ourselves, but from our 50,000-foot level, it's very hard for us to do that, and we rely on that professionalism as we go forward. I want to talk about public education money and an example of that that comes just from my personal experience.

I think LAO is correct to say public education money is something that you have to think carefully about. It was smoking awareness, and everybody was in favor of more public education for young people in terms of smoking awareness, the County of Ventura initiated the grant and found out that the smoking awareness program was run by somebody who took out the City Council members to lunch of all the cities, and had lunch with them and talked to them about what they could do for smoking awareness.

It didn't feel like a very effective program. Just as an example. And so public outreach, I've always had a greater concern about what's the definition of effective spending of public outreach dollars. So with that, I'm going to jump down to regional climate resilience. That's the program the Assemblymember Mullin was particularly pushing on. But there were four or five of us that came forward with sort of regional climate change government proposals two years ago, and these all got lumped into this regional climate resilience. So could you identify what types of projects right now you envision the funding going for, or are we not ready for that part of the presentation?

Yes, I can. If I could phone a friend with the committee, I have a program person in the audience that can give a much better overview than I can. I know the 30,000-foot level. She's much more educated in the specifics of the program.

Great. Thank you, Abby. Now you can have a seat right there. I think we'll probably hear you better. And he needs to stand up and stretch out a little bit anyway.

Right? Exactly. This is what this is all about. Yeah. So for the Regional Resilience Planning and implementation grant program. So, as Scott mentioned, they went through the full process of engaging the public to help inform the guidelines last year, and they drafted their guidelines, and they just got public comment on them and are really incorporating those comments and going to launch the program later this month or later in April. And I think that they're really thinking about, from the planning side, there's 12.5 million for planning.

And so thinking about this multi-jurisdictional approach. So how can tribes or nonprofits or local public entities, public entities partner together? Because as we know, climate change doesn't necessarily just stay within city borders. And so how can they partner together to look at the issues that they're facing? So really looking at the highest risk for each of these regions. And so we know that can be drought, it can be flooding, it can be wildfires, it can be extreme heat, other things.

And so what's the greatest risk that the region is facing? And so whether it's conducting a vulnerability assessment to see what that risk is or if it's using the funding to do a feasibility study for how feasible different projects would be to fund. And so I think that that's sort of through the planning process and then through the implementation process they're really looking at how can they use the rest of the funds to support infrastructure projects to be more resilient to climate change.

And again, that's sort of through that multi-jurisdictional lens, but they are really still in the development of the program and so they haven't launched their applications yet. So we don't necessarily know exactly what those projects will look like.

But you're going to start with a risk assessment evaluation.

Yeah. And I think we really understand that different communities are at different phases of the process. I think Glenn was talking about this earlier, that some have already been kind of well underway and know the vulnerabilities that their communities face. And so in those instances, those projects can kind of potentially go on to the implementation phase. But for some communities, they haven't done that vulnerability assessment. They don't know what the greatest risk is for their region. And so they have to go through that phase, a community informed process, to understand what the greatest risk is.

And those will be interesting conversations in communities.

Yeah, certainly.

Thank you very much for that. In terms of the incentive dollars, how are you working with other programs that might address specific climate concerns that are funded individually? That could be for you. Okay. You're still on, I think.

Okay.

All right, Scott.

Okay. Yeah. So for the set aside funding for the project, is that what this question is about?

I'm sorry, I didn't.

Can you ask your question again?

Yeah. For the incentive dollars that we have, how are you working with other programs that might address specific climate concerns that are funded sort of in silos? Can we have the incentive dollars? We're trying to bring more dollars into climate resilience programs. Is there an outreach to other programs and other silos?

So I think that for this question we might need to refer to other program staff, but I think that what the regional program is thinking about for their funding set-asides is really to invest 40% of the grant funds in overall disadvantaged communities and then set aside 10% of the overall funds to support tribal entities. I think that that's kind of what they're thinking about in terms of their funding set-asides, but I'm not necessarily sure about the coordination with other programs regarding the set-asides.

Great. Thank you. Equitable distribution of the funds. You've just identified one, which is 40% of the programs for low income, et cetera. How about regional? Is there any specificity in terms of regional distribution of the funds?

I'm not sure that they've outlined specific formula funding for specific regions. I think that will be determined through their final guidelines.

Okay. Yeah. I would hope that this program has so much application around the state that across the straight state, people feel like the funds are spread equitably across the state from that standpoint, and then we're cutting this program in half in its infancy. Right? Does it send a signal to local governments that regional climate plan and coordination is not important and they should go, why should you get together for a regional thing if it's not really important?

And it takes significant effort for local governments to come together on a regional level. They all have to put their own siloed interests aside and try to work experience doing that for 20 years as a county supervisor and stuff. And you don't do that easily when you do it. It's pretty precious when you have it. But are we sending a signal here that this regional climate resiliency is not a real important program for the state? We've already cut it some, and it's just getting started and we've hacked it in half. Will it continue to get cut? So why bother?

Yeah, I appreciate this question. I think this opportunity that the funding that we do have is a real opportunity to create awareness around the importance of the multi-jurisdictional partnerships and this multi-risk, multi-jurisdiction example. And it's really an opportunity to kind of show the effectiveness and the need for this type of work with the funds that we do have. I don't know if anyone else wants to.

