Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

Good afternoon, everyone. We're going to get started. We don't have a quorum yet. We will start as a Subcommitee. First, we'll do some housekeeping items. Welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing. I would like to remind the public that for these and future hearings, testimony will be in person, as we're no longer using moderated telephone service.

We also accept written testimony through the position letter portal on the Committee's website. I would also like to go over our ground rules for appropriate conduct. The Assembly has experienced a number of disruptions to Committee and floor proceedings in the last few years. Conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impede the orderly conduct of the hearing is prohibited.

Such conduct may include talking or making loud noises from the audience, uttering loud, threatening or abusive language, speaking longer than the allotted time, extended discussions on matter not related to the subject of the hearing or Bill, and any other disruptive acts. To address any disruptive acts, I will take the following steps.

If an individual resrupts our hearing process, I will direct them to stop and warn them that continuous disruptions may result in removal from the capitol building. I will also document on the record individual involved and the nature of the disruptive conduct. I may temporarily recess the hearing.

If the conduct does not stop, I will request the assistance of the sergeants in escorted individuals from the capitol hearing. We do have five items on the agenda this afternoon. Two of these items are proposed for consent. Item three, SB 1169 by Senator Stern. Item five, SB 1405 by Senator Ochoa Bogh.

In addition, Senator Wiener will be presenting item four, SB 1251, on behalf of Senator Stern. We will hear all other bills in the order shown on our agenda. Unless otherwise noted, we will take up to two primary witnesses in support of the two primary witnesses in opposition. These witnesses will have three minutes each to provide their testimony.

All subsequent witnesses should state their name, their organization, and their position on the Bill only. As I said earlier, we do not have a quorum and we don't have any Senators yet be present. So the Senators and staff are hearing.

Please ask your Senators to come to local government room 447 so that we can start hearing bills on the agenda. Thank you. We'll wait a few minutes. Thank you. Senator Caballero, you're ready to go? We're ready. And again, we are proceeding as a Subcommitee since we don't have a quorum yet.

For your help on this Bill, and I'll be accepting the Committee amendment. From the early 1950s until the state dissolved them in 2011, redevelopment agencies, or RDAs, used property tax increment financing to pay for economic development projects in cities and counties, to remove blight, and in deteriorating neighborhoods.

After the demise of RDAs, local officials sought other methods to raise the capital needed to fund critical public infrastructure projects. In response, the Legislature enacted SB 628 to allow local officials to create enhanced infrastructure financing districts, or EIFDs to finance public capital facility projects or other specified projects in order to benefit districts or surrounding communities that result in a useful life of 15 years or more. In other words, it can't be temporary.

Similarly, SB 852, enacted eight years later, used this model to create climate resilience districts, or CRDs to raise revenue plan climate mitigation or adaptation projects with a similar funding mechanism. EIFDs and CRDs are vital tax increment financing tools to fund and finance public facilities or projects of community wide significance.

Unfortunately, some cities and counties have found these tools with limited staff and resources, and forming these districts require duplicative processes and are cumbersome to initiate. SB 1140 will reform the IFD and CRD law to streamline and create efficiencies in the formation process and expand the types of projects these tools can finance, all while protecting public input and participation.

It will reduce the mandatory meetings from four to three. It broadens the alternative mailing and notification methods and it eliminates the mandate and instead enables the forming district to electronically submit its resolution of intention to establish the district to other taxing entities, eliminating the need for mailing.

Furthermore, it removes the requirement to mail annual report notices via first class mail. Finally, the Bill specifies that notices shall be published in English and all other languages spoken by at least 20% of the population or more. SB 1140 expands the type of projects EIFDs and CRDs can finance to include projects to improve air quality, and it has no opposition.

With me to testify and answer any questions is Gurbax Sahota, President and CEO of California Association for Local Economic Development and Executive Director of California Academy for Economic Development, and Kristina Solberg, Community Relations Senior Manager from Central Valley Community Foundation.

Good afternoon. Thank you. Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Kristina Solberg, Community Relations Senior Manager at the Central Valley Community /foundation, and on behalf of the foundation, I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak in strong support of SB 1140. SB. Sorry.

