Senate Standing Committee on Local Government

Okay. The Senate Committee on Local Government will come to order. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this meeting of the Senate Committee on Local Government. We welcome the public in person, and we are holding our Committee hearings here in the O Street building. I ask all Members of the Committee to please join us to establish quorum. We have 13 bills on today's agenda. We don't have quorum. We don't have quorum. So we're going to proceed as a Subcommitee, and we're ready to hear from our first author, Senator Cortese. Sure. Well, go ahead, Mister.

Thank you. Thank you. And good morning, Chair and Senators, thank you very much for allowing me to present SB 915 to you today. The Bill allows local governments to weigh in on the operations of autonomous vehicle services, or AV's, in their communities. Currently, AV operations are approved or denied at the state level by the DMV or the PUC. Though they hold proceedings to gather public input, there's no guarantee that the state will consider local concerns. These concerns are justifiable.

Autonomous vehicles have been involved in hundreds of accidents. For example, in San Francisco, the first city where they were authorized to operate in 2023, as many know because it's been well publicized, the San Francisco Fire Department reported more than 70 instances of driverless vehicles interfering with emergency response, including a very serious accident there. Governance of local streets and roads has long fallen under the shared jurisdictions of local governments. The operation of AV should be no different.

It should be a hybrid of state and local government overseeing motor vehicle operation with or without drivers. Local governments currently do not have the authority to respond to rising frequency of incidents. Operations continue to be approved in more and more cities and counties without the oversight of the communities themselves under 915. Senate Bill 915 when a state agency like the DMV or the PUC approves operations for an AV service, then local governments can pass ordinances to regulate these vehicles within their jurisdictions.

These ordinances would allow for limits on service rates, hours of operation, number of vehicles operating at a given time, and local ordinances must include a policy for AV's to enter into their jurisdiction. Additionally, if a state agency authorizes AV operations, AV companies can still move forward with operations, even if a local government is slow or does not pass an ordinance. If there's no ordinance, the default guidelines will be what the state agency has on the books, what they've approved at that point.

SB 915 also allows local governments to create permitting processes and establish penalties for AV's that commit moving violations and obstruct traffic. Local governments may also form JPA's if they choose to, which would collaboratively regulate services across their jurisdictions, should they feel that that's necessary. This Bill requires all AV commercial passenger service companies to ensure compliance with disability access laws, provide an override system for emergency responders, and train emergency responders on how to manually override the vehicles.

SB 915 has received broad support from local government and workers. With us today to testify, we have Matt Broad with the California Teamsters and Damon Conklin with the California League of Cities. I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time, Madam Chair, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you very much. Just as a reminder. Welcome is we have two minutes each for our primary witnesses. After the primary witnesses, we will allow me too's from anyone in the public.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members, or I should say Member Matt Broad here, on behalf of the California teamsters, we are proud to co sponsor SB 915, which allows local cities to work concurrently with the CPUC and DMV to regulate autonomous vehicle services. This is about instilling sort of some semblance of local control with respect to the deployment of autonomous vehicles. How we got here, we were looking at what we think is wrong with the current process.

And, you know, we and other stakeholders have engaged thoroughly with the CPUC and DMV and have felt that there hasn't necessarily been meaningful incorporation of some of our feedback, our concerns. I think that's been very clear throughout the last year or so, as we've seen, these services continue to be deployed, and that's where SB 915 comes in.

After the state issues a deployment permit through its relevant agency, a local government may, and I'll say that again, may enact an ordinance that contemplates areas such as vehicle caps, hours of service, interactions with first responders, and ADA compliance. The idea being that we want to be able to incorporate these groups experiences and make sure that's reflected in a local ordinance that doesn't preempt what the state's doing, but allows local government to go above and beyond where necessary.

I'll just say that the Bill is a product of its sponsors and supporters, which includes organized labor, local government, firefighters, disability rights, California, and more. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, go ahead, Mr. Conklin,

Madam Chair, Members, thank you very much and good morning. Damon Conklin with the League of California Cities. California cities support the AV industry. We want to see the industry continue to grow, innovate, and flourish. However, the current system is broken and lacks parity and transparency. Local cities know, maintain and police local streets and roads best, not the state. Yet we have a system that does not involve local governments in the deployment of AV's onto our streets.

Local governments have extensive traffic management experience, offering more fitting solutions than the DMV's generalized approach. Local governments are used to regulating traffic. School zones, airports and municipalities know what's best when it comes to making their streets safe because they are run by the very people who reside in the communities they oversee. But right now, local municipalities have zero control over the hundreds of autonomous vehicles wreaking havoc upon our roads.

In fact, the state is allowing AV companies to expand and robotaxis will be able to operate on any public road within any given municipality 24/7 in any weather condition around vulnerable populations such as elementary schools, regardless of local concerns about the amount of vehicles that are deployed throughout their community, or even to protect consumers by establishing a ceiling rate for services we recognize as the industry grows, there are challenges that require adjustments. SB 915 is one of those adjustments.

SB 915 will provide municipalities a voice in autonomous vehicle deployment by allowing cities, if they so choose, to adopt a local ordinance that takes into consideration necessary guardrails for that local community. Cities should be involved, not ignored. And for those reasons, we respectfully ask for your support for Senate Bill 915. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Do we have anyone in the public wishing to step up and in support of SB 915? Please come up.

Scott Brent, with the smart transportation division and support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair Member. Scott Wetch. On behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, in support the California State Pipe Trades and the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Megan Subers, on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters, co-sponsor in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Elmer Lizardi, on behalf of the California Labor Federation, co-sponsors in support.

Thank you.

Melissa Lovato. On behalf of the County of Santa Clara and the Board of Supervisors, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Markey Sieger, on behalf of the Supervisors of Los Angeles County in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair Members. Gregory Kramer, on behalf of Disability Rights California in strong support, it has very bedrock protections for people with disabilities. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Sergio Aranyaga, representing Teamsters local 350, and we're in strong support of this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Jimmy Thiessen, Teamsters Local 315. I'm here in support of SB 915.

Thank you.

Good morning. Dale Wentz, on behalf of Teamsters Local 150, we support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Brian Marshall, Teamsters local 350. We are in definite strong support of this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Joey Gomes, Vice President, local 350, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Matthew Castillo, Teamsters logo, 350 in support.

Thank you. Okay, now we'll move on. We want to take a moment to establish quorum, if we can.

Roll Call

Thank you very much. Okay, we're going to proceed now with any witnesses in opposition.

And you'll--again, reminder--you have two minutes each.

Yes. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Curt Augustine. I'm the Senior Director of Government Affairs for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, and I'm also happy to say that I'm also representing 68 other organizations who are, including disability organizations, local government leaders, and economic development organizations who have concerns about this bill. AV companies are committed to safety. AV technology is poised to increase safety, mobility, and economic benefits in our cities. However, SB 15 creates roadblocks to this progress.

That said, local governments should be involved, but not in the manner that SB 915 envisions. This bill would create a plethora of separate entities creating their own operating rules, which would create an unworkable crazy quilt of laws for companies to try to comply with. Also, the bill is in conflict with longstanding policy in this state regarding the use of vehicles. California law does not allow cities to determine what vehicles can enter the city. Operate, yes, but enter the city, no.

This is not like taxis. The potential exists for cities to ban AV technology from entering their city, even if it is licensed by another city. Cities cannot do that with taxis. The potential exists with this bill. As I said, local governments need to and are currently involved. They are involved through local notification of the DMV process, law enforcement interaction plans, and there are many other opportunities for local governments to participate during the testing permit process.

AV manufacturers must certify and let local governments know they're testing there. They must also provide the list of vehicles and all rows that they're going to be testing on when the testing is occurring and the number of vehicles. Also, we work closely with law enforcement agencies with the interaction plans that tell agencies, including all first responders, to do that. And also, obviously, cities can still enforce the applicable traffic laws and local rules of the road.

While there have been issues understanding with the DMV and CUP regulatory process, they have been around for over a decade, and there have been multiple opportunities for public participation. So if there is a conversation to be had about this, and it's important, as we, that local government have heard, we believe that this conversation should exist within the existing confines of the regulatory framework right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes.

Hi. My name is Miguel Arias. I'm council member for the City of Fresno and a board member of FCTA that oversees a billion dollar transportation tax plan for the Central Valley. Fresno is a major metro for the Central Valley's nearly four million residents. The vast majority are rural communities that produce a nation's food supply. Furthermore, I represent a zip code that has the highest concentration of poverty and the worst air basin in the country and also home to future High-Speed Rail station.

With that, I come to you to express my opposition to Senate Bill 915 that would grant our city and 500 other municipalities the ability and the responsibility to regulate and significantly limit the AV industry. You heard me right. I'm a local politician that doesn't want your job. I believe that responsibility is yours and you have all the right stakeholders in the room. As an ally of labor, you have the experts in AV industry. You have the significant staff support to regulate this industry statewide.

I'm fully confident that the DMV, the CPUC, federal agencies, my state, local elected officials, Member Arambula and Soria, the Governor, the teamsters, all are better positioned prepared to regulate this industry statewide.

Furthermore, it is very difficult for us to support this bill that would require us to front the cost of research, development, and enforcement at best, for a patchwork of regulations across invisible lines at a time that our budgets are decreasing or according to the state. As the Valley's largest transportation agency, we only have two employees and one administrative secretary. We don't have the capacity to engage in this regulation development. Third, this local control is being proposed to us is not being requested by us.

It frankly, it feels like a setup for hundreds of local scapegoats to blame when we limit the innovation of AVs in California, a state that prides itself as leading the world in tech. Simply, I ask that you not assign us this responsibility and micromanage this work. I simply ask you to lead. I'm confident that your ability and you have the right stakeholders in the room to engage in this process and urge your opposition to Senate Bill 915.

Thank you.

We really don't need that work. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any further opposition from the public? And again, your name and organization.

Madam Chair and Members, Theo Pahos, representing Ford, also in opposition.

Good morning. Tim Taylor with the National Federation of Independent Business and on behalf of the California Delivery Association, in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Catherine Charles, on behalf of Bay Area Council, Gatik, and the Los Angeles County Business Federation, in opposition.

Thank you.

Good morning. Lizzie Cootsona, here on behalf of Tesla, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Gema Gonzalez, on behalf of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Aidan Ali-Sullivan, representing Waymo, the only company operating autonomous vehicles here in California commercially, in opposition.

Thank you.

Austin Heyworth, on behalf of Waabi, a San Francisco-based heavy-duty autonomous vehicle developer. Our issue is the inclusion of commercial vehicles. We're opposed. Thanks.

Thank you.

Charles Watson, on behalf of Zoox, in opposition. Thank you.

Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, respectfully opposed.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Timothy Burr, on behalf of Aurora Innovation and TechNet. Opposed. Thank you.

Good morning. Katie Stevens, on behalf of Nuro, currently deploying in the Bay Area Goods Movement, vehicle, in opposition. Thank you.

Okay. No more? All right. If there's no more comments from the public, then we're going to move on to our Committee Members. Comments, questions?

Go ahead. I'm still trying to gather my--

Yeah.

Yes, Senator.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I want to thank the author and the sponsors for engaging with me. So the original version of this bill, it created a global statewide ban on any and all AVs in the State of California, literally just a shutdown of AVs in California starting on January 1st. And then cities, if they chose to, could then opt in to relegalize them. Of course, we know many cities probably would never even get around to it.

It's a big undertaking for cities to do that. And I made clear to the author and to the sponsor that there was no way that I would cast a vote in Committee or otherwise to globally ban AVs in California. I thought that went too far, and it really wasn't consistent with what I understood the intent of the supporters to be. So I made that very clear.

And I'm very appreciative that the author amended the bill to remove that and to make clear that if this bill were to pass in this form and be signed into law, then on January 1st, the status quo would prevail. And then cities, if they chose to, at some point in time, could enact regulations. That will, based on that--and I'm very appreciative for that--I will be voting today to advance this bill out of Committee so that the conversation can continue and the author and sponsors can continue to work on the bill. This is the first Committee, and I don't want to shut that conversation down.

I do believe that--I do want to just stress, and I've said this to the sponsors and to the author, the bill in print now, even though it has been amended to the point that will allow me to support putting it out of Committee, I still do have serious concerns with the bill in print, and I have historically been very hesitant to give cities the ability to--I have no problems with cities having some latitude around modes of transportation.

I have historically had serious concerns about giving cities broad latitude to significantly restrict or effectively ban modes of transportation because it creates all sorts of issues in terms of patchwork and can you be in this city or that city? You know, I've given this example. My own beloved City of San Francisco effectively destroyed the e-scooter industry in San Francisco, and it's really hard. You know, we had a robust e-scooter system in the city.

We no longer have it because of just a lot of--frankly, there were all sorts of dynamics at play, including a lot of just like, you know, get the kids off my porch kind of attitudes around e-scooters. And the City of San Francisco basically destroyed that industry, and I don't think the city should have had the ability to do that. I know it's a very different thing and there are much other issues here around jobs and such, so I don't want to compare them exactly, but I just have serious concerns about that.

While the bill does not explicitly allow cities to ban AVs, the latitude it gives cities around vehicle caps and hours of operation and maximum rates and so forth in combination could effectively allow cities to ban this mode of transportation. I want to say I'm very sensitive to the job issue, and there's been a lot of concern around, particularly delivery. And this is not a delivery bill. This goes way, way beyond just delivery. If it were a delivery bill, that's its own conversation.