I can add, too. I mean, the grant program is one aspect of how the state is looking at resilience across the board. Right. So the Legislature passed some laws and Governor signed, obviously, requirements within the general plan, again, to look at adaptation and resiliency. So within your planning documents, you need to think about this. And so there's different layers of how we're attacking the problem for lack of a better term. And providing grant funding to locals is one.

Technical assistance for them to build capacity at the local level is another. Taking advantage of federal grant opportunities and building that local technical assistance to allow them to have the wherewithal and the ability to apply for non-state funds is really something we're focusing a lot on. And so there's a variety of ways we're looking at this. So I don't think it sends the wrong signal because it's one of many programs that are looking at the greater adaptation resiliency impacts of the state and how we deal with that across a variety of spectrums.

I'll offer this observation. I think many local governments are looking at this issue of climate resiliency. It's something that their communities want them to focus on, et cetera. There are big question marks in people's heads about how do you do this. Is it worth doing, et cetera? And so I think we all have to be careful as we roll this program out to emphasize, yes, we will continue to invest in climate resiliency because it's just essential as these changes move forward. Well, thank you.

Can I just respond to. There's nine regions identified through the California Climate Adaptation Strategy and the regional program is intending to fund one project in each region to address your question.

Thank you. That's good for me to hear. I appreciate that. And this is the final question. It's about community resilience centers. Given the small amount of funds that will remain in the fiscal year 23 if delay is adopted, how will you prioritize which projects are funded? Are you considering applications from air districts that run existing programs under the community resilience centers?

Thank you, Chair, for that question. So the way that the first round will be prioritized will include both planning and implementation grants. So really the award that the first round will be based on level readiness for the implementation grants. So communities that are ready to move into pre-development and construction right away would be part of the prioritization structure.

Because of the delay, we actually see a really great opportunity where we can award more implementation grants to communities that are, I'm sorry, more planning grants to implementation, to communities that are less ready so that they can get into the second or third round for implementation. So I think, again, it's thinking about how do we cast a net that's very wide and inclusive and meet communities at the places where they are currently.

Thank you. I'm going to ask people in the back of the. Can you guys hear with the construction noise going on and everything else, everybody's okay? All right, great. All right. Okay. Community-based public awareness campaign. Why is $20 million the correct amount? We have the next great.

So Yumi Sera here is the executive director of the Office Community Partnership and Strategic Communication Coordination. Sorry, it's a long acronym. Yumi is going to answer those questions for you.

Do you have a presentation you want to make also, or are you just answering questions?

I can do either. And I also have made up a presentation in the last 5 minutes that--just hearing what your questions were, so I could do either.

Well, that's obviously the most important presentation. Whatever presentation you'd like to make, and then you can answer the questions also. How about that?

Yeah. If you've done substantial--and the same thing for your representative on the community resilience--I mean, the climate resilience program. If she has a presentation she'd like to make, let us know. Okay, great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just checking the mic. Is this all right?

Yeah.

Okay, great. So thanks for the opportunity to respond to your questions. Really super happy to be here, Chair Bennett and members. I just wanted to take just a second to introduce myself and our new office. My name is Yumi Sera.

I'm the new executive director for the Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications. And I've got about 30 years of--over 30 years of experience, but most relevantly, in state service, I was a senior advisor to the Vaccinate ALL 58 campaign and jumped from that to this. And then before that, I was the deputy director for statewide outreach for California Count Census 2020 campaign, where I've met many of the CBOs on the ground.

And lastly, I'm also a daughter of public servants, so I'm a real believer also in public service. I heard a few questions that I'm hoping to answer also through these talking points. But one question was, what's not going to happen if we don't get the $20 million? And a lot of questions around evaluation and data. What's working? What's not working? How do you know? Just a little bit more about my background, I also work with the World Bank. And so, I've also been trained in evaluation and have conducted evaluations myself, and a real strong proponent of learning.

So our office is responsible for managing the state's highest priority campaigns, and one of them being extreme heat. And the campaigns are really built on good practices and lessons learned from our previous campaigns of the Vaccinate ALL 58 campaign and the Census 2020 campaign. We work in coordination with other state departments and agencies to ensure we're complementary and we are not duplicating efforts and we're supporting our other partners and state agencies. We are a public awareness, or as you say, Chair Bennett, a public education campaign, and it serves as a core pillar in the state's extreme heat action plan.

We're using our model of how we focus on where the highest risk individuals and families are, who they trust most in their community and what message will actually resonate and most likely to drive action. We've done this in the Census and Covid campaigns, and we're highly responsible to emergencies--as you may remember what happened in the last two emergencies we worked on, an unpredictable nature of weather.

What we'll be doing is with the $20 million, which is separate from our base funding, this will be allocated to extreme heat public education campaign. We'll be developing umbrella and rapid response messages, particularly messages that can be translated into other languages and other cultures, partnering with ethnic media outlets who are embedded in communities and building a robust social media campaign.

Because as we saw, especially around the Census and the Covid campaigns, where misinformation and disinformation was rampant. We fund highly interactive heat-safe outreach tactics like phone and text banking. And all of this is in coordination with what our base funding funds, is our CBO trusted messenger network. And just a little bit about, I think, your question around: how do we know what's working? What's not working, right? Proud to say that we were in Pacoima, hosted by Pacoima, beautiful. Last-

Was it last week or two weeks ago? And our staff--I was in a hearing, so I was sadly not able to go--but our staff was able to do a really learning event, and we also did two focus groups with limited English-proficient individuals and families with children under five around extreme heat. So we're really trying to learn and listen to our communities. We were also in Madeira, where we met with many farm worker communities as well.