We believe that if this legislation is passed, it will motivate counties and cities to work together to raise public and private capital for large scale infrastructure projects. The Central Valley Community Foundation is the jobs first convener for our four county region, which includes Fresno, Madera, King and Tulare counties.

And resourcing California's climate economy is central to our plan. We know that the state cannot reach its climate goals without working with us in the Central Valley. And we know that large scale clean energy infrastructure is needed in our region in order for us to reach the state's climate and clean energy goals. That means billions of dollars will need to be invested in our region, and big time investment requires a regional strategy and official partnerships across city and county lines.

As you know, forming partnerships is hard when working with different bodies of government, but this Bill will streamline the process so that local leaders are motivated to partner with one another. This legislation is ultimately about improving the lives of the people who live in the Central Valley.

We are finally in a moment in time where our region has the opportunity to harness big investment that could impact the next generation in a way that gives all people access to opportunity. From ensuring access to quality, good paying jobs, to improving air quality for all. This Bill will help to unlock money for a region that's ready for large scale investment. For these reasons, the Central Valley Community Foundation is pleased to support SB 1140. Thank you for your consideration.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Gurbax Sahota. I'm the President and CEO of the California Association for Local Economic Development. We represent over 800 local economic developers that are helping communities thrive and businesses thrive in California, and that equates to about 300 jurisdictions across the state.

We're really pleased to be here to support Senate Bill 1140, because communities more and more are looking to EIFDs as potential tools to help them address their infrastructure needs. As the Senator said, the formation process is both cumbersome, it's complex, and it's costly. And we believe that streamlining is not only appropriate, we're really excited to see that she's been able to maintain the transparency requirements that I think are important to everybody, not just the public, but you all as well.

We think by streamlining the Bill, the formation, excuse me, by streamlining the formation process, the Bill will also make the tool more available to smaller communities that do have a staff capacity issue. So we're here in strong support, and we hope that you support the Bill as well today. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anybody else in the room that wants to add on in support? Seeing no one. Any primary witnesses in opposition of measure? Seeing nobody. I'll take it back to the Committee Members. Any questions, comments on what's in front of us? Mister Essayli?

Thank you. What is the - what kind of projects are climate resilient districts do? Like, what does that mean? What will they do?

So some of the discussions that I've heard are projects that provide an opportunity to, for example, in Sonoma County, they have a road that is - that has never really had problems with flooding, except for very periodically and with sea level rise, the road will be underwater. And there are a number of roadways in that part of the state that were built across waterways.

And there's going to be a need regionally to come up with a tax increment to raise the road because it is the major route, the major transportation route for people working on one, on one side of the waterway going to the other. So that, for example, is one project that, for which you would want to have a taxing entity to be able to do it.

Okay. And then my understanding, I'm just reading the legislative history here, was that prior to 2019, these districts required 55% voter approval to issue bonds. But that was replaced by AB 116, which replaced voter approval with a protest process. And that's what we're talking about today, is reducing the protest process, or the meetings to form the district from four down to two, correct?

No, we don't change the voting process at all in this Bill.

Not the voting process, but the number of meetings it would take before it's formed for the community to basically protest if they wanted to.

It's getting rid of one of the meetings.

Two of the meetings. So we're cutting. We're cutting it from four to two?

No, actually, my original Bill was from four to two, but I was forced to take an amendment. So it's actually just one.

It's one. Is that one of the amendments?

The amendment in the Senate was to eliminate one of the meetings in Senate local government. I mean, excuse me. To put back one of the meetings. In other words, from my original Bill was four to two, and the Senate, the Senate amendment I accepted was four to three.

So the current text of the Bill is four to three. Okay. And then I'm just curious, if the taxpayer protection initiative is allowed on the ballot and passes, would that impact these districts as well? I don't know the answer. I'm just asking.

Yeah, my guess is it would. It would impact. In my understanding of it is it would impact any. Actually, I'm not sure. In terms of bonds. I'm just not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. I have to say.