But this is a very, very broad bill, and I also just want to close just because I have the opportunity to talk about transportation, which I always love to talk about, that while AVs can serve a very, very real purpose, cars are cars, whether they have human drivers or are autonomous, or whether they're fossil fuel or electric, and we gotta have a better public transportation system in the State of California. So just preach about that, separate from the discussion about AVs.

So with that, I will be voting to advance the bill today, and I will see what comes on the floor, and then I will take a look at the bill, but the bill in print, I do continue to have serious concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator.

I feel like I'm a mile away from this thing. Okay, great. So I kind of have some similar concerns. My concern is, I'm a little conflicted, because I'm all for the development of new technologies because some of those new technologies are really beneficial to people that can't use existing technologies, and it can make life easier for a lot of people.

And at the same time, when you're developing that technology throughout, like the State of California, in order to do that technology and develop it the right way, they have to be able to work in those different areas. But I'm also very cognizant of the cities having, you know--everybody is a little different. Their street layouts are different, their downtowns are different, and so cities need the ability to create some guardrails.

But I don't look at this as an opportunity for them to, you know, create more funding for everything because--and that's what, you know, I'm seeing a little bit of that is, you know, when you start talking about permit fees and things like that, it seems like the concern is more, let's raise--this is an opportunity to raise some money.

And I understand, you know, everybody needs to raise money in government, but my concern is more about making sure we have the balance between new technology having the ability to develop and the appropriate guardrails, the ability to establish appropriate guardrails for that new technology, given the uniqueness of all of the different communities that are out there.

So cities do have to have a say, but I'm not quite sure that this bill either--it looks like it may give them too much of a say, and it might be in something different that will actually restrict the ability for the AV industry to continue to develop their technology. And as they develop that, you may find that--or they may find--that there are areas that it just doesn't work that well. And at that point, they can decide not to be there and the cities can also address it at that time.

So, you know, for me, I'm kind of looking at between here and when we see it again, that they work on this to make sure those guardrails have a little bit of balance to them, a little bit of the less permits and regulations, a little bit more of safety and concern about how it affects the city, and in particular, you know, the particular issues that each of these cities might have. So I'm probably laying off this today.

And then hopefully, if it does get through, that we can get those things addressed, and then hopefully the balance will be there that will make me comfortable voting for it. Thank you.

Senator Glazer.

Thank you. Well, Senator Cortese, I appreciate your work in this area. I know your concerns that you've laid out for safety and ADA compliance, hours of service. I know they're all heartfelt, and I think all those issues are important. I will say that anytime we're dealing with new technology, there's always new issues, as has been just mentioned by some of my colleagues, but a part of why we want to encourage and nurture that space, not just because a lot of it's California born, but because we're looking for ways to have greater environmental sensitivity, find ways to lower costs, find ways to make our community safer.

And while, you know, there is--and a part of new technology is testing. We have a major testing facility in my district, and was just out there a few months ago trying out some of the new technology, the new vehicles, autonomous vehicles that hopefully will be in a community near all of us soon.

But here's where I think my encouragement to you if this bill moves forward is that I think there's a way to address all of those issues in the existing regulatory environment that we have. The DMV and the PUC, all, as you know, have authority in this space. And so all those issues of safety standards--and I know we had folks testify from the Fire Association a few minutes ago--there could be a requirement that they have local fire checkoff, as an example.

Our state regulatory agencies could put ADA compliance standards in. They could, they could even require certain types of local consultation. They could put limitations on hours of service. I mean, all those things, all those things which are legitimate issues that you're bringing before us in the form of this bill, all could be done through the existing regulatory requirements that we have today.

What I worry about is that I do think that the option for a local ordinance will bring politics about autonomous vehicles to a political checkerboard in our state. We know here in the Legislature for the last number of years, we've heard a lot of concerns and bills that have been advanced on autonomous trucks, autonomous this, autonomous that, autonomous use at our ports.

That was an issue that came up five or six years ago, whether we should have state money go to allow autonomous use at the ports. And they are spirited debates. You know, people of good will come at those issues from different perspectives, and it's a healthy debate, but it's a debate now under a bill like yours that we're just going to push down into 500 or more jurisdictions in our state, and that's a checkerboard. I don't think we--I don't think we want to encourage it.

I am so aligned with you on local control issues, like you were addressing here in your bill. I don't think there's a Member of the Senate--I will go out on a limb as I enter my tenth year in the Senate that has been more vigilant in local control issues with my partners at the League of Cities. But I do think this just goes for me just a little bit too far, where I think there is a remedy.

There is a way to resolve all those issues with legislation if you decide to amend it further down the road that directs these regulatory agencies to do those things that you legitimately believe should happen. If it's a concern about fire safety because of a vehicle that stops where it shouldn't stop or needs to be moved, there should be a local fire checkoff. I don't have a problem with those changes, but unfortunately, the bill in its current form is something I can't support today.

Okay. I'd like to make some comments, if I may. I will support your bill very strongly because we need--the primary reason is because this is about local governments that may pass an ordinance. They're not required to pass. There's nothing in there other than they may pass an ordinance and they cannot overrule the state. So I think those are really fundamental things that are in this bill that make me support it. I know the gentleman from Fresno--by the way, I'm from Fresno as well.

Yeah, Madera. I understand your concerns, but in this Committee looking at how far do we continue to allow local government to be able to implement on the local level, what matters on the conditions of that local area, and I woke up one day and I see the news that DMV had made the decision to allow this in LA, and I'm like, whoa, that was a pretty big decision to wake up one day to, and not having had the debate and the conversation as to how it was going to impact--how do we make sure that it's done in a safe way?

I think there's a, there's a, there's also the issue of the patchwork. This is happening right now anyway. The state has made a decision as to certain cities, certain, you know, then another time they include some other part of the state. So that's happening right now, but let's make it happen in such a way that I think the local communities have a real say in this. So with that, I'll be supporting your bill. Do you want to close?

Thank you very much. Appreciate all the comments. I was really hoping for Senator Glazer's vote based on his baseball card, which has local control, I think, number one on the list, but he acknowledged that. So I appreciate the candor. Appreciate all comments.

From the very first public interview about this bill, I indicated that we weren't going to allow some kind of an on and off switch that shuts down the industry completely in any way, shape, or form, that crosses what should be the legislative intent to embrace the technology itself.

But the real truth of the matter is that we have a system right now, and I think it's been in place since the days of Henry Ford, where there's a combination of state permitting, registration, and certain laws that regulate certain of our roads and highways, like Highway 5 or Highway 101 and some of the others at the state level, and then local jurisdictions, yes, indeed, have their own local control and unique understanding of what should be done in Madera.

It's different right now for a driver, a vehicle driven by you or me, than it is in Elk Grove, than it is in Stockton or anywhere else you may pull over if you're driving a vehicle up and down the State of California. And we as human beings, I think, do a pretty good job of assimilating that information, knowing where to look, knowing where to stop, figuring out where the drop-off points are at airports and where the pick-up points are. We figure that out.

These vehicles are supposed to be smarter than us. The ability to code them and program them is almost unlimited. On a chip, you know, smaller than the tip of this pen, you could put in every rule and regulation in the State of California, regardless of the jurisdiction. That's the truth. Local governments meet on every given Tuesday or Thursday. Worst case: twice a month.

Maybe there's some jurisdictions out there that are only meeting once a month to adopt ordinances, to receive lobbying efforts, to negotiate things like this in their local communities. We meet a lot up here, but we introduce a bill once a year, and if we're lucky, we get it passed nine months later. If we're unlucky, regardless of which side you're on, if you're unlucky, it doesn't make it through Appropriations. It gets vetoed. That pace is not going to keep up with the need for regulation of this technology.

The nimble form of government that we have is local government, the form of government that's closest to the people in the schools, the drop-off points at schools, the local government that controls our airports is local government, city and county government, not us. We have a tendency--and I know because I've been up here three and a half years now--to think that we're the be-all and end-all here and that the State of California has some way of ordaining what should happen everywhere.

It's not a conscious decision. I think it's something that creeps up on us. The bottom line is for decades and decades and decades, local governments have been protecting school children on safe routes to schools in Madera and in San Jose, in San Diego and Los Angeles, in Elk Grove and in Stockton. That's been happening at the local level for decades. Why would that not happen in the same manner just because there's not a human driver behind the wheel?

Local police departments have been ticketing and enforcing cars, vehicles, motor vehicles of all types. All types. Permitted and registered by the state, but enforced by local police departments, local mayors, local city councils, local county supervisors. Why would that be any different because we pulled the driver out from behind the wheel and we're using a coded chip to run the car instead?

Why aren't we--why are we trying to reinvent the wheel at the state and build a new hierarchy at the Department of Motor Vehicles to try to micromanage what's happening in our local communities when we already have a system that's decades old in our local communities for overseeing motor vehicles? I know you have a long agenda. I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and I appreciate the support.

Thank you very much. Do we have--

And we will--by the way, Madam Chair, if I may. I'm sorry. I usually don't do this. I just want to say, besides the comments, we will continue to work on the bill. The language of the bill is very important. We'll keep working with Legal Counsel in terms of figuring out how to balance these interests to make sure cost recovery is cost recovery. Senator Seyarto, it's not a way to make money. We're working on those issues, and we'll keep working on those all the way through. Thank you.

Thank you. Do I have a motion? Okay. All right. We're going to move on then to--thank you very much.

As a courtesy, I'll move the bill.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Motion is 'do pass to the Transportations Committee.' [Roll Call]. Two to one.

Thank you.

Okay, we'll leave it open. Thank you to everyone who was here. We move on now to. To SB 977. Senator Laird. Welcome, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Members, Senate Bill 977 will establish an Independent Redistricting Commission in San Luis Obispo county for the five supervisorial seats. Yesterday, this Bill passed out of the elections Committee, and that Committee, I plead, pledge to take amendments here, and I accept the amendments with regard to alternates and the selection of them and the bylaws of the Commission. As you know, in 2008, the voters established independent redistricting for the state Legislature and a few other state offices.

Since then, seven counties have had bills that have established independent commissions to redistrict for their boards of supervisors. In the last redistricting in San Luis Obispo County, there was a particularly egregious gerrymander, and my witness may well describe it as one of the major people who it hit when it happened.

And as a result, the Board of Supervisors settled a lawsuit and in the end, took an alternative map that was proposed at the time that just had minimal changes to update the population on the existing districts. And in response to the concerns that came from the community, out of that whole process, San Luis Obispo County asked me to introduce this Bill, and I have.

And the differences are, the seven that have been done thus far are almost all for counties that are significantly larger than San Luis Obispo. So this Bill incorporates that framework, but in the number drawn in the lottery, lowers the number a little, lowers the number of actual members of the Commission in order to sort of adjust to the smaller county, but stick with the template that's been adopted thus far. And I think this will lead to an open and transparent process in the next redistricting.

It's supported by San Luis Obispo County, and it's supported by AFSCME. And here, as my witness, is Supervisor Bruce Gibson of San Luis Obispo County, who in his spare time and does not implied endorsement of this Bill, happens to be the President of the Association of Counties right now. So I'm happy to have Supervisor Gibson with us today, and at the appropriate time, I would respectfully ask for an iPhone.

Thank you. Go ahead. And just a reminder, you have two minutes.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Senators, I am Bruce Gibson, second district supervisor, County of San Luis Obispo, and appreciate Senator Laird's authorship of SB 977, which does create an Independent Commission that shares the format of previous ones. And it's tailored to the specific size of our county, which is 283,000 or so residents at this time. He spoke to the egregious gerrymander, and at your pleasure, I can describe that.

But suffice it to say that, as you might expect, it was produced to serve the political interests of the majority of the Board of Supervisors. At the time, it was so blatant that it drew significant public opposition over a wide political spectrum about people off the sidelines who had long not paid much attention. That opposition, conversely, amounts to has been expressed as support for the Commission that Senator Laird is proposing in 977.

In addition, the gerrymander was so radically different that it caused tens of thousands of voters to have their cycle shifted, to have their votes deferred or accelerated as their cycle was shifted. Between presidential and non presidential election years. It reflects an extreme version of the gaps and overlaps that your Senate districts have experienced in the redistricting that occurred in 2021. This mess has created lasting damage as the a gerrymandered map was overturned in court.

But in the end, then, some tens of thousands of residents of our county will vote for supervisor three times in four years, while others will go eight years. Between the opportunity to vote for a county supervisor, we see independent commissions existing for the state and in some counties as fundamental defense mechanisms for our democratic process. And with that, I would respectfully ask for your support of SB 977.

Great. Thank you very much. Any other witnesses? Anyone in the public wishing to support SB 977? Seeing none. Anyone in opposition? Any witnesses? Okay. No witnesses in opposition? Anyone wishing to speak in opposition? Okay. Seeing none. We'll come back to the Committee.

Okay, thank you.

You said you would expand on what does Gerrymander. zero, sorry. What the gerrymander consisted of. Because through the last redistricting process, I don't know if you saw my districts down in the Riverside County. Yeah, yeah. I'm not quite sure that they escaped whatever the gerrymandering was, whether it's a party gerrymandering or a particular person gerrymandering, but it was interesting, to say the least.

Yes.

So I can imagine the drawing of a district. It creates sensitivities no matter what. I would say that your district, for better or worse, was drawn by an independent Commission nominally free of the political pressures that were directly involved in.

Right. And that's what concerns me is, are we really escaping that? If you ask people down there, they're looking thinking, wow.