And of course, we were in Ventura County, hosted by a Ventura community foundation, including many of the environmental, the social groups there, farmworker groups as well. So we're taking a lot of what we're hearing from community. I was also a Peace Corps volunteer, so I'm very community-based and community-oriented and really taking what we're hearing and trying to put them into our practices and our lessons. One of the things that we developed, I launched this year, was a learning lab.

It's called Learning to Action. And bringing our CBO voices and amplifying them. We've had, like, from 180 to 200 on a webinar every month to listen to some of how they do outreach, how they build coalitions, how they reach out to ethnic media. Our last one was actually on evaluation. We've had an evaluator accompany us for a results-based management system. So we know what we've done. We're really trying to both capture the lessons and to really send it out to the public. And also very much community-based lessons. Right? One of our pillars is to be data-informed. We come from the Census, so we know all about data and census tracks. And Ventura was one of our favorite counties, by the way, for Census.

We do have a data platform where our CBOs are required to put what they've been doing, how they've been doing it, what kind of interactive reaches happening, and we're analyzing that data of where they should be going next, which area has the least social or the most social and health inequities. So that we're able to target our population both for our CBOs as well for our public education campaign. We're also able to target the languages.

We work in at least 14 different languages because we're able to work with ethnic media. We're also able to work directly with some of the radio advertisements because that's what works for some of the folks in the field. And I was part of the language and communication access plan for our census. So I'm a real proponent of culturally relevant and linguistically appropriate kind of language translations. So I think that was pretty much what I was going to say. So I'd be happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much. How will the funds cover and how long do you anticipate this funding to last?

We have two fiscal years of funding, and the first,--I think, let me just check--the first is for $6 million, and then the second fiscal year will be for $14 million. So it will last until 2024. And what we'll be covering is--for the $20 million budget, what it will be covering is specifically for the public education component.

Great. Thank you. How about coordinating these communications with other communications that are out there?

Right.

State emergency communications, et cetera. How does that work?

For the communications piece--I sit on the task force, for example, for the OES Priority Populations Task Force, which has been happening every morning these last two weeks because of the flood. So I'm able to at least learn what's out there and contribute also to what the needs are in the community. But what we hope to do more is the educational piece of the preparation and supporting also our CBOs so that they have the right messages to be able to go out.

Thank you very much. Want to welcome Assembly Member Connoly, here. Appreciate it. Transformative Climate Communities, I just have one final question. How much money do you anticipate we can get from the federal government to offset the cuts?

Chair, thank you for that question. It's something I've been thinking about a lot. So, typically, the State of California is able to get between 12-15% of a national pool, and that's based off of our population. I think that we're in a really great position as a state to draw down that amount of money. So that equates to about $250 to $300 million.

And the reason I think we're in such a good position is that the state has invested a lot of time in pre-development, in readiness activities, in capacity building. And so even just looking across the TCC planning grant applicants, we certainly have a significant number of communities that would be ready to start their application process with the US EPA this summer.

Thank you very much. We're just getting ready to leave issue number one. Assembly Member Connolly, if you have any questions before we move on to issue two? Great. All right. Thank you all very much. Really appreciate this. Okay, thank you very much. We're on to issue two, general fund solutions and implementation update from parks. And whoever from the administration wants to begin, if you'll identify yourself. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Armando Quintero and I'm the director of the California State Parks System. And this is Brian Dewey, who's the assistant director in State Parks. The California State Parks System really represents an extraordinary collection of landscapes and diverse habitats, lands, historical sites, cultural sites, recreation areas, and it includes 340 miles of California's coastline.

The governor's proposed budget continues to implement California State Park programs and policies reflective of the foundational elements of access, inclusivity and equity. Providing high quality parks and open space accessible to all California communities--excuse me--is essential. In fact, during Covid, we saw that parks and public lands really became essential landscapes and refugia for the public. These parks improve our health, strengthen our connections and improves our lives and outcomes, and we work to meet our promise of a California for all through everything that we do.

The department has made advancements of equitable outdoor access a priority. And we have many advancements in place towards this goal. We're about to release a new strategic plan which is dubbed Path Forward, and this builds upon existing priorities which were established through the park's transformation effort, which began in 2017. Our new strategic plan introduces new ideas, goals and objectives for the next five years and into the future.

And we're already making progress on a number of the items that will be published in just a few months. This plan creates an actionable implementation strategy that is led by a committee made up of key leaders representing all of the program areas and parks. The plan is in its final review, and as I mentioned, it'll be released within the next few months.

In regards to increasing access and relevance, we are implementing a number of programs to increase access through various means, and I'm going to highlight just a few. The Golden Bear Pass is something that we have distributed in partnership with the Department of Social Services to expand access to parks to recipients of services from the Department of Social Services. And so this is for income-eligible citizens. In years past, recipient or beneficiaries of DSS support checked out about 2,000 passes by registering for these.