I appreciate you answering my questions. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Before we go to more questions or comments from Committee Members. We reach a quorum. Madam Secretary, would you please call the roll.

[Roll Call].

We have a quorum for those Members. We're on item number two. We're on questions or comments for the Senator. We got a motion. Is there a second? We have a first and a second. Would you like to close Senator Caballero.

Respectfully asked for your aye vote.

Thank you. Please call the roll. Well, before you call the roll, I'm sorry, I forgot one step. I did hear you say that you accept the Committee amendments, right?

That is correct.

Well, thank you for presenting your Bill today. I am supportive of your efforts to improve this infrastructure development tools for our local agencies. With the amendments I will be supporting your Bill today. The motion is due passed with amendments. So please call the roll.

Motion is due passed as amended to the Floor. [Roll Call].

The vote is seven to one. The Bill is out. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Congratulations.

And we're going to pause for a little bit until we get other presenters to come in. Not seeing any other bills. We can do a consent item that we have on the agenda. Can I get a motion for consent? Well, first and second, please call.

[Roll Call]

Those two bills are out at a zero. And we can get Senator Stern and Senator winner please set up to local government, room 447. With that, we'll pause for a little bit until we get someone to come up to local government. Thank you. We still don't have Senator Wiener and we're going to take a brief recess for about 510 minutes just to wait for him to come up. Thank you.

Should I do that again? We heard that Senator Wiener is on his way from the swing space. In the meantime, we're going to do the add ons for those that need to be added on to agenda items. Madam Secretary, please call the roll for the consent calendar item.

[Roll Call]

Those two bills are out. 9-0.

[Roll Call]

And that brings that to 81. And the Bill is out. And that's it for add ons. And again, the Senator Wiener is on his way. He'll be here shortly. Thank you, Senator Wiener. Thank you. You're ready.

You want to start with SB 937, your Bill?

I will do that. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Whenever you're ready.

Okay. Thank you, Mister chair. First of all, thank you to you and your Committee for working with us, and we're happy to accept the Committee's amendments. SB 937 does two things.

It temporarily extends entitlements that are at risk of expiring during this high interest rate environment, which has made it difficult for projects to move forward, so it provides a temporary extension. It also moves not all, but some impact fees, collections, from pulling the permit to the end of the process at certificate of occupancy.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY is a proud co sponsor.

Chair of Members Michael Gunning, Lighthouse Public affairs affairs. We're in a support if amended position here on behalf of SPUR, Habitat for Humanity California YIMBY action. We'd like to see applicability of extension to all projects.

We know that for projects, especially that are struggling with financing, having to upfront those perm, those impact fees can make a difficult project even harder. In addition, cities typically have to refund impact fees that they receive if a project falls apart. And so cities are going to get every penny of their impact fees.

I'll just get it at the end, not the beginning. We made several amendments to the Bill in the Senate that if cities are actually paying money out of pocket that would be reimbursed by these fees, they can collect those upfront.

And so I think this is, the Bill is a solid approach to help projects succeed without harming local governments. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with me today to testify is Graciela Castillo Krings on behalf of the California Housing Consortium and Mohammed Alameldin with the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

Good afternoon, Mister chair and Members, Graciela Castillo Krings . I'm here represent on behalf of the California Housing Consortium. The California Housing Consortium is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the production and preservation of affordable housing to Low income families. And we are very proud to be a co sponsor on this Bill.

SB 937, as the Senator was saying, does not prevent local governments from collecting the fees. It basically changes when those fees are collected. When impact fees are collected in the early stages of development, such as when building permits or before building permits are issued, the actual cost a developer pays is a lot more.

A lot of the times they have to basically rely on equity and that type of financing can actually prevent a project from moving forward by actually collecting at the end when you actually have a building, it is easier to finance. Right now when the state is uncertain about the fiscal viability of additional funding for housing programs.

Solutions like this, where the state is not providing funding, this is just makes a lot of sense. We are hoping that this is going to continue to produce additional affordable housing, and for those reasons, we are a proud sponsor. Thank you.