I will stipulate that democracy is an imperfect operation. But I will tell you about this particular gerrymander. In 2022, I ran for my and won my fifth term as a county supervisor by 13 votes out of 23,000 cast. That district was different from the district that I served for the four previous runs by the fact that it had been so significantly redrawn that two thirds of the population was new to my district.

And Sidebar the political you're not surprised to know the political demographics had shifted significantly. It also was geographically a very much more challenging district to serve, as that from one end of the district to another was an hour drive, which previously is about twice what it took for me to drive from one end of my district to the other.

So it also, I want to emphasize, also, if I might, the confusion that it caused by having two thirds of the folks not know who their supervisor was. And that confusion persists to this day. So, in the end, our majority of our board changed, responding to the public support for an independent Commission, we're here today.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm not sure that what we do now has a whole lot of difference, because my district is much the same as yours, and we have an independent Commission that did it.

Understood.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

No other comments or questions. Okay, there's. And I will be supporting your Bill today. Senator Laird, closing remarks.

Just briefly, in response to the question. The supervisor was very diplomatic. His district was a complete coastal community of interest from the Monterey line through San Simeon, Cambria, Cayucos, Morro Bay, and completely coastal. He was left a little coastal that had his home in it, and then it went to Atascadero and San Miguel, complete inland areas that had no community of interest with the coast.

And I am sympathetic as somebody who is losing 300,000 people and gaining 300,000 people in the district I am running in right now. But that was done in good faith and with community of interest in mind and with not breaking up city boundaries in mind. That wasn't the case here. So I just appreciate the debate. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. And I appreciate the process as well. We're going through that in Los Angeles, and we need it. I want to verify with you, Senator Laird, that two amendments require one member from each supervisorial district and six at large. And the second one is to direct the Commission to adopt bylaws that provide for the selection of.

When I said I'd accept amendments, I didn't name them as clearly as you, so I accept those amendments.

Roll Call

Thank you, madam.

Thank you. We'll hold the vote open. Next. Miss Blakespear? Senator Blakespear is not here. Senator Min is here. Okay. Senator Min, do you want to.

Absolutely. Thank you. Madam Chair and Committee Members. Before I start, I wanted to thank the Committee staff for their hard work on this Bill. SB 1111 would expand the definition of remote interest to include the financial interests of a public officer's child, parent, sibling, or spouse. And government officials obviously have the responsibility of handling millions of taxpayer dollars and approving contracts on their behalf.

As such, we expect them to be held to the highest ethical standards in order to avoid any conflicts of interest or the perception of impropriety while conducting business on the public's behalf. In late 2023, news surfaced that an Orange County supervisor had awarded COVID-19 relief funding to an organization run by his daughter without disclosing that connection to the public. After public scrutiny over the contracts, news surfaced that the organization had also not completed its required audits.

Despite these concerns, existing law does not expressly forbid state and local officials from awarding public contracts to their adult children, parents, siblings, in laws or other relatives. Of course, public officials should be held to a high standard and should not be using their positions to enrich themselves financially, whether directly or indirectly.

SB 1111 tries to strike the right balance by clearly prohibiting public officials from voting on public contracts that would benefit their adult children, siblings, parents or in laws, and significantly stiffen the penalties for public officials who violate these laws. No witnesses.

Okay. Anyone in the public wishing to support SB 1111? Seeing none. Is there anyone who wishes to oppose SB 1111? Seeing none, come back to the Committee. Any comments or questions from our Members? Okay. Senator Glazer moves the Bill. Okay. See? None. You want to. Thank you.

This is a good government Bill. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

We'll leave that on call.

Roll Call

Thank you, Senator Min. We don't have anyone. We got to track down some Members here.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. You know, if you ask people about taxes, I think one thing you'll hear very quickly from them, which is that they don't like paying them, but if they have to pay them, they want to make sure that it's a fair system, that people are treated equally and fairly under the rules. And that's really why I have this bill that I'm presenting to you today, because under our current tax structure, there is a significant unfairness, and it goes to online retailers.

You know, 20 or 30 years ago, we didn't have the Internet working so actively to sell commerce. And now it's kind of taken over our world for many. Not for everybody, but for many, much to the chagrin of our brick and mortar store owners. But that's our world today. And that online purchasing of goods has changed how taxes are assessed.

And it's not the way people think that just because I order an Apple computer in my home, does it mean that those tax monies are coming to my jurisdiction when that truck rumbles up the street and makes potholes and all the rest. Is my city going to be compensated for that wear and tear? And the answer is no. No. Where you order stuff on the Internet is a bizarre of applications of where taxes are collected.

And we have a lot of smart accountants in our world, and they work for a lot of the biggest companies in the world, and they figured out that they can manipulate that tax code so that not just that taxes go to one jurisdiction or another, but that they can have some of that tax money come back to them.

And a good example, since we're talking about Apple, is that if you order a computer from Apple, the tax money has been arranged to go to Cupertino, where Apple is based. They've designated that as their, you know, their call center, and they made that agreement because they went to Cupertino and they said, hey, if we make you. If we designate you as the recipient of that tax money, hey, listen, we'd like to have you send half of it back to us as our additional profit.

And they made that deal. They've made that deal, and the biggest companies in the world now have made those deals with select jurisdictions so that the tax money that should go to pay for all those obligations in communities around our state aren't going there anymore. There was a recent study done by our tax authorities here in the state. They determined that about 7% of cities in our state have made those deals. So that 93% of the cities get no money.

They don't get any of the burdens and obligations of that ordering and of those impacts. They don't get any of that money. So you may hear in a few minutes from folks who are not happy with this bill that's before you that would say no new agreements.

Phase out the agreements that you have by 2030 and post those agreements on a website so everybody can see them, because these things are barely transparent, even today, to get all these agreements from these 7% of the cities that have them. And when you hear the opposition that may speak today that say, hey, our budgets count on this money, you're going to take this money away from us. I would ask you to think about something in addition to their presentation.

What about the city right next door that's now getting nothing because you are capturing all that money and giving half of it back to those companies. What about that neighboring city? Because you're going to hear from the folks that have made these deals. And so the bill before you says, no more deals. Let's have fairness in our tax code. Give them the time to phase out of these deals. Let's create transparency in these deals. And that's what the measure proposes to do.

And I respectfully, at the right time, ask for your support today.

Thank you. Senator Glazer, do you have any support witnesses? No, nobody? Okay. Do we have any opposition witnesses? Please step forward. If you'd like, you could take up to two minutes.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Angie Minetti and I'm here representing the Mayor of Fresno, Jerry Dyer. We are here in respectful opposition to SB 1494.

This bill strikes a very heavy blow to local governments by removing our ability to attract and retain businesses in an already un-level playing field. This valuable tool helps disadvantaged communities promote economic vitality, development, and create jobs. Eliminating them prospectively leaves these communities with the status quo and its stymies investment. The sales tax incentive agreements are not corporate tax giveaways to corporations, but they are job based. If jobs are not created, the incentives are not given. The more jobs that are created, the higher the incentives.

We attracted gap from Phoenix, and that means that we attracted Arizona jobs. We took jobs from Arizona and we brought them to California. These agreements have transformed our economic situation locally in a dramatic way and has created 3,500 direct jobs and up to 4,000 indirect jobs. This issue should be approached in a comprehensive manner that does not devastate rural or disadvantaged communities and that doesn't perpetuate wealth inequality.

Should the Legislature decide to support this bill, I would implore this Committee and others to explore policies that can provide similar economic development tools prior to removing our ability to provide Fresno residents a real opportunity to get out of poverty. We thank you for the consideration of our opposition.

Thank you very much. Again, you can have up to two minutes.

Good morning, Madam Chair and honorable Members of the Committee. Excuse me. My name is Joan Armenta Roberts and I'm a sales tax consultant with CalTax.

CalTax respectfully opposes SB 1494. Sales tax sharing agreements are important for economic development and local revenue. These agreements foster partnerships between local government and businesses that result in substantial long term economic growth. Local governments receive substantial tax revenue from business activities, residents see increased employment opportunities in their community and local businesses reinvest in the community. It should be noted that businesses do not have the ability to arbitrarily allocate revenue to any location in the state.

They must have a significant presence in the area where revenue is located, whether that be a brick and mortar retail location, a sales office, a logistics facility, or a location where an online store is maintained and operated. The way the law and the regulations are written, they have to have a presence and they have to have principal negotiations in that area.

These agreements are particularly important to areas of the state that struggle to receive significant investments from businesses, especially rural areas where residents have to commute extensively when jobs are not available locally. These rural communities leverage sales tax sharing agreements to attract and retain developing businesses and provide living wages to their residents.

Governor Newsom vetoed SB 531 and wrote that these tax agreements are an important local tool that captures additional economic activity, particularly in rural and inland California cities that continue to face significant economic challenges like high unemployment rates. We urge the Committee to respect the sovereignty of local communities and governments to enter into sales tax sharing agreements and reject SB 1494. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? If you can, come up and identify yourself and your organization.

Sarah Pollo Moo, California Retailers Association and respectful opposition.

Thank you.

Nicole Wordelman, on behalf of the City of Ontario, in opposition.

Sharon Gonzalez, on behalf of the cities of Eastvale and Beaumont, in opposition.

Lawrence Gayden, on behalf of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, in opposition.

Thank you. Preston Young from the California Chamber of Commerce here today in opposition.

Good morning. Carly Shelby, on behalf of the cities of Tracy, Dinuba, and La Palma, in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Ben Triffo with the League of California Cities in respectful opposition.

Thank you. Seeing no more opposition, come back to questions or comments. Yes, Senator.

I understand your annoyance with these bigs. Like, you know, you were talking about the Apple and Cupertino and how that seems to be one of these tax sharing agreements in perpetuity, or is there a certain amount of years that they're?

Most of them that I'm aware of have a duration.

Right. Would this affect if a community made a tax sharing agreement for six years with a developer that comes in and puts in some additional infrastructure work, adjacent infrastructure work that is really expensive? This is when these things get used. And instead of the city trying to do it later, they put it in and there's a. And they make an agreement for 40% of the sales tax goes to pay for that eventually. Would that affect that?

Because that's really important for some cities, and I saw it in use in a community I represent.

Cities continuously face those types of questions for any business, any development. Typically, that's why impact fees are assessed, because it's the opposite. It's because they should pay for their impacts if it's on a traffic signal or if it's on a sewer line or these things are commonly negotiated.

I would suggest to you that these tax sharing agreements of massive scale and that any smart city would ensure that those expenses are covered through the regular course of business that they undertake now. They could make that agreement. I don't think that's the common engagement. Keep in mind that I think Cupertino gets $10 million. Okay?

In other words, they might have gotten a fraction of a couple 100,000, but that deal gave them $10 million from you and me, and they gave $10 million back to Apple. So the scale of these agreements by these companies, I mean, we heard some of the cities, this is Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Ebay. These are the biggest companies in the world that have got these smart accountants to know how to manipulate these deals.

Right. Because that's my concern, is that a community wouldn't be able to make that deal. And we had this very, very situation. We had a great agreement. There was a sales tax kickback for them to get the infrastructure in, and so they would. We had the sheriffs, the tax agreement. The council kind of changed, and they decided they didn't like to do those agreements. They didn't.

And today it's a vacant lot, and we just now put in the piece of infrastructure, road infrastructure that would have been put in 20 years ago, and it cost the citizens hundreds of thousands, well, millions of dollars more for that piece of infrastructure that we could have done through a tax sharing agreement. It was the agreement that would have created the center. And to this day, like I said, we get nothing. The community gets nothing from that.

As opposed to right now, we'd be 15 years in the black as far as sales tax. So that's what my concern is. It eliminates that because I think that's abuse, what you're talking about, $10 million for an apple to go in. They're buying their place in a community and they're not really, it's not really associated with a community need for infrastructure and things like that because there is, you know, as far as, you know, collecting mitigation fees and things like that.

That's all well and good, but you have to collect so much before you can put it into a project. And while you're collecting it, that project just escalates. So when you have the ability to get in there, get it done, and you usually do that through a developer, they have the nexus of what they have to do. But then there's some extraordinary stuff that they may have to do. And that's what I'm afraid of is with this bill that will eliminate that opportunity.

And for smaller communities like the one I came from, that's death. That means the community that's rich next door is going to get all of that. And that kind of dynamic needs just opposite of what you're saying. This helped spread it out because it put everybody in the capability of competing and also land that is not as expensive as it was in other communities. So anyway, that's my issue with the bill, so I probably will not be supporting it.

Thank you. Do you want to- no more questions or comments. Do you want to close?

Yeah. Thank you for hearing the bill. Let me mention that the Governor vetoed a previous version of this that would have required that there be accounting for who were the winners and losers when he made that veto and assertion now that that study was done without the help of legislation that now showed that most, 93% of the cities are losers.

And I think that his concern for the Central Valley and for their economic development, I hope, will be outweighed now by the fact that he knows that there are all kinds of Central Valley cities that are losers because they're losing that tax money that's being captured and refunded to those companies. It's not going into public services as some have suggested. It's a profit making motive. They're using our tax code. They're exploiting our tax code to make more money at the expense of public services.

That's the goal of the bill. And by the way, we heard about jobs. These are warehouse jobs, by the way. All right. Some may say they're not the most highly paid jobs in the world. So there's a lot of debate about the warehouse jobs in some communities that are created by these call centers or these distribution centers. So with that, thank you for your consideration. Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. We have a motion, motion by Senator Wiener.

Motion is due pass to the Revenue and Taxation Committee. [Roll Call] Four to one.