By working with DSS, we actually really pushed the pass for the recipients, and this year we distributed 38,000 Golden Bear Passes. We also created something new this year, and I've got an example here. It's called the Library Park Pass. This is a hang tag that goes on your mirror.

In working with the State Librarian, our teams got together and created a program whereby we worked with a legislator, and we were--legislatures--and we were able to get 33,000 passes, which we have distributed to a number of libraries across the state, including tribal libraries. We're still distributing the last tranche of these, but already this pass is one of the most popular items checked out from state libraries. And we're hearing from librarians that families are coming in and checking out books as well.

And one of the things that we did with this pass is there's a QR code on the back which has allowed us to gather data by voluntary participants in a survey that we're taking of the users. And what we're finding is they hit our target audience. A high percentage of the users have annual incomes of $60,000 or less and have not gone to state parks before. And now they're saying that they're going to plan on going to several state parks a year, which is exciting.

And finally, we developed something called the Fourth Grade Adventure Pass. And this is a pass where fourth graders can go online, register for one of these passes, and it allows that fourth grader to take their families to 19 state parks across the state, where we've developed programs specifically for those fourth graders and their families. It's a highly popular program, and to date, we've already distributed 30,000 of these passes. So we've seen a real engagement of the community in these parks.

And beyond Adventure Passes and these passes that I've mentioned, we've been working with tribes to develop MOUs. And some of the recent partnerships have included MOUs with the Koi Nation, the Kashia Pomo, the Yurok, the Washoe from the Tahoe area, and non-federally recognized tribes like the Amah Mutsun in the Santa Cruz area. And just this last Saturday, we signed an MOU with the San Luis Rey Band of Mission Indians in San Diego.

And I have to say, these events are incredibly emotional. Because for the tribes and actually for parks, these collaborations represent reintroduced species, expanded habitat work, putting traditional ecological knowledge to work in areas like prescribed burn work. And also tribes are able to do things like bring traditional practices back to their ancestral lands, which are now managed by state parks, which includes things like ceremony. So it really is a community engagement effort across the state.

And I will say those experiences not only are emotional in their announcement, but in their engagement. It's really something. We're also planning for a changing landscape. State Parks manages over 1.6 million acres of California's world, and that includes 280 state parks. And these areas have been heavily impacted by climate change, and it is something that we are absolutely focused on.

And for example, in 2021, we released a sea level rise adaptation strategy, which provides a framework for long-term planning needs along the coast as we are impacted by--certainly, we saw what happened along the coast in these recent storms, and we are also looking at anticipating additional threats posed by climate change. State Parks is also advancing forest health through stewardship forestry and prescribed burns across more than 100 state parks. And some of that work is being done in partnership with tribes.

And across the state, the department has also been able to support wildlife management, floodplain reconnection and the restoration of watersheds. During heat events, as I said, these parks became a heat refugia across the state. And I'll just say that State Parks has the opportunity to really message to the public what these places can provide for them, even beyond heat refugia. So I appreciate this opportunity to provide you with this high-level overview, and we can now take questions if you would like. Thank you.

I just have one quick question before we go to the members. Did you say 2,280 state parks?

No. 280. Did I say 2,280?

That's what I heard, but that may not be what you said. You meant 280 state parks.

Forgive my nervousness. 280. I guess that's a dream or something.

Members, do we have questions? I have questions if members don't have questions, then. Right? The program difference between the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Recreation Trails and Greenways Program. What is the difference? Liz? I'm going to have chief deputy director Liz McGuirk talk about that program.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members. Liz McGuirk with the Department of Parks and Recreation. So the state Recreational Trails and Greenways Program is a state program that funds trails, trailheads and amenities for state projects. The Federal Land and Water Conservation Program is a federal program funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund and is a broader usage. So it can fund trails, but it can fund other outdoor projects, campgrounds, parks, amenities, outdoor amenities.

Okay. When do you anticipate that the federal money will end?

So the federal Land and Water Conservation Funds were actually permanently authorized recently through the Great American Outdoors Act. And so we do anticipate that funding to be ongoing. There's also a separate federal recreational trails program funded for the transportation enhancement funds. Those have been in existence since 1992 and have been funded since then. So we don't anticipate that funding to end, but it is currently authorized, I believe, through federal fiscal year 2006.

Do you anticipate all of those federal funds? There's no restriction of those federal funds being drawn down by the state for state parks and state recreation trails, is there? Or is there...?

So there's two programs. So federal Land and Water Conservation Fund does have specified purposes. There's grants to local entities as well. It can be used in state projects. The federal Recreational Trails Program also provides grants, and it can be used for state, local; NGOs may apply for the funding.

Great.

Et cetera.

My next question is for the cultural arts program. I don't know if you have somebody else there.

Yes, we do. I'd like to introduce Leslie Hartzell, who's in charge of our cultural resources program.

Thank you very much and welcome. How much funding from the cultural arts program has been committed to date?

Good morning, Chair Bennett and Assembly Members. My name is Leslie Hartzell. I'm the cultural resources division chief, and I also serve on behalf of our director as the department's tribal liaison, by way of introduction. The funding that we have committed to date is as follows: department has developed a work plan that commits 22 million of the funding over the next four years. That'll be through June 2027. We also have $3 million that we've identified as set aside for contingency. And in the coming weeks, the department anticipates that a total of approximately $12 million will be encumbered in the program.