Thank you chair Carrillo and Committee Members for the opportunity to comment on SB 937. My name is Muhammad T. Alameldin. I serve as the policy associate for UC Berkeley's Terner Center for Housing Innovation.

The Turner center, if you might not know, is a research center focused on a range of housing issues ranging from land use and zoning reform to addressing homelessness and exploring the nexus between climate change and housing. My aim today is to share relevant insights from our research on the effects of impact fees on new supply.

Our work confirms that a large majority of localities impose impact fees at the time of building permit submission. Only a quarter of jurisdictions deferred impact fees to final inspection or certificate of occupancy. So why is this important?

Six months ago, we released a paper making it pencil the math behind housing development, where we analyzed the current feasibility of building new housing in three major California markets. Using this modeling, we subsequently assessed that the impact of deferring fees is a savings equivalent to 1% of total development.

Furthermore, requiring fees to be paid later in the process can be expected to reduce the overall development costs for developers of subsidized housing, requiring fewer subsidy dollars per unit and thus freeing some amount of subsidy for additional units that would not otherwise be funded.

In conclusion, our analysis does employ that this Bill would have a likely effect of increasing supply of both market rate and affordable housing in most California jurisdictions.

Thank you for that. Anybody in the room that wants to add on in support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill.

Leslie Rodriguez on behalf of Housing Trust, Silicon Valley in strong support.

Good afternoon chair Members Katherine Charles on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, a proud co sponsor and support.

Thank you. Any witnesses? Primary witnesses in opposition. I see one coming. You can have a seat here if you like. It's up to you. Sure.

Good afternoon, Mister chair Members. Anthony Tannehill with California Special Districts Association. We are opposed unless amended. I don't think we need to lean on that too hard with the amendments. I see in the analysis very encouraging and willingness by the author and the proposal to continue to work out some of the other details.

I'd be remiss if I didn't express my gratitude for that. And so we look forward to seeing the amendments in print and reporting back.

Okay, thank you. Anybody else in opposition? Please state your name, affiliation and position of the Bill.

Yeah. Mister Chairman, Members Silvio Ferrari, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association. We're also in opposed unless amended position actually ironically for the same reason that the support if amended commenter just said, which is we want to see applicability across the state to all projects. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members Sasha Horwitz with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Also on behalf of the coalition for adequate school housing. We're in opposition. This Bill is constructed in a way that addresses local government's relationship with builders and cities but forgets about schools. And you'd like to see that addressed. Thank you.

Good afternoon Mister chair and Members of the Franco with the California Fire Chiefs Association and Fire District Association of California. I just like to echo our friends at CSDA's comments. We're very appreciative of the amendments taken. We'd like to see them and then appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon chair Members. Brady Gertin, on behalf of the League of California Cities, respectful opppsed unless amended position but I think the Bill is moving in the right direction. Look forward to finishing up the final technical stuff. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Neuberger with California State Association of Counties. We were opposed unless amended in the last house. We have a concerns position now and we have had very productive conversations with the author's office and the sponsors. Thank you again for the Committee for their time and hearing this Bill and for working with us on.

Thank you,

Thank you. Thank you for that. Without Committee Members questions, comments on what's in front of us, Assemblymember Kalra.

Thank you Mister chair. And thank you Senator for bringing this forward. And I think out of consistency, I raised some concerns on a Bill by some Member, Joe Patterson, regarding kind of concerns for jurisdictions that invest, whether it's planning resources or what have you, on infrastructure and preparation for a development.

I know that cities oftentimes will have certain types of other public works or parks or what have you, that oftentimes are built before a residential development is completed. Now, that being said, this Bill is more narrow than Assemblymember Patterson's Bill in that it focuses on priority residential development projects.

And I just want to share that same concern that I had with Senator Patterson and see what other distinctions there might be.

Yeah. So, and thank you for the Bill is more narrow, which has caused some consternation, and I'm sympathetic with that consternation, for the record, but we all work with Committee chairs and work out amendments, and I did that in Senate local government.