So leave that open. We'll leave that open for more votes. Okay. We can go ahead with Senator Caballero.

Good morning, Madam Chair.

Chair and Members, I'm pleased to present SB 1123, which builds upon work that I did last year to streamline the process for communities to build small scale, more affordable, infill home ownership projects. First, I would like to address the proposed amendments in the analysis and will accept the amendments to delay implementation and clarify that the bill will not be used to convert existing multifamily developments into condos. This envisions vacant land, not the conversion. The bill will incentivize new construction.

I would like to recognize the feedback provided to enhance tenant protections. However, the bill is focused on providing homeownership opportunities as a means to break generational cycles of wealth. I do believe that the units created should be subject to tenant protections laws that do not traditionally apply to single family homes. I do not believe, I'm sorry, that the units created should be subject to tenant protection laws that do not traditionally apply to single family homes that are rented.

Tenant protections are important, but I don't believe creating new precedent is appropriate. These are for-sale homes. I'm more than happy to keep an open dialogue with interested stakeholders, but at this time will not be including that as an amendment. The high cost of housing construction and regulatory delay has contributed to the state's affordability crisis because supply simply is not keeping pace with demand. This construction gridlock continues to drive up housing costs and drive down California's homeownership rates at the lowest rate since the 1940s.

Just like housing affordability has driven home ownership rates down for communities of color, local planning rules have also created barriers to home ownership, and many communities throughout the state have enacted policies that restrict denser developments in single family neighborhoods, and this prevents the construction of smaller starter homes working families can afford. The American dream of home ownership is now out of reach for many families, especially families of color.

To address these issues, last year I introduced SB 684 to streamline the subdivision of parcels for the construction of small scale home ownership projects of up to 10 units. Over the course of the fall, I heard from a variety of stakeholders on the need to include important technical and clarifying changes to the law. SB 1123 incorporates the feedback I received.

Specifically, the bill will clarify the definition of habitable square feet related to housing size, allow housing units to be part of a tenancy in common, and clarify that when a local government chooses to permit the construction of accessory dwelling units, they do not count towards the SB 684 project 10 unit cap. Additionally, SB 1123 re-establishes the subdivision and project streamlining benefits for small projects of 10 units or less on vacant parcels zoned for single family infill residential development.

I remain committed to unlocking opportunities to build smaller homes on small lots to increase homeownership projects in single family neighborhoods, which have a history of excluding low income and communities of color. But to ensure the appropriate guardrails in place, I've included that local government may impose the same height standards as that of neighboring parcels so they all fit in and they look the same. This one will unlock new development opportunities, but ensures it's consistent with the surrounding community.

With me to testify in support of the bill is Francesc Martí with California YIMBY and Sosan Madanat on behalf of California Community Builders.

Go ahead. You have two minutes each. Thank you very much.

Okay. Can you hear me now? Perfect. Chair Durazo and distinguished members of the Senate Local Government Committee. My name is Francesc Martí and I am the Senior Director of Strategy and Government Affairs at California YIMBY, a grassroots organization with over 80,000 members dedicated to ensuring that California is a place of abundant, secure and affordable housing for all. Today, I stand before you to express our strong support for SB 1123 authored by Senator Caballero. SB 1123 builds on the progress made last year by SB 684, most notably by extending the laws applicability to vacant parcels in single family zones.

Access to home ownership, especially in high opportunity neighborhoods near good schools, parks, jobs and grocery stores, has generational impacts. And by the way, so does the lack of affordable homeownership opportunities in those neighborhoods that that we see so often today. The prohibition of smaller homes, especially in single family neighborhoods, continues the legacy of discriminatory housing policies like redlining and continues to segregate neighborhoods by race and by class.

This bill represents a step forward in our collective effort to combat California's severe housing shortage, which disproportionately impacts low income families and communities of color. In California, the dream of home ownership has become increasingly elusive. In 2020, the average home cost was 8.5 times a family's annual salary, and communities of color fare even worse. African American homeownership rates are 26% lower and Latino homeownership rates are 19% lower than white Californians.

This bill addresses these challenges head on by facilitating the construction of smaller, more affordable homes in high opportunity neighborhoods, which are historically expensive and exclusionary. This is not just about building homes. It's about building communities, fostering diversity, and promoting economic mobility for all Californians. The changes proposed in SB 684 will make small homes faster, easier, and less expensive to build. This will increase affordable homeownership opportunities for the families that have been left behind and left out of the California dream.

If you could wrap it up, please.

Yes. On behalf of California YIMBY, I urge you to vote aye on SB 1123. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much. Go ahead.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Sosan Madanat. I'm here today on behalf of one of the bill's co-sponsors, California Community Builders, as their CEO was unable to be here today. CCB is a non profit working to close the racial wealth gap, focusing on housing and home ownership. As an organization led by and serving people of color, CCB is proud to co-sponsor SB 1123. California faces a housing affordability crisis that has slammed the door shut on home ownership for millions.

This essential legislation alone will not fix our housing production crisis, but it will expedite more homes that are lower cost and more accessible to first-time, entry level home buyers by enabling the production of single family homes, or townhomes, on lots that are smaller and less expensive. California's median lot size is 8300 square feet. Research has found that land costs make up more than half of the price of a home in places like LA, San Diego, Salinas, San Jose, and San Francisco.

The math driving SB 1123 is simple. A home that comes with less land will cost less. Many families want and can afford a large home with a large backyard. These families have plenty of options in today's market. But too many can't buy a home at all because affordable options don't exist. Many families, and I would argue many more families of color, would love to buy a home with less land if it made the American dream of homeownership possible.

SB 1123 does just that, making these types of homes much more common, creating increased choice for diverse families. CCB is deeply invested in this topic because while homeownership is the way most Americans build intergenerational wealth, only four in 10 black and Latino Californians own their own home, compared to six in 10 white Californians. That's one of the main reasons why, for every dollar of wealth held by a white family, black and Latino families have about $0.16. We can and should do better.

Home ownership is a broadly shared value in California. SB 1123 represents one important step in creating the important, admittedly technical steps needed to actually produce lower cost for-sale housing and making that shared value a reality. There are no silver bullets when it comes to addressing California's housing and homeownership crisis, but SB 1123 creates an important tool. Thank you for your consideration and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Are there any additional witnesses in support of SB 1123?

Catherine Charles, on behalf of Housing Action Coalition in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Cornelious Burke with the California Building Industry Association, in strong support of this bill. Thank you.

Martin Radosevich with the following organizations in support: SPUR, BuildCasa, Habitat for Humanity, United Way LA, YIMBY Action, and Fieldstead. Thank you.

I've been asked to provide a me-too, for UnidosUS in support of the bill as well. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right, seeing no more in support, is there anyone in opposition? No one? Okay, seeing no one in opposition, bring it back to our Committee. Comments? Questions? The bill has been moved by Senator Wiener. Any comments or questions? Okay, none. I just do want to add a few points. I want to thank the Senator for bringing this forward.

Expanding these smaller, lower cost homes to single family zones is going to open them up, open them up to new residents that really, as you say, really want to be able to be in a position to buy a home. And also, the amendment today is an important one for low income renters. It closes the loophole that would allow an apartment building owner from converting an existing building into condos. I know that was not your intention, but we wanted to make sure we all agreed on that.

I also appreciate the current law that focuses on low income families, the demolition protections, and the law that ensure that no tenants can be removed to build these projects. And if a local government has affordability requirement, it would apply to these developments as well. So there's much, much more to do, particularly as you're promoting today to help our vulnerable Californians. An important measure. And I'm very happy to support you because you do so much work in the housing and you care so much about how vulnerable--

I hope that you can continue consider additional ways to protect tenants as well. Thank you.

I appreciate that very much.

Thank you. Senator, you want to close?

Thank you. And I appreciate all the comments, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Great. Okay, we have a motion by Senator Wiener. The motion is due pass as amended to Appropriations.

[Roll call] 2-0.

Oh, we'll leave that open. Okay, thank you Senator Caballero.

Thank you. Chairs and Members. First, I'd like to thank the Chair and the Committee staff for all your work on this Bill. And just make sure that everybody knows that as this Bill moves forward, we will continue to work with you and make sure to keep you apprised of any changes the Bill goes through.

Thank you very much, Caballero. And I see Senator Limon, that is item six, SB 1220. Thank you. Go ahead, Senator.

This Bill will protect the quality of public services by requiring human workers to remain in call centers for government benefit programs instead of being outsourced to artificial intelligence. These call centers serve the most vulnerable Californians, enrolling in programs like CalWORKS, Calfresh, MediCal, healthy families, and Covered California or other local state funded programs that provide similar benefits. This Bill will ensure that there is human assistance available when people call to receive help.

First, it would prohibit the state and local governments from outsourcing public benefit call center jobs to firms that are using AI to automate or eliminate essential core job functions of public benefit call center workers. As the Senator mentioned, public benefit programs like these include CalWORKS, CalFresh, EDD, MediCal, these programs that are serving our most vulnerable Californians, and they should not only have the option to speak with an AI system when they are in times of need.

Go ahead again. Reminder, you have two minutes each.

But our intent is not to preclude AI from being used as a tool to assist workers. I would also, again, like to commit to continuing to work with the Committee on outstanding issues around the application to services like 211 and 988, as well as continuing to refine the definition of a local public benefit program. With me today in support of the Bill, we have Elmer Lizardi with the Labor Fed and also Kimberly Rosenberg Rosenberger with SEIU.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members Kimberly Rosenberger with Service Employees International Union. We are proud to co sponsor this Bill. SB 1220, we believe, is an appropriate modern day update to existing law. It carries the intent forward of 2012 legislation, AB 2058, but takes into consideration modern technology and advancements we weren't really thinking of at the time. Call centers are a crucial point of contact for people, whether they've already hit their breaking point trying to navigate online or they have language barriers or access issues.

They are going to call centers to get that human touch. Further, these call centers are providing crucial safety net services so people are at their most vulnerable. And we are emphasizing that this Bill is highlighting the importance of human touch. It's when you're looking for empathy, when you're looking for them to understand the nuances and recognize the additional care and services that they qualify for that they might need.

This Bill doesn't prohibit AI and technology, and we know when it's used by workers, it can help supplement their workload to better improve wait time in caseload. But the workers need to be the ones driving the overall purpose of call centers.

I also want to echo my great appreciation for this Committee and the staff as well as GEO, since as the analysis pointed out, we kind of speed dated on these Committee issues and we're trying to tackle technology that I think as a state we're trying to figure out the role of. But we know the most important role of for call centers is that human component.

So we are continuing to work on language that crafts out our intent while also being considerate of what the goal is underlying of this Bill. So we will continue to work together and for the reasons stated, we ask for your aye vote and thank you for standing with workers. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you Chair Durazo and Members of the Committee. Elmer Lizardi with the California Labor Federation.

I want to thank the chair and the staff working with us on SB 1220, a Bill that will protect call center workers and the public by putting guardrails on the use of artificial intelligence at public benefits call centers. The exponential growth of artificial intelligence will impact every industry and worker in California, and we know that AI can be a productive tool when used to support workers, but not when it is used to replace or control them.

Without worker centered guardrails put in place, AI can unfortunately be used to exploit, deskill, or replace workers altogether, harming not only the workers themselves, but the state and residents. Overall, SB 1220, as mentioned, does not ban the use of AI, but rather ensures that workers are truly at the center of the procurement and deployment AI in the workplace. As mentioned, the Bill has two main provisions.

Secondly, 1220 requires an impact assessment report produced by an agency that utilizes an AI system to support call center workers. The report is intended to increase transparency for workers and would include information such as intended uses of AI systems and the disclosure of data used by the technology to produce outcomes. Overall, SB 1220 creates guardrails for workers and ensures AI is used as a tool for call center workers to increase efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness when they are responding to callers who are in need of support.

Madam Chair Members? Matt Broad here on behalf of CSEA in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else wishing to speak in support of SB 1220?

Thank you. Anybody else in support? Seeing none. Is there anyone in opposition to SB 1220? Seeing none. Okay, we bring it back here to the Committee. Any comments or questions or a motion? Okay, motion by Senator Wiener. I just want to make a couple of comments.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Limon, for bringing this up. You have a lot of courage to bring up an issue like AI, and I think the support, it's really important, but as usual, it triggers a whole lot of other questions because we've never dealt with it. But especially this is a technology that's where decisions are being made about whether or not someone is entitled to a social service or other benefits. So we've discussed this.

I think it's overly broad as it applies to local governments, because it just doesn't focus on social service benefits. So I just want your commitment that you're going to narrow this Bill before it gets to the Senate Floor. And then, as I think you mentioned, the unintended consequences as it applies to 211 and 988 services.

Thank you. And absolutely, we are committed. I mean, this is a new issue. There's 50 bills in this particular space in the Legislature. Right. And all of them target different kind of aspect of it.

So I strongly encourage you keep working as hard as I know that you usually do and would like to hear how these issues are resolved before it makes it to the floor. With that, I support you. And thank you. And absolutely closing remarks.

So we are committed to working with you, with a Committee on trying to narrow it down, refine it. Our goal is really to understand that the populations that Calfresh, MediCal, CalWORKS, healthy families, all these programs serve are really important populations for us. But also, if technology was an option for them, they would have solved their problem with technology at some point, a person is what they need to help them navigate.

And so that is what we're trying to figure out, how to craft legislation so that we also recognize that these are vulnerable populations. And if they could have figured out the problem, and truthfully, it's not just the important population, it's all of us. If we could do some of this with, you know, technology, with assistance, we would have solved it.