And then, why does the department feel this program is so important to implement so quickly, especially when the state is facing a deficit?

Thank you for that question. The Arts and Parks Program uses cultural arts to respond to and alleviate some of the most pressing needs affecting California's communities, particularly those related to community health and well-being, equity and inclusion. The benefits of parks to community and individual health have been well documented. We've certainly seen that through the pandemic with a tremendous increase in visitation in our parks.

Not only will this program help remove barriers to access for parks, but it will draw in individuals and communities that have limited engagement in parks by implementing culturally relevant art projects and programs, as well as mentorship and employment opportunities. The program will make parks more relevant to all through intergenerational projects and programs that we're designing, with a strong emphasis on tribal nations' engagement, youth, and underserved or disinvested populations.

And this may include further investment in local parks for equity and community engagement, especially where already invested funds in local parks creation or improvements have already occurred, like our fabulously successful Office of Grants and Local Services program that has pushed out--and I think the director, you have the funds on how much we've pushed into parks.

Just since the year 2000, the Office of Grants and Local Services has distributed $2 billion to communities across California. Since the program began in 1964, over 700 communities have benefited from these investments, and these are for communities outside of state parks. And so what happens is these funds go to communities that are park-poor communities who either-

-Those communities that are what?

Park-poor: they don't have parks, or they have facilities that are really run down and need to be rehabilitated. And again, I said there was an emotional experience with working with tribes. An example is last year--actually, last year was our biggest year of investments for communities across California, which was $548 million. And there were 106 communities that benefited from that investment.

And I went to the ribbon cutting for a park down at the community of Paris, and with a grant that they got from our office, they transformed a 22-acre site into an incredible community park, and they had nothing. And this is a whole town. And so one of the things about these arts programs is those are the communities that are also going to be served by the delivery of these programs.

So cultural arts programs are helping with a specific transformation of places into parks in park-poor communities.

Exactly. And this arts program we're seeing as a vehicle for really helping communities engage in those. So if we've invested to uplift and create local parks--so that might be city, county, regional parks areas--then the arts programs help make sure that the community feels welcome, engaged, and brings their community interests to that space through arts.

I might mention: when I mentioned the community park in Paris--when they did the community plan for the park, it included community art and it's just really a wonderful expression of creating local ownership. And one of the things that we are working on is to really get these communities to understand that these are state investments in their communities and that these parks are connected to the greater network of state parks. So when I speak with these communities who are out in these poor rural areas, often, I'll mention these giant redwoods in California and all of these beaches: "They're yours." And so it's really an opportunity to create connection.

How were you able to spend these funds in a manner of months when the CNRA's museum grant fund, for example, which was founded in 2021 to help museums losing revenue as a result of Covid-19 pandemic and provided permanent ongoing staff, just recently awarded half of the money appropriated and the administration is proposing to cut the rest. So how is it that the one program moved so fast and the museum grant program did not move anywhere near as quickly and now is being cut?

I would like to speak to the strategy that we're applying for this because this funding is really geared to do two things. It's to support arts and parks for both state parks as well as local parks, as I mentioned. For state parks, we're able to move fairly rapidly because we've done inventories of our own arts programs throughout our park system. So our 280 parks, we've done an extensive inventory to look at: what are we already delivering now?

What are the successful programs that we are having? Which are ones that maybe are just being initiated and planned for, for future art installations with new partners that have stepped forward that would like to work with parks? We also have gone through and are continuing to analyze data from our planning efforts where we might have interpretation, natural cultural resource programs, working with tribes, and interests from community engagement efforts that are helping inform opportunities for future arts programs that we can do.

So that has allowed us to already identify programs that, year one, we can come out this July and prioritize initial rounds of funding within state parks that will allow us to lift existing programs, learn from those programs, and use that as a model for expanding that network and outreach and arts to other locations in-state.

The other thing that we have an opportunity to do to move fairly quickly on all of the funding is we have a statutory partner with Parks California that is at the table with us helping develop the program, and they will be administering the local grant program side of things and they will be able to handle that in efficient, nimble manner. They have dealt with other grant programs already for state parks.

We've also contracted with a consultant who is supporting the development implementation of the program and thus ensuring we have adequate staff capacity to meet the program schedule. So we were able to onboard that consultant fairly quickly, whereas sometimes it takes a little while to hire staff.

Excuse me, I'm going to interrupt you. I asked a question, but elections is begging me to come over there right now.

Please.

So I'm going to turn this over to Assembly Member Rivas.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

We'll have it on record. Assemblymember RIvas, would you like me to continue?

Yes, please continue.

Okay. The California Arts Council is also advising on the program's development and engagement with artists and art organizations. This is a really important relationship for us with the California Arts Council. So we are going to be leveraging what they have as experience and knowledge and already built art community organizational structures to help us be able to move quickly.

And finally, we are going to be establishing an Advisory Committee to help inform the arts and Parks program development, implementation, outreach and engagement. And in those ways, I feel that we're going to be successful in moving the funds fairly quickly right into the communities. Thank you.

Assemblymember Connolly.

Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you. Director, if you could give us a sense of how do you plan to allocate the $35 million for future capital outlay projects? For example, what capital outlay projects will be funded and when will they be completed?