So one of the amendments we took in the Senate were, and I appreciate that the opponents have acknowledged that we've worked very collaboratively and have made various amendments. And one of them was that if the local government is putting out the money upfront, this Bill will not preclude them from collecting that, those fees up front.

So what we don't want to do is create a cash flow problem for the local governments. This is about impact fees that are collected and go into a fund for future use. They'll still get the money, but it'll be at the end of the project, not the beginning. And so that's the distinction.

And we did that amendment in the Senate.

Yeah, that's an important distinction because I think having, making sure that cities and local jurisdictions are made whole was one of the concerns I had with Senator Patterson's Bill. I want to, I would like the opportunity to take a little deeper dive, maybe offline, because I'm also on housing Committee.

I think that this, when it gets through, we'll go to housing. And so I'll support this today. And if I have any follow up questions, I'll let you know.

Yeah, I would love to. Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you. Assemblymember Wilson.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for your leadership as it pertains to housing and, you know, making it easier to produce, as we still continue to have a housing crisis and production is necessary and whatever barriers we could do that not only as it relates to housing affordability, but also housing attainability for those that are not in that Low income range.

I, too, along with my colleague, brought up concerns when a similar Bill came before us to this Committee. And some of those has been addressed. And so I'm going to support the Bill like I supported that one as a courtesy. Continue the conversation. One of the concerns I still have, it's actually a Committee amendment. It's a good amendment.

But I just want you to consider this, that having been in the industry, recognizing that sometimes when people have a project they will pull permits to freeze the cost, the impact fees, the building fees, because there is a rate study in process and recognizing that this still doesn't kind of address that, that there might be a changing cost.

And if someone can hold it at this time, it's narrowed to five years, which I think is good. It was, there was no end before. I think that needs to be some level of consideration for cities that are in that process.

And then you have people pulling intentionally knowing that there could be a higher cost and that higher cost is intentional because there are higher costs and the whole community needs to be able to share the burden of that.

And there's this thing, you know, in local Gov, having you have served in local Gov, is new development should pay for new development, right. The new neighbors pays for it. And so I want to make sure that we're protecting cities while at the same time streamlining housing affordability.

Because cities, you know, are the people, they share the cost of it. It's not some mythical government, it's the people. And so I want to make sure that we'll be mindful of that. And I, like my colleague, look forward to seeing this a second time.

Assembly Member Essayli.

Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mister chair. Good afternoon, Senator. I'm not a YIMBY, but I'm a free market guy and I do support this concept of getting sort of red tape and barriers to building.

But my question is because we have a housing shortage and we need all types of housing, Low income housing and regular housing to help stabilize the market. So why only provide this benefit to quote unquote, priority housing projects?

If we really truly have this housing crisis and we just need to spur housing projects, why are we only giving this relief to what we designate as priority projects?

So two things. When I first introduced the Bill, it applied to all housing. And so I think that should express to you where you stand. Where I stand. And Senate local government had a different perspective and I think initially did want to limit it potentially to only 100% affordable, which I was not going to accept that idea.

And so we negotiated and so that it was a Committee amendment and I'm just being transparent about that. But with that said, the Bill is not limited to only 100% affordable housing. First of all, anything that's 10 units or less, the Bill applies to, period, no matter what.

And then if it is, if it is, if it's entitled to a density bonus, which basically all multi unit now in California are using a density bonus, or if it uses various ministerial approval laws like SB 423 that we passed last year, AB 2011, SB 4, and so this, or if it's 100% affordable.

So these categories will capture, I think, a huge majority of multi unit construction. I think the concern is probably more about some of the single family construction. And again, my original Bill would have. So my preference would be to go with what you're suggesting.

But I did accept that amendment in Senate local government, but it's not only 100% affordable, that's covered.

Okay, I understand that and I appreciate that. The other thing that's probably more of a comment than a question is I am concerned with a trend on all this new building we're doing. It seems like the only thing people are interested in building are like apartment units and creating this permanent class of renters.

And I would love to see some incentives for build to own, like for ownership, whether they're condos, small condos, but now I'm seeing they're even building single family homes for rent. And I am worried about sort of generational wealth issues. I mean, if you're just a permanent renter forever, you're not going to accumulate any wealth or equity.