But there's times where we just need a person to answer, a person to walk us and guide us through, and we are trying to create a Bill that would ensure that, and ensure that we understand that a worker, a person is still needed. So we will work on, you know, kind of narrowing the definition and also contemplating programs like 211 and 988 and figuring out how those make sense or don't make sense to include in some of this.

Great. Okay, then we have a motion. The motion by Senator Wiener is do pass to appropriations.

Roll Call

But ultimately, we really believe that it's important to have a person at the end of the line, and that gets us the outcome. So, with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

We'll leave that open. Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Senator Gonzalez, I see you here.

And then Senator Allen taking out of order. Saw her first. Senator Gonzalez, you can go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Before I begin, I'd like to accept the Committee amendments as outlined in page four of the analysis. I want to thank the Committee for their Help on this Bill as well. Senate Bill 1376 will establish a pilot program to create a database for local agencies to report detailed information on their contracting activity and bring much-needed transparency to the process.

In our state, we know that local officials have significant authority over contracting and procurement practices on behalf of the people that we serve. Over the past several years, there have been numerous high profile instances of collusion where local officials have pushed through no bid contracts, often for personal gain. SB 1376 will allow California local governments the opportunity to pioneer best practices around contracting transparency.

To testify in support of the Bill today, I have Brittany Barsotti from the California News Publishers Association and Daniel Felizzato from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote, Madam Chair.

Welcome. And you each have two minutes.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Brittney Bars. Oh.

There you go. I think you gotta keep it on.

Go ahead, go ahead.

Okay. Brittney Barsotti on behalf of the California News Publishers Association, support of SB 31376.

We represent over 400 Members of throughout the State of California publications. And while you usually see me in my legislative role, I also wear a hat of running our legal helpline for our members throughout the state. I'd say 95% of the calls that we get are usually related to Public Records Act requests or open meetings laws. And having the information that is covered in this Bill would help our reporters be able to better cover these contracts.

And oftentimes they face significant obstacles when it comes to getting basic information out of contracts, like who has gotten the contract methods for N number of bids, the total price, how long it's going to be lasting. All of that information is covered under this Bill and would be very helpful for continuing to do the type reporting that has resulted in changes such as in the City of Bell.

Also, public notices that are addressed in the Bill analysis are helpful on the front end to create transparency so our folks know that bids will be coming. But without having the information on the back end in terms of what the contract was and how it was awarded, will assist in further coverage and it'll allow our folks to track trends and different ramifications for these cities. And I respectfully urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Madam Chair and Members. Dan Felizzatto, on behalf of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. Public procurement is a powerful economic driver, not only in California, but across the globe. Public procurement is also, unfortunately, government's most prominent public corruption risk. Data on public corruption investigations have shown that nearly 60% of bribes provided to local officials were paid to win public contracts. In California, we have seen examples of public officials accepting lavish bribes, gifts, kickbacks, all in exchange for supporting bids by certain contractors for public contracts.

Globally, the move towards open contracting has been endorsed by many organizations, many prominent organizations such as the G7, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the IMF. Open contracting helps governments and the public understand what they're buying, who they're doing business with, and how public contracting shapes economic and the social landscape. It also helps law enforcement to better track data about potential red flags and what is most important in most public corruption cases. It allows us to better and more easily track the money.

Given the close association between public contracting and instances of public corruption, our office believes that the pilot project called for in this Bill is not only reasonable, but will help California taxpayers. For those reasons, we support this Bill.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to speak in support of SB 1376? No. Is there anyone in opposition to SB 1376? Seeing none. We'll bring it back to dais. Comments? Questions? Members? Seeing none. Okay, we have a motion. Who was first? Senator Wiener. Again.

Okay, so we have a motion by Senator Wiener. Thank you very much, Senator Gonzalez, for bringing this forward. I had never heard that statistic before of 60% of bribes are related to public contracts. That makes a lot of sense for the people who are caught. Anyway, thank you very much for bringing this forward/ Any closing remarks?

Just want to say thank you to our witnesses, Miss Barsotti and Mister Felizatto, for their testimony. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Motion by Senator Wiener is do pass as amended to Appropriations.

[Roll call] Three to two.

Leave it open. Thank you very much. We had Senator Allen here a few minutes ago. Yes.

Take up Senator Blakespear on SB 1045, and then we'll move after that to Senator Grove. Senator Blakespear, welcome.

Thank you, chair. And thank you, colleagues. In a critical effort to reduce methane and other short lived climate climate pollutants in 2016, we set organic waste diversion targets of 75% by 2025 with the passage of Senate bill 1383. By then, Senator Lara in order to meet these targets, Cal Recycle estimates that the state needs approximately 50 to 100 new or expanded organic waste recycling facilities.

One obstacle to getting these facilities up and running is the time consuming and complicated process to get them sighted and permitted. To address this, my legislation would require the Office of Planning and Research to develop a technical advisory on best practices for facilitating the siting of compost facilities and require locals to consider this advisory. In addition, SB 1045 would establish timelines for reviewing permits for compost facilities to ensure that they are decided upon in a timely manner.

With that, I'd like to introduce my sponsor, who is Neil Edgar, Executive Director of the California Compost Coalition. Oh, no. Is there any, anyone else here in. Maybe we should do opposition first and let him come back. Thank you for pinch hitting.

Kayla Robinson on behalf of the California Compost Coalition. Good morning Chair Durazo and members. I'm Kayla Robinson on behalf of the California Compost Coalition. Our members are predominantly service providers for municipalities throughout California who process yard trimmings and increasingly, food materials to meet the lofty climate goals prescribed in SB 1383. Kawasak has predicted that the state needs to double our existing composting capacity, adding some 50 to 100 facilities.

Since SB 1383 has been passed in 2016, we may have added a dozen new facilities, only two of which are permitted to accept food, which requires a higher bar for permitting. Neil, in his day job, permits and develops composting facilities, and he has permitted 44 facilities and 23 counties, and he knows firsthand the challenges in getting them on the ground and operating across the state.

This bill is working towards resolving a few hurdles we are facing and moving forward with critical infrastructure by providing models, ordinance, language. We are also working with Capcoa to come to some agreement on concepts that would make it easier for the air districts to permit these facilities. The Bill analysis posits that local governments have every incentive to plan for and permit organic waste facilities in the interest of meeting SB 1383 requirements, and they do.

I just don't believe they have the right tools to resolve the issues that delay numerous projects. This bill will help provide some of those tools. Agarman, one of California Compost Coalition's members, spent 12 years to complete two zone text amendments in Ventura County to expand an existing facility, largely because the zoning ordinance didn't explicitly allow commercial composting operations on the agriculturally zoned land. Closing the loop on organic materials will require that compost be returned to agriculture.

We appreciate the committee staff working to provide excellent amendments, and I want to thank Senator Blakespear for bringing SB 1045 forward. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in support of SB 1045?

Good morning. Nick Lapis with Californians Against Waste. We're not a second witness, but we have sponsored variations of this bill in the past, including some of the components in here. It is incredibly important. Calcycle estimates we need somewhere between 30-100 new composting facilities to meet our SB 1383 targets. And it really isn't a question of a trade off between environmental protection versus building infrastructure. We're talking about having all the environmental protection but doing it in a more timely manner and getting rid of the red tape. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in support of SB 1045?

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee, Michael Caprio with Republic Services, here in support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Dawn Koepke with Mchugh Koepke Padron, on behalf of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, also in support.

Priscilla Quiroz on behalf of Stop Waste, in support.

Good morning. Lindsay Gullahorn with Capital Advocacy on behalf of the Resource Recovery Coalition of California, in support. Thanks.

John Moffatt on behalf of Waste Management, in support.

Thank you. Do you still need since the.

He can be here for a technical question. Technical questions.

Okay, great. All right. Opposition. Do we have anyone speaking out in opposition, please come forward. Good morning.

Good morning. My name is Tung Le. I'm the executive director of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association, or CAPCOA. Our concerns with the bill are related to the timelines that are being imposed on air districts to process those permits. The 30 day limitation is already in state law, and you know the districts work very hard to make sure that they meet those timelines.

The 60 day limitation that's being proposed in the bill, however, would prevent us from being able to review those permits and be able to issue them. To be clear, the air districts are supportive of composting operations because they can help us to mitigate the climate effects of short lived climate pollutants we support CalRecycle's efforts. We worked very closely with the CalRecycle to develop the regulation that is out on the streets right now for landfill diversion.

But we want to make sure that we're not trading benefits for impacts. And so when you divert material away from the landfills, you want to make sure that it's done correctly and that we're not actually exacerbating the problem with this potentially significant emissions that come from composting operations within communities. And so in order to do that, we have to review these operations thoughtfully and carefully to make sure that they're designed and that they are operated so as to minimize those emissions.

And so that is the reason why the association is in opposition to 1045.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition to SB 1045?

Good morning Chair Durazo and members of the committee. Allen Abbs with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. The air district hasn't taken a formal position yet, but we do have the same concerns as expressed by CAPCOA. And I'm also here to answer any questions, if the committee members have it, about permitting as it respects the Bay Area district. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none. Okay. Come back to the committee. Questions or comments? Senator Seyarto? Yes.

All right. So the original bill, 1383, and probably this is a team effort to try and answer some of these questions. A required government to local governments to divert the organic waste from landfills, including compost, by means including composting, mulching, biomass energy plans and anaerobic digestion facilities. And this is just, your bill is focused on just the composting or all the above?

Just the composting.

Okay. And because I know currently we have composting facilities like in Bakersfield that service our area down in Riverside County, we actually truck all our stuff up there. Is that correct? Yeah. And so from 1383 has a lot of problems. And part of it, as I think it envisioned, that biomass and anaerobic digestion facilities would come online and help take the pressure off of composting everything.

But unfortunately, the anaerobic digesters have a byproduct that California says they don't want, which is gas, natural gas that would be pumped back into the gas lines. So there is no real incentive for a waste hauler to go out and spend the, it used to be 100 million, but $200 million on an anaerobic digester, which means we're going to have to have even more composting facilities. But people don't want their composting facilities in their neighborhoods because they emit gas. The composting itself emits gas. Right.

So, yeah. So go ahead. You know where I'm going. It's just how.

Right.

How does this help that?

We need an all of the above strategy to managing organic waste. So the waste hauler that serves, for example, my home in San Diego, did build a digester and got the permits to do it and is picking up yard waste and food waste and taking it to the digester. And then the. But there are other parts of the state that are more agricultural, and composting, of course, means that the nutrients go back into the land.

And so we have a big agriculture sector in this state, and there are uses for composted food and green matter, organic material. So what this bill is trying to do is it's trying to recognize that we're having some problems in this area, and we need to make it easier to actually meet the requirements of SB 1383. I mean, the issues around siting, whether it's a digester or it's a compost facility or it's a landfill, I mean, all of these things are difficult, but it's highly regulated.

But what we're trying to do is to be able to make it possible and make it go faster. So that's why we're interested in having the timelines also be shortened a little bit. And I'll just take a moment to just address the concern about the timelines. We very much need to work with the air districts, and we will continue to find timelines that work.

I think one of the things that's been clear to me from serving in local government and serving on this committee last year as well, is that there's no level of government that's really trying to work against whatever the goals are. But when you have a long and intensive regulatory process that is not clearly time bound, it can end up expanding in such a way that it can make projects infeasible.

So this is something we've dealt with on the housing side, and it's something that we deal with on composting facility side as well. So, you know, we will be continuing to work with the air districts, and we in no way want to create something that is impossible for you to do your job well, but we also want to make sure that it's bounded in some way.

So I think the gist of what my concern is is that we're creating timelines again.

And these timelines usually get followed with mandates, and those mandates get followed with some kind of fine for whoever's not being able to meet the timeline, but at the same time, we're taking offline or we're taking away the incentive to create all of the above strategy like you're talking about, because we happen to have an anaerobic digester in our area, too, and they service, but they can only serve so much and they're maxed out. They would need those all over the state.

They're easier on the neighborhoods because they don't emit smell and things like that. But we're taking those away from the incentive for building those away with our no gas strategy. And so this is going to be an all composting strategy, which means you have to find the areas, you have to go through the process to be able to make those areas, you know, feasible. And that's, there's, I don't know what the timeline is for that.

So as we're switching as this thing, if this 1383 is being moved, the parts are moving around in it. It's hard for me to get behind timelines that force people to do something when it's a constantly moving process. And so that's my concern about the bill, is we don't need more mandates and fines. What we do need is the ability to do an all of the above strategy. But we're at the same time taking that away. And so for me, the whole thing doesn't work.

It doesn't work for a lot of communities. You'll see a lot of, there's bills that come all the time related to this particular issue. So, yeah, hard for me to get behind the bill.

Can I weigh in? By the way senator, Neil Edgar, California Compost Coalition. There are a number of digesters that are being built. The facility that center was talking about in her district, EDCO, is expanding that facility to double its capacity.

Currently, vehicle fuel is not the only pathway forward for a lot of the digester gas that you're concerned about. There's a lot of electricity generation. And then we're working actively on a number of other measures to provide a pathway for hydrogen, which is up for debate in many of the committees.

All of it's up for debate. That's the problem. And if we're going to say no to gas production and using gas to create electricity, then that makes the digesters pretty much a waste of money.

At the end of the day, we need to move all this agricultural, all this organic material that's producing agriculture back to those organic soils and add organics to get more sustainable practices. But digestion could be that.