Thanks for the question. Thank you. Good morning. Brian Dewey, California State Parks the 35 million has been allocated for three existing capital outlay projects that are in need of additional funds and or need to be expanded to include additional scope items. The first project is for McGrath State beach. This is an important project that relocates an existing campground that has been closed because of year round flooding. It would restore much needed, low cost coastal accommodations in this stretch of the coast.

It also includes the restoration, expansion of high quality repairing habitat. And the project was initially funded with a combination of state bond funds, and the other half was yet to be identified matching funds. And the Department has made significant efforts to seek additional funding, look at partners for matching, but is yet to be successful in that. So we have identified funding from this pot here to match that existing funding to make that project whole. The next project is Candlestick Point state recreation area.

This is an existing project. There's approximately $50 million approved right now, $10 million state funds with 40 million from land transfers that are pending with the development of the adjacent areas. The timing and amount of those transfers is somewhat unknown given the changing nature of the economics of the development. So some additional funding from this pot would essentially allow us to make additional very high priority core improvements. This is a park that would expand equitable access in underserved communities as well.

And then finally, there's the Borderfield State Park Monument Mesa project. This is a project that's evolved over time. Initially, it was Monument road and Mesa project. The road also floods majority of the year, provides access to Monument Mesa, which is an important site historical and for communities. And it is where families would gather at the border. The site is currently inaccessible most of the year. The project was split up into two phases. One was the road repair, which is ongoing right now.

It's funded out of deferred maintenance. The monument Mesa portion was dropped and is now being picked back up as a project and has also been expanded to include additional visitor serving facilities. Again, it's a location where we're expanding equitable access to parks in a strategic manner. I believe there is some question as to the timing of when we would come forward with these proposals. And because they'd all be capital outlay, they'd be budget change proposals that would become before this Committee and other committees, legislature at a future date when additional funding is needed.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Assembly Member Essayli.

How are you? Good morning. I'm sorry. Who's from state parks? You are. Yes. Okay. I just want to say I love the state parks. I mean, I think in our digital world, where everyone's like in their computers, it's good to go out. I have Crystal Cove Nearby and stuff. So I noticed that you have deferred maintenance of 1.3 billion. Sounds like a lot of money.

And I just hope that as government, we can be creative and smart and figure out how we can do this. The other day, you buy a can of coke or whatever, they are still taking that nickel or whatever out of the can, and there's nowhere to get your money back. I don't know if you guys have realized that.

So I just looked up, and they have 1.4 billion sitting in this Fund that from all the money we're paying, and I don't even know what they're doing with it. So why can't we go take that money and give it to you and you guys can fix all our parks instead of it sitting there. So I would love, like, at some point, we just kind of get creative and think about what money is being used and not, and putting it where it should be.

The parks is something that should be funded. I mean, from just an environmental and really mental health standpoint for citizens, it's important. So I don't know if I have a question, but it's more of a statement.

Well, I really appreciate you raising that point. And we have some incredible park partners. Parks California, which was created by statute, is a fundraising partner, and they help us with programming. And there's also the California State Parks foundation.

Those are the two largest bodies and sort of mirrors what the National Park Service does with National Parks foundation and the MPCA. And they are the bodies that do go after that sort of funding. That is absolutely what we're working with them on. And one of the things that we do is look at the priorities that we've got and, yes, 1.8 or the deficit or the backlog. Yes, the backlog, you're right, it's a big number.

One of the things that we've also done is we keep, Dewey, in fact, keeps a list of like the $200 million mark as a priority so that we're ready to go, so that we're shovel ready when these funds appear. And so we are working on that diligently with our park partners, and we can report out on that at some point.

Yeah, I mean, our budget is so large, it's larger than it's ever been. It's double than what it was 10 years ago. We're almost at 300 billion. We have plenty of money. I just question if we're using all the money efficiently and appropriately. And I just can't believe that we can't find this money for you. In our budget, we spend money on a lot of other things.

So it's just an observation, but I appreciate maybe something that the finance people can look at. But there's $1.0 billion sitting in this recycle Fund that I don't know what they do with it.

We'll talk to parks California about that. Thank you very much.

What was that? Add on, sure. He needs to add on right now. Do you mind working an add on, please?

[Roll Call]

Thank you very much for being here. Senate Member. I think that that concludes our questions. Does anybody have anything else for issue two? All right, we're going to move on to issue three. Right. Thank you very much. New state park, Dos Rios Ranch.

Oh, you'd like to want me to talk about Dos Rios? Okay. This is a really exciting new state park. And the Governor's Budget proposes $5.8 million in one time General Fund and $3.3 million in ongoing funding to establish and open Dos Rios Ranch as a new state park for day use operations to create recreation opportunities and park access to historically underserved communities in the Central Valley. This park is located 20 minutes west of the western edge of the City of Modesto.

Expanding park access in the Central Valley is a strategic part of the state park's future as outlined in our state park Central Valley Vision implementation plan. Dos Rios Ranch was previously acquired just over 10 years ago by the nonprofit river partners and with public funds, and they did the restoration and the acquisition of these lands over the last 10 years, and this will be transferred to the state as a donation.

The Dos Rios property has been a leading example of green infrastructure that lowers flood risk, protects endangered species, and brings life back to the San Joaquin Valley, with the work that the river partners has completed over those last 10 years. Recognizing Dos Rios as a new state park allows California to lead the way in natural resources management and groundwater recharge projects, while opening a 1603 acre area of land to the public and creating new recreation and education opportunities in a historically underserved area.