So I just throw that out there. Something to think about. I love to incentivize home ownership and give people some. Something they own.

And I think that's fair. And I think in terms of condos versus apartments, that tends to be very cyclical depending on where the market is. And I know in San Francisco there are times when they're only building condos, or times when they're only building apartments.

In terms of the single family, we are seeing some of the corporate ownership of single family homes. That's sort of a broader issue, but I do agree that we want to make room for home ownership.

Thank you. I appreciate your leadership in the housing space and I hope that you will continue to work with local governments to address the housing crisis affecting our state with the amendments that will support your Bill today. The motion. I need a motion. Motion. A second. Thank you.

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you for presenting Bill today, and thank you and your staff for working with the Committee on the Amendments. And just to. You've said it several times, but you do accept the amendments?

Thank you Mister Essayli. Any other Committee Member? No. With that, would you like to close.

Yes.

The motion is to pass this amendment to the Housing and Community Development Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass as amendmend to housing. [Roll Call]

The Bill is out at 7-0. Thank you and congratulations. And the last item on the agenda, SB 1251 by Senator Stern. But you will be presenting on his behalf, please.

Yes. Thank you, Mister chair I'm presenting SB 1251 on behalf of Senator Stern this bill will compel electrical corporations to enter into jointly developed vector management program vector management agreements upon request of the Mosquito Control Agency for purposes of mosquito surveillance, treatment and post treatment inspections.

Utility vaults are widely reported by mosquito control professionals to be one of the most problematic sources of mosquito production. Due to access issues for many people, mosquito bites are simply irritating. However, these tiny pests can transfer serious diseases with a single bite and can result in severe and debilitating illnesses.

This Bill provides best practice guidelines for electrical corporations and mosquito control agencies to work collaboratively to protect public health. Respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with me today to testify is Ed Manning, on behalf of the. Excuse me. Ed Manning and Jodi Holeman on behalf of the Mosquito Vector Control Association of California.

Thanks Mister Chair and Members, Ed Manning with KP public affairs on behalf of the Mosquito Vector Control Association of California. So this is not an issue that I know many of you are familiar with on mosquito abatement issues. So just a little background. Why are we doing this bill now?

Last several years, due to climate change, we have invasive mosquitoes in California we've never had before for one particular type, Aedus aegypti, that carries diseases that we've never had in California before, like chikungunya, yellow fever, dengue fever, St. Louis encephalitis. These are things that I was not familiar with 5-10 years ago, but unfortunately, I'm aware of now.

Because of that, we have a heightened concern over the spread of diseases that are much worse than West Nile virus. Carried by mosquitoes that can breed very easily all year round and have spread originally in Southern California, now throughout the state.

Under existing law, utilities are under an obligation under the utilities code to not have any standing water in utility vaults. Unfortunately, most vaults do let water in and often in irrigated areas, water gets in and then mosquitoes can breed.

Mosquito and Vector Control agencies have abatement authority nuisance Abatement authority, meaning they can order someone to take a remedy, go through a semi judicial process, get administrative warrants, etcetera. It's a lengthy, costly process.

They get to recover those costs ultimately, but it isn't a good solution for this because we don't want to wait till after there's a problem and people are getting bit and infected to take action. So the idea of this Bill is, if we need to, we should be able to ask a utility to come to an agreement.

It's a six month. We give them six months to come to some sort of agreement so we can have them inspect their vaults, work with us to access them, either extract the water that's in them, or treat them to prevent disease on the front end.

If we ask for where the vaults are, we have to protect that information under confidentiality agreement. The measure is not prescriptive in the amount of time they have to give us access. It just says a reasonable amount of time. It's not a mandate that every mosquito vector control district do this.

It's just a tool that's available in case we need it, and we candidly hope we won't. But in the case that we do, we want to have a process that forces the utility to have to work with us to come up with a plan.