When would be the end of the day? Is it tomorrow or is it in a couple of years? Or as long as.

I believe, like a lot of these, it's a work in progress.

Thank you. Anybody else have any comments, questions?

I just want to comment. In agriculture, we are doing a lot of this already. I mean, we do biochar on our farm. It's something that we use for our organics right now. And so there's a lot. And I know when originally the organic spills came, there was a huge conflict of the waste hauler's gonna get, who's gonna get the organics and who was gonna be charged for it. But now siding is the next issue. And what products are we gonna drive from that?

I mean, can we use hydro, can we make hydrogen? Can we make biodiesel? There's a lot of other things, and that's been the, you know, I think the area where we need more direction on which way we're gonna go so we can permit them. And I think the last thing is that it doesn't work everywhere.

In California, in my district, where we have, Lily, huge spans of areas that you have to truck this stuff, you're actually making the environment worse by using fossil fuels to move stuff around to actually get the organic. So it needs to be not one size fits all.

Any other comments, questions? No. Do we have a motion? Okay, we have a motion to move the bill. And this is do passed to environmental quality. You want to call the roll? Oh, you want to close? I'm sorry.

Thank you.

I'm sorry. Yeah.

So just to be clear, I don't believe there's anything in this bill that disincentivizes anaerobic digestion. This bill is only about making it clearer when it comes to local governments and composting. So we're trying to create the streamlining and more efficiency in the process, but we are not trying to disincentivize digestion. And I don't believe I've heard from any waste haulers who've suggested that this bill works at cross purposes with what they're trying to do. The digesters that they've built or could be considering.

And, you know, there are wastewater districts that have digesters that could also be processing food waste. So this is a major part of managing our organics. But this is just one small area which has specifically to do with composting. And we'll continue to work with the air boards in the state as well. With that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote great.

So this is do pass to EQ. Go ahead and call roll.

Motion is due pass to Environmental Quality Committee. [Roll Call]

That's one to two. Okay. That's one to two. We're going to hold that open. Senator Allen, you'll be presenting SB 1234. Senator, this was.

Thank you so much, Mister Chair. And Members, I'm here presenting SB 1234, my favorite number Bill, which seeks to streamline the process for local governments to finalize amendments to, to the components of their local coastal programs, or LCP's. Let me start by accepting the Committee amendments, and I know they've all been provided to each of you, and we'll just discuss them in a minute.

As you know, cities and counties that represent our coastal lands are required to coordinate with the California Coastal Commission to protect coastal resources, guarantee public access, ensure that development is undertaken sustainably. Our Commission the Coastal Commission applies its oversight by certifying a local government's local coastal program, the collection of approved planning documents that lay out the framework for land use development, coastal resource protection, along with the necessary implementation ordinances.

Just as the Coastal Commission initially reviews the local government's LCP to ensure that it meets the standards of the Coastal Act, any proposed amendment to an existing LCP must also be submitted for review. And if the Coastal Commission identifies any discrepancies or inconsistencies with the Coastal Act, they can then conditionally certify the amendment with clarifying modifications that, if accepted by the local government, will deem the amendment certified.

So the modifications that are recommended by the Coastal Commission are usually non substantive, technical or clarifying modifications that don't meaningfully change the proposed amendment as compared to the version last heard and passed by the local government. So the Committee sought to narrow the Bill, applying only to projects with an affordable housing component. And they also wanted to clearly define the type of non substantive modifications that might be eligible for this model, maintaining the full discretion and oversight of the local government.

So, as amended, the Bill will allow local governments to adopt a policy which authorizes the planning Director to accept these non substantive modifications with thorough requirements for timely notice to the Members of the governing body and the public, as well as providing an opportunity for public comment and the council. Can anyone on the council could pull it back for a discussion or an item before the council if there's any challenge or concern about whatever deal was struck at the Commission.

No witnesses today. Okay, so we will call up anybody who would like to speak in favor of the Bill. Come up. Did you want to be a primary waiter?

No, no.

This permissive approach provides local jurisdictions with some more flexibility to avoid the time and cost of a duplicate of hearing as they see fit. And it's a targeted Bill that will help cities and counties, and I respectfully ask for you aye vote.

Great, do you have any witnesses with you today, Senator Allen?

No, just doing a Me, too. Me, too. Martin Radosovich, on behalf of UMB Action and support.

Great. Thank you. Anybody else? There's no one else. We will take anybody wants to speak in primary opposition for the Bill. That means you get like two minutes to talk. If not, then you just come up to the mic and say you're a me too. For opposition. If we don't have any of those? Doesn't look like it. Then we'll bring it back to the dais.

Any questions up here from the dais? We have a motion to move the Bill. Thank you, Senator. Senator Allen, would you like to close?

Appreciate the motion a great deal. And the author, the author of staff and the motion maker. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay, so, secretary, call the roll.

Roll Call

All right, so that Bill is 30. We'll hold it open for additional votes. Senator Dahle, I hear you're Senator Grove. So Senator Dahle will be presenting on behalf of Senator Grove or SB 1232. It's your organic waste collection requirements exemption.

Thank you, Members. I'm here presenting SB 1232 for Senator Grove. It's an exemption. It's clarifying exemption for Proposition 218 protests for organic waste collection.

Thank you, Members. Thank you.

When SB 1383 by Senator Laura passed in 2016, it required CalRecycle to implement an organic waste disposal plan. If local governments did not comply, there would be penalties as high as $10,000 a day or as much as $3.65 million a year. In order to comply with this SB 1383, Kern County plan for residents to provide three bins for household waste, organic and recycling, creating universal collection areas with an annual fee as high as $600.

Towards the end of 2023, 81% of the county was completed except for 14 universal collection areas in the western and eastern Kern. In these 14 universal collection areas, about one in five of the population is over 65 and old. 65 years old and are on fixed incomes and they cannot afford the proposed rate increase. In response to the potential rate increase, the areas rallied together and six of them were unable to successfully pass a Prop 218 protest.

As a result, in December, the Kern County Board of Supervisors did not approve any of the 14 universal collection areas for the fee increase. This put the county and Cal Recycle in uncharted test territory, as no other county has successfully protested the fee increase. This is why I've authored.

This is why the Senator has offered SB 1232, which require CalRecycle to grant an exemption from complying with the Organic Waste Collection requirement for the designated areas in a county that have successfully protested the fees through the props 218 process. Today we have Paul Yoder representing Kern County Members. We cannot keep imposing fees on Californians without taking into consideration who they are affecting. The Prop 218 process was put in place to allow people to voice and rule. California has spoken.

They cannot afford extra $600 for a bin they don't need. Here with me, we have the. Mister Yoder. Go ahead,

Senator. Thank you for that presentation. And we'll go to your two primary witnesses. You have two minutes each. Yeah. All right.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. And you know, I was actually going to say, even though it's a district Bill, it's not a district Bill. It's a Bill of statewide importance.

Okay.

And hey, now we just really emphasize that point with Senator Dahle presenting for Senator Grove, Paul Yoder on behalf of Kern County here today, there's a discrepancy. There's an issue in state law. We have the constitution. We have Proposition 218 right, and then we have statute. We have 1383. In December of 2023, several of the areas in Kern County, as the Senator mentioned, they were going to be subject to a rate increase. They exercised their constitutional right to reject the fee through a successful majority protest.

There is a legal conundrum that must be resolved by the Legislature. Counties have been prohibited from implementing increased services and fees by majority protests. CalRecycles determination that this program is not an unfunded mandate no longer holds true because counties are constitutionally prohibited from adopting required fees. In simple terms, because counties are now prohibited from imposing required fees, CalRecycles should not mandate the imposition without providing the required funding to do so. Committee analysis is its usual awesomeness.

Page four of the five page analysis, in particular, number three. I won't read this because you have it, but it runs the Committee Members through everything Kern County has, in fact, already done to try to comply with the law. And the dead air, dead space they're getting from CalRecycle right. The avenues that are not open to them. You have seniors who are facing a Bill of $600 to recycle organic waste in mountainous, hard to reach parts of California.

What do you think they were going to do? Of course they were going to successfully protest this. Now, I know the recycling industrial complex is going to come up here and oppose this Bill, and that's fine. I think we all understand why. But I want to say to the Members again, it's not just this Bill. You heard about issues with the Blakespear Bill. You're going to keep hearing you have it in your district. I'm not going to, you know, obviously, Senator Wiener doesn't. Right, probably, but. Okay.

But a lot of Members have this in their districts.

And if you can summarize, please. Yeah.

Someone has got to walk across that bridge to resolve what is in the state constitution and what gets legislated from time to time here in Sacramento. There has to be a fix for that or keep doing this.

Thank you very much. Is there a second primary witness in favor, sir? Senator Dahle? I don't think so. Okay, so we'll invite others in the room who would like to come up for a. Me, too. You're welcome to come to the microphone. Anyone else in favor? Okay, then we'll go to opposition. Is there opposition here? We'll allow two speakers at two minutes each if they wish or not. Good morning.

Nick Lapis with Californians Against Waste here on behalf of the Recycling Industrial Complex, we are respectfully opposing SB 1232 for a variety of reasons. SB 1383 is really one of the cornerstones of the state's climate strategy. We have AB 32, which is really focused on the CO2 emissions. We have the natural working lands policies focus on sequestration, etcetera.

SB 1383 is unique in that it focuses on short lived climate pollutants, and these are greenhouse gases that not only have a very potent impact on the climate, but also deliver their entire impact in a very short period of time, which means that the only way to actually avert the consequences of climate change is to reduce these emissions, methane being the biggest among them and landfills being the one of the biggest sources of methane in that category.

The thing about landfill emissions is that they are easily avoidable when you kind of heard this a little bit earlier, but when organics are in a landfill, they rot without oxygen release methane.

If you take that same organic waste and you divert it to a composting facility or an anaerobic digester or one of the other technologies mentioned, you not only do not make that methane by keeping oxygen in the process, but you also make a soil amendment that then continues to pay dividends when it's applied in agricultural lands. And so you sequester carbon, you reduce the need for synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. There's a variety of benefits that I believe you've all heard over the years.

The problem with this Bill is that it would actually encourage people to successfully or to file Prop 218 protests. And there are kind of two different categories of problems with that. The first is that it adds huge regulatory uncertainty to the people who are building the infrastructure we need. We just heard on the previous Bill how we need to reduce red tape, how we need to build more composting facilities. All of that comes down to the garbage industrial complex, Recycling Industrial Complex.

Thank you. I have one additional speaker in opposition. You can add the two minutes if you wish.

Having regulatory certainty that they will have. You can sum up, I'll sum up that they have that regulatory certainty. And finally, just one last comment. I actually take issue with them with Kern County getting dead air from CalRecycle. I know for a fact they've been working with them and trying to find ways to comply for months now. Okay, thank you.

Good morning, Members of the Committee. Mister Chair John Moffatt, on behalf of waste management, also here in opposition to the Bill today, California's recycling system was built on two things, regional operations and long term contracts, which allow us as a company to go and invest hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure. That infrastructure has served the state pretty darn well in the recycling, in the recycling space. Is it a perfect system?

No, but it's certainly one of the better systems in the United States and probably one of the better systems in the world. We're seeing that same thing start to play out on organics. Whether you like 1383 as a law or not, it is the law of the State of California. As a hauler and recycler in the state, we are required to go and help our customers, our local jurisdictions meet that law.

And so we have undertaken years of planning and are investing hundreds of millions of dollars to help our local jurisdictions meet the requirements of the law. Earlier in the support testimony, it was discussed that this is a statewide issue. It is a statewide issue. Mister Seyarto earlier talked about on the previous Bill, organic waste from Riverside going to a Kern County facility. Absolutely. When we build these facilities, they are based on expected volumes.

And if those volumes don't occur because half of Kern County is now exempted from the law, the costs of that facility get passed on elsewhere. And so we are opposed to the Bill. There are other ways to solve, to resolve this issue. We think this is a slippery slope that opens, opens the door to undermine the entire system moving forward.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, we'll invite others with a me, too. In opposition. Please come to the microphone.

Kayla Robinson, on behalf of the California Compost Coalition and respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, Speaker

Michael Caprio. On behalf of Republic services and respectful opposition.

Thank you, sir. Anyone else here in the hearing room in opposition? All right, we'll close the public hearing portion. Bring the matter back to the dais here for comments and questions. I would love to comment. Okay. I see a Member down at the end, Senator Seyarto.

So, you know, I've had to deal with this particular issue as part of a city all the way up through its implementation, and nowadays, and it was a disaster when they started it. It's a disaster today. It's a disaster in my kitchen. It's a disaster in my trash can.

And the implementation now is people coming around, taking, I mean, the trash trucks, having to outfit themselves with cameras so that they can take pictures of our trash to see what is and what isn't being put into the multitude of trash cans. But the bigger disaster is when we're talking about California and our unaffordability. My trash Bill used to be $48, and that was five years ago. It's $96. It's gone up 100%.

And when you're talking about, and that's in an area where they can actually, there's more cost sharing going on. The rural areas that he's talking about, they can't afford this. Cities like Blythe cannot afford this. And when you say that CalRecycle is working with people. No, they're not. They absolutely, they are not.

I get more complaints about the non responsiveness of CalRecycle from the waste industries, by the way, waste management at all, their, their inability to be able to work with CalRecycle on some of these, the implementation of 1383, that's why this Bill is here today, is because they won't work with them. So, you know, I'm supporting this Bill and I'm going to move the Bill, thank you very much, because it is a symptom of something that needs to be fixed.