In the interest of developing public access to the park as quickly as possible following the transfer of ownership, which we hope to have happen toward the end of the summer, the funding and positions will be allocated will be in the budget change proposal, will provide the needed staffing, startup resources, and operational funds to enable immediate public use of this amazing place and offer much needed natural recreation space for the Central Valley.

And I just might mention that just weeks before, right after these atmospheric rivers began, I visited the site with Secretary Crowfoot and we saw that floodplain flooded, and what that's doing is actually recharging the groundwater basin in that area. So the idea of looking at parks as true multi benefit landscapes in California not only offers those sorts of benefits, but it also becomes a really powerful educational framework for the public. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Any members have questions? Great. Always great to see with our 30 x 30 goals. It's a small percentage chunk, but it's just nice to see that we're still able to expand and create new state parks. They are, and you're blessed to get to be the Director of them and everybody that works at them. They're sort of like every man's park. They are not the same high profile as our national parks, but they sure get a lot of use.

Actually, they provide a tremendous amount of value, particularly to the local area where the state park is and stuff. So keep up the good work and spend the dollars as efficiently as possible, like we've all talked about. And I know we have great public servants in the state park system and stuff. Hope you can keep inspiring all of them. All right, great. We're at non presentation items. Any questions or comments from members on the non presentation items? Assembly Member Connolly.

Yeah, just wanted to express particular appreciation on item 13 of non presentation.

You guys could leave if you want. Thank you very much.

And yeah, thank you for all your work. The Sonoma Open space area operations, particularly the governor's request for $3 million in reimbursement authority relating to managing open space parklands within the Sonoma Developmental center, which is a conversion of a former developmental center toward open space, toward revitalization. So appreciate all the work that went into that and just wanted to acknowledge that.

Great. Thank you very much, Assembly Member. We will now turn to public comment. We'll start with the public comment. Is there any public comment in the room?

Good morning, chair, and thank you for allowing us to have public comment. And thank you for the presentation today. Abigail Mighell, on behalf of the Sempervirens Fund and I wanted to comment on some of the governor's proposed cuts to state parks, both for deferred maintenance and for the outdoor access programs and arts programs. Just wanted to kind of reiterate what we discussed before and highlight that we have a world class state park system and it benefits all Californians statewide.

It really is a gem to our state, but to not be funding deferred maintenance and to not be paying attention to the upkeep that needs to happen at all 280 state parks is really a disservice. And it's going to have long term negative impacts on visitor experience, on natural resources in the parks, and on our ability to expand the parks and make sure that they're accessible for more people. And same goes for outdoor access programs.

They get underserved communities to parks where they have life changing experiences every day. So we'd really like to push back on the governor's proposal to cut this funding and just highlight that it's short sighted and it really is important to Californians. Thank you.

I'm going to make a comment here while you're on this topic because I didn't get to address that, and particularly while we have the Director and the Assistant Director here. It is one of the hardest questions in public policy and the issue of deferred maintenance. And the healthiest organizations do a great job of not kicking the can down the road on deferred maintenance. And it's pennywise and pound foolish oftentimes.

And yet at the same time, when there are tough cuts, you have to make those decisions about what can truly be delayed. But usually what happens is if you go, it can be delayed this year, it also can be delayed next year and next year and next year, and you run into the problem.

So I'm a strong proponent and hope that over the next couple of years we can address the deferred maintenance deficit that we have and start to have a commitment that whittles that deferred maintenance number down. And if it was last year and we had that budget surplus, I would have been from this position as a chair pushing much harder to grow that deferred maintenance. Let's knock the deferred maintenance down. When you got $100 billion surplus, let's knock it down as much as feasible.

What can you handle? But I certainly agree with the speaker and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to catch the Director and the Assistant Director and staff here to emphasize that. I hope over the next couple of years that's really where we could go. Thank you very much. Next, speaker.

Hello, chair and member Nicholas Mazati on behalf of the Building Decarbonization Coalition urging the state to protect the full 160,000,000 in funding for the strategic Growth Council's community resilience Centers program. This program will expand access to cooling, backup power and other resources upgrading community based facilities with clean energy technologies like heat pumps and prioritizing high road jobs opportunities. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Operator, if you'll start the phone lines.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have public comment at this time, press one, then zero on your telephone keypad. We'll go to line number eight, please. Go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Enrique Huerta, Legislative Director at Climate Resolve. We're a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles and we've worked on heat policy and projects for more than a decade. Even though California is beginning to address extreme heat, major gaps remain. I'd like to make a few points. First, extreme heat is causing a public health crisis. It is resulting in preventable deaths, especially for our most vulnerable and marginalized.

Second, the proposed $75 million trigger cut to the extreme heat and community resilience program represents almost a 50% reduction. We believe this is a disproportionately larger cut than other areas. Climate Resolve urges the Assembly budget Subcommitee three to protect all ready appropriate funds to adapt communities to extreme heat. We commit to working with your staff and to find other areas for budget savings. We would like to especially call out OPR's Extreme Heat and community resilience program and the Community Resilience center program. They are vital that these innovative and forward looking programs have the resources needed to advance life saving, cutting edge community cooling projects. Thank you for your time.