And with me is Jodi Holeman, who is on the front lines of dealing with this issue, and she'll testify about why the bill is important.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. My name is Jodi Holeman. I am the District Manager of the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District. We are a special district in Fresno County that covers just over 1000 sq. miles. My district is responsible for mitigating the risk for over half a million California residents from mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases.

I also hold a position on the board of directors at the Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California and act as the South San Joaquin Valley Regional representative. My district and many others in the Central Valley in Southern California have identified below ground utility vaults as a source of mosquito production.

Utility vault lids are designed with a vent to allow air to escape. However, unfortunately, these vents also allow water to enter in. Water from precipitation events, or more commonly, landscape irrigation can accumulate in vaults and create ideal conditions for mosquito development.

A single vault can produce hundreds of mosquitoes that will exit the enclosure onto a resident's front lawn. While vaults are not intended to hold water, more than 50% of the vaults we've inspected hold enough water to produce mosquitoes.

Out of the approximately 2200 vaults inspected in my district early in the season, 10% were found to be breeding mosquitoes. There is no doubt that residents are affected by utility of vaults that breed mosquitoes. The real issue is whether districts have the ability to access more, monitor and treat these sources promptly in order to safeguard public health.

Unfortunately, we do not. My district has worked with PG&E since 2014, but constant staff changes and a lack of formal plans has resulted in delayed treatments. The loss of staff time for both agencies that could have been avoided. This will continue without a systematic process for addressing these utility vaults.

This problem is widespread across the central valley in much of the state. In some cases, it's even worse, with utility vault access being completely denied. Even when a level of support is achieved, it falls below an acceptable public health mosquito control standard.

Despite signing a nondisclosure agreement to obtain updated data sets on vault locations to address newly built housing developments, we continue to wait for the utility company to provide data they agreed to provide.

Our district has routinely outlined the number of vaults that need to be treated, where the treatments need to be made, additional areas we need data for, and a schedule for timely treatment based on resource allocation.

However, year to year, these requests are not consistently addressed for those reasons, having a requirement to develop a cooperative plan with investor owned utility companies within six months of a mosquito controls district request to do so is a common sense measure to prevent what could be a public health crisis, and I thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Anybody in the room that wants to add on in support of the measure, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Mister chair and Members Betsy Armstrong on behalf of the County Health Executives Association. Representing local health departments in support.

Ophelia Szigeti on behalf of the California Special Districts Association in support.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, any primary witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon, Chairman, Members, my name is Catherine Borg from Southern California Edison. Nobody likes mosquitoes and we aren't here to defend them today. We are here to defend the right to keep our data and facilities safe and secure.

We must oppose SB 1251 by Stern, which would force electric corporations into vector management agreements with vector control districts and other local government. Southern California Edison's service territory comprises 50,000 sq mi across central, coastal and Southern California, 184 cities, 15 counties and 13 Native American tribes.

SB 1251 creates a costly, administratively burdensome process under the existing mosquito abatement and vector control district law.

Vector control districts have the right to take any and all necessary actions to prevent, survey and abate mosquitoes, including the ability to declare a public nuisance and take escalated action. SB 1251 presents vector management agreements as a tool to streamline the ability to access and abate mosquitoes in electric vaults, but in practice creates unnecessary process that provides no further benefit than existing law.

Southern California Edison service area includes approximately 400,000 utility vaults in numerous vector control districts. By compelling electric corporations into three year minimum agreements simply upon request of a local government, electric corporations may face a superfluous amount of vector management agreements.

This bill would require additional staff, resources and technology to produce, administer and act upon the terms of numerous agreements leading to higher operational costs that may be passed on to ratepayers. Southern California Edison values safety and has been committed partner in responding to vector control requests and educating employees on mosquito bites and prevention.

In fact, the bill's sponsor highlights a successful partnership between the greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District and Southern California Edison, where both parties were able to safely and properly abate mosquitoes in a Santa Clarita neighborhood. SB 1251 falls short of comprehensively addressing a mosquito issue by only require action from one stakeholder.

As written, the bill targets underground vaults belonging to investor owned utilities and excludes vaults from belonging to publicly owned utilities or other entities with underground equipment.