We don't need to fix it by creating a bunch of fines. We don't need it so that we have cameras running around taking pictures of our trash. We don't need smelly trash piling up in my aunt's kitchen because she has to save it all in her bucket. She can't put it outside because it's hotter in hades outside in the summertime. So this was a not very well thought out Bill, and that's why you have complaints about it.

No matter what the environmental benefits are, those things should have been addressed before they did the implementation. In other words, the infrastructure to be able to handle this needs to be in place before we actually start doing it, because otherwise we have what we have today, which is anaerobic digesters that are producing something we don't want and then reducing the incentive for that, and then having all of this stuff, all of our trash piled into an area where people don't want it.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Not seeing any other Members here wishing to speak, we're going to go back to the author's representative for a closing comment.

So I would say go back to the drawing board. You're going to see a lot more bills like this. If this does spur people to challenge this due to 218, I say have at it, because right now they're sick and tired of how much it costs them.

Let me mention that the Chair who has a conflict with another hearing that she's under, she's presenting a Bill and has indicated she unfortunately is not supportive of the Bill. So we'll go to Senator Dahle on behalf of Senator Grover close.

Thank you, Mister Chair, and Members, I actually think I can maybe do some justice at the end of the day. Yeah, of course the waste haulers are going to come in here and oppose it.

They have a license to go, basically charge whatever the recovery fee is. But Kern County 81%. According to the Senator's notes here, 81% of Kern County is compliant. So they've done all the low hanging fruit out there that they could.

And quite frankly, it's, and I have the same problem in my district where it's very long distances to get all this stuff done, and I'm concerned that even the environmental impact to try to collect all that is probably at best, break even if you were able to put all the environmental pollution that caused in collection and making the organics work.

But let's talk about the person that owns the home that's out there that said has the right under the Constitution with Proposition 218 to say, no, you can't jack up my local fees. That's a constitutional amendment was put into place because local governments were out of control in raising rates and the voters of California pass Proposition 218. So you have a conflict. They said, no, I'm not going to accept the local fee. But you have a state law that says you're mandated to pick it up.

So what do they do? Where are they at? What does the county do? Are you just going to, what is the local. We're going to go out now and we're going to, what, find these people? Or we're going to, what, mandate it? That they pay it? I mean, they're in a they're in a catch 22. Something has to give here because they exercise their right. They actually used the 218 process to say, no, we don't want to do that.

So it's kind of been a theme the last couple days. Is the perfect in the way of the good. Like, we want to do the right thing with the environment, but at the same time, we're driving people out of their homes and can't afford to live in California. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote. The county has done a great job. 81%. The people have said no. They have a constitutional right. And for those reasons, I asked for an aye vote on this.

Thank you, sir. So all debate having ceased, I'm going to recognize a motion from Senator Seyarto on behalf of his aunt. Is that what you said? On behalf of your aunt? This is a do pass to EQ environmental quality. Secretary, please call the roll.

Roll Call

On call for absent Members. Yeah, let's go ahead. Let's call roll on bills that we have missed. Yes. Is that respectful enough.

Senator Dahle, do you want to go in the micro-order? Or file order? File item number one, SB 915 by Senator Cortese. Motion is do pass to Transportations Committee with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Two to two.

Oh, that Bill will be on call.

File item number two, SB 977 by Senator Laird. Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Three to two.

Leave that Bill on call.

File item number three, SB 1045 by Senator Blakespear. Motion is do pass to Environmental Quality Committee. No current vote for the Chair. [Roll call] One to two.

All right, we'll leave that on call.

SB file number four, SB 1111 by Senator Min. Motion is do pass to Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Five to zero.

Okay, well, that's 5-1. We'll go ahead and leave that one on call. People add on.

File item number five, SB 1123 by Senator Caballero. Motion is do pass aa amended to Appropriations Committee with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Three to zero.

That Bill is 3-0 right now. We'll leave it on call.

File item number six, SB 1220 by Senator Limon. Motion is do pass to Appropriations Committee with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Three to one.

That Bill is three to one. We'll leave that on call.

File item number seven, SB 1232 by Senator Grove. Motion is do pass to Environmental Quality Committee, but no current vote for the Chair. [Roll call] Two to one.

That vote is two to one at this time. We'll leave it on call.

I think that's it.

Yeah.

File item number 13, SB 1494 by Senator Glazer. Motion is do pass to Revenue Taxation Committee with the Chair voting aye. [Roll call] Five to one.

All right, that Bill is five to one. We'll leave that on call for Members to add on. So this time we're gonna have to take a recess because we have no authors, we're a little short on people. So we'll just take a recess. Until when? All right, we're gonna just take a recess till we have some authors. So I would encourage. If you're an author and you're just wandering the halls, come on down, present your Bill. Thank you.

All right, wait here. We're going to call us back to order again. We're going to go through the role again for members that were absent or wandering the halls to add on. So we'll start with item number SB 915. Cortese.

Motion is to pass the Transportations Committee with the chair of voting aye [Roll Call] Three to two.

All right, we'll keep that open.

File item number two, SB 977 by Senator Laird. Motion is to pass, as amended, to appropriations, with the chair voting aye. [Roll Call] Four to two.

All right, that item is four to two. We'll keep that item open.

File item number three, SB 1045 by Senator Blakespear. Motion is to pass the environmental quality Committee. No current vote for the chair. [Roll Call] Two to two.

All right, that bill is two to two. We'll keep that open.

File item number five, SB 1123 by Senator Caballero. Motion is to pass this amendment to Appropriations Committee with the chair voting aye. [Roll Call] Four to zero.

All right, that item is four, zero. We'll keep it open for people to add on.

Next file item number six, SB 1220, by Senator Limon. The motion is to pass to Appropriations Committee with the chair voting aye. [Roll Call] Four to one.

All right, that item is four to one. We'll hold that open. Next bill.

File item number seven, SB 1232 by Senator Grove. Motion is to pass to environmental Quality Committee with no current vote for the chair. [Roll Call] Two to two.

All right, that item is two to two. We'll hold it open. Next item.

File item number eight, SB 1234 by Senator Allen. Motion is to pass this amendment to Appropriations Committee. No current vote for the chair. [Roll Call] Four to zero.

Okay, that item is four, zero, and we're gonna hold that open.

File item number nine, SB 1376 by Senator Gonzalez. Motion is to pass this amendment to Appropriations Committee with the chair voting aye. [Roll Call] Four to two.

All right, that item is four, two. We'll hold that open. And that's all that we have for add ons. Oh, she's here. All right. Senator Skinner. Okay, this would be file item number 10, SB 1210, by Senator Skinner. You may begin to present when you're ready. Okay.

Apologies. If the committee. Excuse me. Wouldn't mind, I would like to start with 1211. Is that okay?

No, no, I'm just kidding. You can start with number 11, SB 1211.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Chair and Committee Members. First and foremost, I am taking the Committee's amends, which allow for up to eight detached ADUs on a multifamily property, and with the qualifier that the number of detached ADUs cannot exceed the number of existing units on the multi-family property. ADUs, I think, as most of us know, have been a great success story in California's housing crisis. Since we began our effort, we, the Legislature, to pass laws that remove barriers to ADU construction.

It was approximately seven years ago or so. Over 100,000 ADUs have now been constructed. And those ADUs are now providing housing for double to triple that number of Californians. And when you consider our shortage, the projected shortage we have of housing units, this is a very important addition. A significant advantage of ADUs is the fact that they are perfect for infill.

In other words, they can be built on existing, excuse me, residential sites with existing water, sewage, roads, other infrastructure already near schools, parks, you name it, which makes them affordable because they don't have to have all of that infrastructure added. And additionally, we have. They tend to be smaller in square footage. There's many aspects of them that make them more affordable to construct. So, what the data is also showing is that they tend to not only either be used by family members or.

But that their cost, either for purchase or rental, is much more in the moderate to low-income quality, you know, costing for such families of that sort, versus of a, some of our other market rate housing, which requires quite higher income levels. What SB 1211 does, it updates our current statute that allows for ADUs on multi-family properties by giving flexibility to where the ADUs can be cited, the detached ones. So it's the more flexibility to where the detached ADUs can be cited.

And allowing for additional detached ADUs, not, not above, rather just not the cap that's in the law now, as long as that number of detached do not double the number of existing units on the property. And the witnesses I would like to have present are Karla Guerra from the Unity Council of Oakland and Graciela Castillo-Krings from Casita Coalition.

Great. Whoever would like to go first? You may go up, you may proceed, and you have two minutes. And if you could stick to that, I appreciate it. We're getting a little bit of a time crunch.

Oh, there. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Senator Skinner. Good morning, Members of the Committee. My name is Karla Guerra. I am the Policy and Advocacy Senior Manager at the Unity Council. The Unity Council has provided equity-focused affordable housing services and community development services in East Oakland and the East Bay for over 50 years.

We currently own and operate the Fruitvale Transit Village and Nine East Oakland affordable housing developments, including three senior housing developments and we have two affordable housing developments in pre-development stage currently. So, our developments include supported services and we have close to 600 affordable housing units under management in and around Fruitvale. The Unity Council is always working to expand affordable housing opportunities for diverse, low-income, largely Latino community in the East Bay, many of which are essential workers.

We are pleased to support Senator Skinner Bill SB 1211, which will allow existing nonprofit housing owners and builders to add additional ADUs to underutilize buildings and site areas so that we can expand housing opportunities for more low-income families quickly and cost effectively. Current law does not allow us to add more than two ADUs to underutilized site and parking areas detached from existing buildings, whereas as we can add 25% more if we convert existing space.

So SB 1211 will give greater flexibility to locate multifamily ADUs in unoccupied building areas or as detached new construction so that nonprofits can provide more housing for low-income clients and use ADU revenues to support properties. We thank you for your consideration of this important policy and ask for your support vote. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you very much. Next speaker.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. Graciela Castillo-Krings. I am here on behalf of the Casita Coalition. The founder of the organization was not able to be here, so I'm stepping in. The Casita Coalition is a statewide nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a more equitable, inclusive and sustainable California by restoring housing choice for many families and both buyers and renters.

The Casita Coalition is pleased to sponsor this piece of legislation. By allowing ADUs to be built on lots with apartment buildings that have unused space, this Bill will create more affordable options for families while also promoting environmentally sustainable growth. Studies by UC Berkeley Turner Center and the New York University Furman Center have documented that ADUs primarily serve low and moderate-income families.

ADUs have been proven to an unusually successful policy and continuing to build on what is working is how we're going to actually address the housing crisis. Ultimately, California will not solve our housing crisis unless policymakers develop a robust pro housing agenda, one that includes streamlining development, I'm sorry, one that includes streamlining development permits and reforming zoning so that all cities can build the housing that they need. And for that reason, the Casita Coalition is a strong sponsor of this Bill.

We believe that this is definitely a pro-housing Bill. Thank you.

Very good. At this time, we'll take me toos for those that would like to express their support for this Bill. Please, just your name and your organization you represent and your support for the Bill.

Thank you. Good morning. Deborah Carleton with the California Apartment Association in strong support.

Kathryn Charles with Housing Action Coalition in support.

Danita Stromgren, volunteer with AARP California, representing our 3.2 million members, in support.

Martin Radosevich with the following organizations in support. Build Casa, SPUR, Eden housing, YIMBY Action and Fieldstead. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Sosan Madanat at W Strategies here on behalf of Unidos U.S. in strong support. Thank you.

Chair Members of the Committee, Jordan Panana Carbajal, Legislative Advocate for California, YIMBY. Here as a proud co-sponsor of the Bill. Thank you so much.

Hello. Thank you. Aaron Eckhouse with East Bay for Everyone in proud support.

Good morning. Cornelius Burke with the California Building Industry Association in strong support. And I encourage everyone to build an ADU. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now is the time for any primary witnesses that might be in opposition to this Bill. No? Okay. If anybody wants to come and be a me too to the opposition witness that did not speak, come on up. Since there's nobody scrambling to the mic, what we'll do now is bring it back to the dais. Do we have any questions? We have a motion by Wahab to move the Bill. Senator Glazer.

Thank you. The analysis raises a number of issues that I don't think you addressed, or maybe I'll give you the opportunity to address about some clarity that's needed in terms of what's considered unused space, underutilized space. They say that there's lack of clarity. There's another issue that's raised. This is on the bottom of page, I think it's six, conflict with existing law. They're concerned that not requiring that replacement of carports and garages could leave some inconsistency between various provisions about common spaces.

I just want to make sure you have a chance to address those if you.

So the, on the issue of the underutilized space, to put a, to try to put a definition in without being able to see the parcel in question is a very difficult thing to do because on any particular multi-family unit, parcel or project, they. First, multifamily projects, as we know, very hugely in number of units and the amount of the acreage.

So in one, and depending on the time they were built, they may have lots of additional space, whether it's parking or amenities that are not being utilized by residents now that.

Again, for to add the, to say, okay, just as an example, you know, tennis courts should always be protected when it's possible that the particular property now is, you know, the tennis courts have not been in use or not been maintained for, you know, a decade or decades, and the property owner has not found, you know, and again, this affects either condo developments or rental.

Say, if you're providing it as rental, you've not, your, it has not affected your ability to rent the properties or if you're, say, if you're condo owners, that you don't want to maintain that any longer. Right? So rather than our trying to put in a definition that does not deal with the specifics of that particular property, it does allow some determination. Yes. By the owner. We give, there are some boundaries in it.