Our next comment comes from line number 14. Please go ahead.

Good morning, chairing Members. My name is Olivia Seideman. On behalf of Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, we strongly urge against cuts or delays to the SGC Community Resilience center program. Resilience centers are crucial investments in physical and social infrastructure that provide under resourced communities with the necessary investments to adapt to the climate crisis.

With the floods, storms and consequent evacuations of the past few months, it is inarguable how urgently we need resources for communities during climate disasters, and we must invest sooner rather than later in this critical infrastructure to ensure that communities have the resources they need to deal with climate events. These resources are needed urgently and we strongly urge that the budget keep the full 160,000,000 planned for fiscal year 23-24. We also urge against cuts to TCC.

This is a critical program to identify and implement community centered and place based climate solutions. Communities that receive planning grants will have to scale down and remove projects to reflect the reduced funding when applying for implementation funds which goes against the intent of the program. Fully funding TCC is imperative to ensure, adjust and equitable implementation of California's climate strategies. Relatedly, we also urge yo.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Next speaker, please.

Our next comment from line number 15. Please go ahead.

Hello. Chair and Members Elise Vondrick from Tratten Price Consulting on behalf of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Green New Deal Coalition in strong support to protect the full 160,000,000 in funding for the SJC Community Resilience Centers program.

This program would enable the construction and rehabilitation of neighborhood based community facilities such as health clinics, community centers, libraries, schools, and other public and community facilities that serve as resilience centers to address the growing needs of working class communities of color in the face of converging climate, economic and public health crises. They're essential sites of resilience as the state faces increasingly intense climate impacts that are all too familiar. Extreme heat, wildfires, power outages, smoke and flooding.

Delays in programs funds could leave planned projects without necessary resources to move and implement. That would significantly hamper the program that already has extensive community input and support. Thank you.

Our next comment is from line 16. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Kim Delphino with Earth Advocacy, representing the Sonoma Land Trust. I'm speaking to issue 13, the Sonoma Open Space area operations $3 million for state parks to manage open space parklands within the Sonoma Development center. I'm just going to echo the comments already made by Assemblymember Connolly. This is an important augmentation to the budget and we strongly support it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next comment is from line number six. Please go ahead.

Good morning, chair Members. My name is Maria Loera on behalf of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, and I'm making comments on the equitable building the community program, which is an extremely concerning program to see delays and cuts and these investments are both crucial to reach our climate goal and to ensure that low income communities are able to access CCAR programs which have cobenfits, such as improved indoor air quality and lower energy bills.

We strongly support the protection of the full 922,000,000 for this building decarbonization Fund and ask that there is no delay to the 283,000,000 from being invested into low income communities. I echo the app to not delay the SGC CRC programs and the PCC cuts with an accelerating climate crisis bringing extreme heat in the summer and storms and floods in the winter, it is critical that we continue to make historic investments to reduce emissions and delivery resilience to climate impact. Thank you.

Our next comment comes from line number 11. Please go ahead.

Good morning chair Bennett and Members. My name is Rachel Norton and I am the Executive Director of the California State Parks foundation representing 80,000 members and thousands more park advocates from across the state. And I'm calling in to discuss presentation items 1 and 2 concerning funding for state parks. First, I would really like to appreciate the support for the funding for Dos Rios as a new state park in a particularly park poor part of the state.

I would like to also express our strong concern at the proposed cuts to deferred maintenance and appreciate the comments that were made from Members about this topic. It has been feast or famine for many years for state parks deferred maintenance, and so we end up in the situation where we are, which is a huge backlog and we never know when we're going to get money. And as the chair noted, we did not get additional money last year when there was a significant surplus.

So I'd be very interested, we would be interested in working with you on how to address this feast or famine problem, because it's not working for state parks. Finally, I would really like to address the suggestions to cut the outdoor access program, including the outdoor equity program and the statewide Parks program. Both are astronomically successful programs that connect underserved communities to the beauty of our state parks and their benefits. And they've been oversubscribed. The grant programs have been very oversubscribed. So they're needed, they're wanted, they're effective, and we urge you not to take step back in achieving equitable outdoor access. Thank you so much for your time.

And it appears our last comment comes from line number 17. Please go ahead.

Hello chair and Members. My name is Nicole Wong, senior climate resilience program manager with the Greenlining Institute, a statewide racial equity policy organization. We strongly support preserving the original 420,000,000 proposed for the Transformative Climate Communities program. This program is critical for supporting holistic, community led climate resilience projects. Despite the forthcoming rollout of federal EPA funding, this program is anticipated to be highly competitive and therefore it's uncertain whether California communities will be able to successfully access these funds.

There are also stark differences in the program's implementation, timeline, goals, and eligible entities. Therefore, we urge you to fully Fund the PCC program that SGC has tailored over the past five years to the unique needs of California communities. Additionally, the regional Climate Communities program offers the necessary partnerships, skills, and technical assistance so that underresourced communities can prepare to effectively apply for climate funding. We strongly urge the legislature to include 10 million to maintain this critical capacity building program, which was not included in the governor's January budget. Thank you so much for your consideration.

Thank you very much. Today's hearing is adjourned. We'll be back on April twelveth for a Joint Hearing on high speed rail. I'm sure that that will be an interesting hearing. Meetings adjourned.