But this is one of these where if you are, for example, the owner of a rental property, you are not going to eliminate amenities that affect your ability to rent your units. It just doesn't make sense. And of course, if you're within the condo, the Homeowners Type Association, you're going to make those decisions. So hopefully that addresses that question.

I think I understand. And I heard from staff that you're working with staff on these questions and working to resolve some of these.

Yes, but we're also, I'm making it clear that the reason that it's not and this I want it is because it is, while there are some guidelines in there to try to come up and we'll work on it, but to try to come up with a definition that, that tries to have the.

Senator, I know.

Projection of what each, because we know every single property is different and the types of spaces are.

I know that you will continue to work on the Bill as it moves forward today.

Okay. But I did want to just make that clear on the record. Okay. All right.

Okay.

Okay. And then the other issue you raised. There was a second issue.

Yeah. But I just wanted to make sure you were aware of those issues, some of them technical, some of them not, that you work on as the Bill moves forward. That, that's all I was trying to clarify.

Okay.

Okay. Anybody else?

I also figured since you asked the question, you might be interested in knowing what are some of the factors that affect the ability to me?

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for your thoughtfulness as you do this work.

Great.

Okay. Any other questions? Since there's nobody down the other side, that leaves me. So, you know, and I just want to explain my opposition to essentially the direction this goes in, which is lessening local control over their communities. And I do this from a, from working in some communities over the years that have been over impacted by what was then illegal ADUs and things like that. And this is encouraging. And in fact, taking that, it feels like it's taking that away from cities.

The ability to go into areas like you were saying, you don't know what each property looks like and what can be accomplished on that property and what the impacts to the are surrounding areas are. And a lot of times those impacts are not easily addressed. Impacts like instead of parking on the property, they're parking in the street.

And when cars are lined on both sides of a street that was never meant to have that many cars on it, it makes some, in some cases practically impossible for emergency vehicles and things like that to get down. We had some neighborhoods where we would have to stage units up the block, way up the block and have one come down specifically at a time because the neighborhoods now had streets that were barely wide enough for the fire apparatus to get down.

And so when we remove local control from that, then they don't get to address those issues. And when we're saying that you can, they don't have to replace parking. Well, what if there are areas where they do have to? If this law doesn't allow them to do that in those areas, then we are going to have neighborhoods that become downright dangerous when it comes to public safety. So that's one of my concerns. I am going to do.

You know, I'm not going to ask for the statistics on ADUs and how they're being used, but I can tell you in the community that I live in, there is one neighborhood in particular where people are putting up ADUs left and right because they have larger lots with their homes and they're not being rented out. They're just guest houses now. And their houses went from being $800,000 to $1.1 million because now they have a guest house on the premises.

So they're not all, just because they're being built doesn't mean they're being utilized and certainly not utilized for low-income or affordable housing for people. So, you know, I think that I would like to see some more data into what has occurred so far in putting in a lot of the rules and regulations that we have formulated over the last three years.

So, you know, until I see some of those things and I'm going to do that research with my staff so that I can be more comfortable in going forward with even more than we have already got. I need to see the impacts of what we have not just, you know, the overall blanket statement that this helps. This helps with those affordable housing, because right now I'm not seeing it.

I'm not seeing it in a lot of the communities that people would like to be participating in this. They are. But it's not doing the same. It's not doing what this is meant to do.

Kelly, can I speak one more time? Thank you. Chair. Vice Chair.

I'm a big fan of ADUs. I've always had angst as we've served a long time together with the issue of local control. But I think that, you know, again, given our earlier conversation, that, because it that I think that I want to support your Bill today, I hope that you'll continue to work on it in regard to some of these unique issues, because sometimes we may need to.

Because you're given such a blanket, okay, you may need to put some guardrails or some, as you might describe it, or I might describe it to make sure that the circumstances are so different out there. So you just, I know you want to do it the right way. And with that, I'm happy to move the Bill at the appropriate time.

Appreciate that.

I think this is the appropriate time. So we do have a motion. Would you like to close?

Certainly. And I do want to just clarify that while this does give ministerial approval to the items that I described, it does not give a blanket administrative approval to any number of detached ADUs on any multifamily property. So the reason I bring that up is because it still allows for local control for, in those cases where it's conceivable on a very large.

If we think about this limit of eight detached ADUs, which the Bill, when it came out of housing, did not have that limit, then a locality could not come in and have any say over, you know, what, what was being, what portion, what parts of the parcel were being used. The, when we think about that, there are some multi-family properties that are 500 and more units or 250 units.

Conceivably an owner might want to do more detached ADUs, and at that point, that owner would have to go for, it would have to get the full approval if they want to do additional detached. So, I just wanted to make sure that we did appreciate that this is only allowing for a certain number of ministerial approval. And I would finally note to Senator Seyarto's comments that there is no.

The League of Cities, other formal represent associations of our local governments are not in opposition to the Bill. And with that, I'd ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. Go ahead and call roll.

Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. [Roll call] Three to one.

Okay. That Bill is three to one right now. We're going to hold it open. And Senator Skinner, you have SB 1210. Go ahead.

Great. Thank you. This Bill is broader. It, of course, affects ADUs, but it affects all housing units. I will begin first that I am accepting the Committee's amendments that add an implementation date. So a little bit delayed to give the various utilities time by removing the requirement to post by address and the requirement that the websites show the status of an application. I'm also adding the posting of fee schedules by development type and the posting of estimates of project completion timing.

So those are the amendments that are, that I'm taking that are outlined in the analysis, the purpose of the Bill. So you know what one of the, some of the factors that make building housing hard in California are? Costs, and especially costs that are hard to estimate.

And without publicly available information on what the various utilities, whether it's water, sewage, energy, you name it, charge for a different hookup, it is hard to then estimate what your total cost, what your projected cost for that building of that unit is going to be. And time, and where time is a factor is time means money.

And so if the hookup is delayed or takes months, and I think most of us have heard about whether it's a large housing project or a single ADU, that it can. We've heard anecdotal stories about entities facing six months to two years before that residential unit can be ready for occupancy. And yet the hookup from the utility or such is taking additional six months to two years. All of those make housing more costly in California.

So the Bill, I was hoping that it could do more, but for now, it purely provides information publicly available to help ensure that a homeowner, a contractor, a developer, any or all builder of housing know in advance what these hookups will cost and the estimated timeline. So that's what the Bill does. And with that, I would like Catherine Charles from the Housing Action Coalition to present.

Thank you. You have two minutes.

Thank you so much, Mister Vice Chair and Members, my name is Catherine Charles, and I'm here with Brownstein. On behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, who is sponsoring the Bill. Housing Action Coalition is a member supported nonprofit working to help solve the housing crisis in California, and we work with stakeholders across the affordable housing space, including pro-housing lawmakers, developers and partners, to help increase access to housing at all income levels.

In our Members experience, part of what acts as a significant barrier to affordable housing construction are the high utility hookup fees, which further exacerbate already high construction costs. The high fees come in especially when developers are unable to anticipate and budget for them because the timelines around hookups are so uncertain. The situation not only adds to the overall expense of housing construction, but also undermines efforts to to streamline and reduce housing costs in the state.

SB 1210 remedies this by implementing common sense reforms that increase transparency between utility companies and the communities they serve. Notably, the Bill mandates utility companies to inform customers of their estimated service completion date, and for developers, having a better sense of this timeline is essential in budgeting for their projects. SB 1210 is an important first step in addressing concerns around utility hookups and will incentivize greater housing production in California to during a crucial time. And with that, I respectfully ask your aye vote.

Very good. Thank you very much. Do we have anybody who'd like to add on support of the Bill and come to the Mic name organization and your support

Martin Radosevich on behalf of YIMBY Action in support.

Chair of Members of the Committee, Jordan Panana Carbajal, legislative advocate for California YIMBY and strong support. Thank you so much.

Jennifer Williams, East Bay Municipal Utility District. We don't have a formal position. Want to thank the author for working with us and the author staff for working to resolve concerns and the Committee staff as well. And with the amendments outlined, I think those resolve our concerns.

Spencer Saks, on behalf of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, we want to thank the Committee and the author for taking the amendments, and we look forward. To reviewing them and hopefully moving to a neutral position. Thank you.

Hello. Aaron Eckhouse with East Bay for Everyone proud to support.

Okay, now would be the time for anybody who would like to speak in opposition to the Bill. Come on up. You have two minutes if you want to be a primary witness.

It'll be quick. My name is Keeley Morris. I work with Edelstein, Gilbert, Robson and Smith on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association. With the amendments taken in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, CMUA is happy to remove its opposition today. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Anybody else who wants to come up and express their opposition was that was it. All right, we're gonna bring it back to the dais for. We have a motion to move the Bill. Anybody else have any comments? Myself? No. Okay. Would you like to close?

I appreciate your aye vote.

Okay, go ahead and call roll.

Motion Is due pass this amendment to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Great.

We'll hold that Bill open for others to add on when they arrive. I would encourage other Members to come down so that we can finish the Committee meeting right now. We're going to recess until we get some more Members. Durazo. Did she?

Open the roll, right? Yeah, I don't. I don't think I have to run. Do I have to get back to EQ right now to vote? No. No, I don't think you still have time.

Okay. But at least we could open the roll, perhaps in the meantime.

Okay, we're gonna open the roll for who to add on. Okay. I mean, we don't have anybody add on?

Because I have not quoted on a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I don't mind.

Yeah. All right, I'll go.

All right.

In numerical order or file order.

All right, so we're back in session. I didn't actually go on a recess. And we're going to open the roll for Senator Skinner to add on.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Senator Skinner will be presenting SB 1325 on behalf of Senator Durazo. Go ahead.

Thank you, chair and Members. SB 1325 simplifies the public contracting process for state and local agencies by creating an authorizing statute for best value procurement and the analysis of the Bill the Committee's is very, very, very good. The Legislature has frequently authorized the use of best value procurement on an ad hoc basis for specific entities. This causes confusion and administrative burden.

The ad hoc, or the fact that it's ad hoc contracting authority, which is often done in very different sections of state code, makes it difficult for agencies to understand if they have the authority to adopt best value procurement models. Some local agencies have explicit permission to utilize best value procurement, while others do not, and some have authorization, but only under specific circumstances.

The author, in fact, received a letter from the water replenishment district, the largest groundwater agency in California, expressing their support for 1325 because it provides the district with a clear procurement option for necessary equipment. I would like to have Fatima Iqbal Zubare from the California environmental voters to testify in support of 1325.

Is it on? It'll be on. Okay. Okay.

It'll be on. There you go. You have two minutes.

Okay.

If you could limit your testimony to that, I appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. Good morning, chair and Committee Members. I'm Fatima Iqbal Zubair with California Environmental Voters. I'm here today to voice my strong support for SB 1325 and to highlight the critical importance of this Bill in creating good green jobs as well as the production of high quality and sustainable products. California is set to receive tens of billions of dollars from the Federal Government in the coming years.

And with millions in current and future state investments in a climate just future, we have a once in a generation opportunity to use these funds to not just address critical gaps in our infrastructure and climate adaptation and resilience needs, but to do it while lifting up our workers and thus building our economy from the bottom up. SB 1325 aligns perfectly with these goals.

For the first time, California is behind the Federal Government on achieving job quality standards and policy tools like best value procurement are among the first steps to catch up to equitable job quality standards in order to maximize our public dollars for the most public good. Currently, there's a need for clear, permissive language for local and state agencies regarding best value procurement to achieve the maximal impact of publicly funded projects.

By prioritizing this, SB 1325 ensures that local contracts and public contracts have the ability to consider factors beyond just cost, such as environmental impact, social equity and job quality. This Bill aligns with California's ambitious climate goals. By leveraging state procurement power to prioritize green products, services and the creation of climate jobs, we can accelerate our transition to a low carbon economy and reduce emissions.

However, as we transition to a more sustainable green economy, it's imperative that we prioritize job creation in sectors that contribute positively to our environment, but also uplifting our most vulnerable workers. So it's important to consider factors like job quality, training opportunities and fair wages while making procurement decisions. The last point here, SB 1325, emphasizes the importance also of product quality and sustainability in today's world where the impact of our consumer patterns on the environment is more apparent than ever.

It is essential that we prioritize products and services that are not only high quality, but also produced sustainably. Best value procurement encourages the selection of products that meet rigorous environmental and social standards, leading to a more sustainable supply chain and reducing our overall ecological footprint footprint. Best value procurement finally, also promotes competition, innovation among businesses by considering a broader range of factors in procurement decisions.

You can wrap it up. I appreciate it. Thank you.

I will. Yes.

This approach encourages companies to innovate and develop sustainable solutions to meet the state's needs, which drives economic growth and benefits more than just the 1% of the 99%. So, in conclusion, this Bill promotes all the principles I mentioned to ensure creation of high quality green jobs, production of high quality and sustainable products, and overall advancement of our climate and economic goals of the state. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. Do we have anybody who would like to add on their support in a me too fashion?

Yes, Elmer Lazardi with the California Labor Federation in support. Thank you.

Very good. Anybody else? Okay, is there anybody who wants to speak in opposition to this Bill as a primary witness? Anybody wants to come up and add me too. No primary witness? No? Okay, then we'll bring it back to the dais for any questions. Did I hear a motion to move the Bill? Move the Bill. You may close, Senator Skinner.

Senator Durazo had a great close, but I see everyone needing antsy, so I will ask for your vote on her behalf.