By failing to require action from other stakeholders, this Bill prevents a scenario where mitigation efforts in an IOU vault may be lessened by adjacent underground equipment that may also house mosquitoes but would not be mandated to act, thereby prolonging a community's exposure to public health risk.

SB 1251 strong arms IOUs to share sensitive information, which poses several safety risks and liability concerns. While the bill includes protections to maintain confidential IOU data, the bill will increase the risk of data breaches or incidental data management that can leak sensitive information such as vault locations.

SB 1251 is a solution in search of a problem and invites a slew of security and safety concerns. For these reasons, we ask you to oppose the Bill today.

Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room that wants to add on opposition? Seeing none. Committee Members questions?

Comments Mister Essayli?

Would you like to respond to why the public utilities aren't covered just IOUs?

My understanding is that the author is going to be adding public utilities in the next committee.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Assembly Member Wilson.

That was my same question.

Okay, thank you.

So there's a 180 day negotiating time frame?

Correct

I. Sorry, I was noticing in the analysis that it says that if the utility decides not to follow it, there's no penalty or.

Yes. I mean, that's the irony of the complaint here. I mean, so just to start with, the public utility, the utilities code already says you cannot have standing water in a vault. And as was testified to by Miss Holeman, we know that the vast majority of certain types of vaults already have a problem and have standing water.

The legislation doesn't say put in new vaults that don't keep out water. Right. That we're not trying to be draconian, nor does the bill have an enforcement mechanism. We could have put one in, but we're trying not to put one in despite not being rewarded for that, evidently. So there is no enforcement mechanism.

And the reason for that is ultimately we have abatement authority. But one. The bill's not a mandate that mosquito vector control districts ask for the agreement. They may, and hopefully they only will if they absolutely need to. So we're not trying to mandate it. And similarly, we're hopeful that it'll be cooperative, that we can reach an agreement.

And therefore we don't have an enforcement mechanism in there at this time because we're trying not to make this a hammer. We're trying to make it a cooperative process.

Okay. Any more questions? Did you want to respond?

I just wanted to respond. You know, it's not a mandate that they ask us, but it is a mandate upon us, upon receiving a request from the mosquito abatement district that we shall enter into a vector management agreement.

And, you know, we've repeatedly asked the sponsor for any issues with Southern California Edison and they have not come up with any. So that's why we just don't feel the bill is necessary.

Maybe it's never going to affect us because we are, you know, we operate in a way that are hopefully going to take care of these mosquitoes.

But we just don't like legislation that is so proactive that it doesn't allow us to, you know, do things on our own because it doesn't say in the bill that the utility's been doing something wrong. It just says upon receiving a request we, we shall enter into a vector management district.

Thank you for that. Assembly Member Wilson, you had a follow up?

Yeah, I wouldn't follow up. You said existing law says that within a vault that there cannot be standing water.

And there is no enforcement mechanism.

Correct.

That's correct.

For that particular law. So you all can't cite them? No code enforcement in a city. Can't cite, cite them? No. None of that. Okay.

No, we don't have ability to go to the PUC or do any of that? No.

Okay.

Nor are we asking for that in this bill.

But as a sponsor of the bill, did you consider other mechanisms to make it so that there is some extra thing? If there is an issue with the design? I mean, because really they can design something that doesn't allow for water to go in. And if you get enough of those kind of.

And not to say that the opposition that's speaking today has that issue, but any of them, including publicly owned, if you get enough of those citations, it seems like that would make you fix your design of your vault.

Yeah. And that would be one way to do it. The other way to do it is they need air in the vaults because they have to access the vaults. There's electric equipment, and we're sensitive to that. So they're trying to balance that with trying to keep water out.

And so what we thought the best thing to do was, rather than create a penalty for having water in there, was to try to create a cooperative agreement where we have them agree to some sort of inspection mechanism. They can do this on their own if they want to inspect the vaults and see if water's in there.

And if water's in there, you can either get it out or treat it, spray it. Some mosquitoes won't be there, and then the problem solved, as opposed to going down the path of creating some sort of penalty regime.

I don't know. I have pellets in my fountain. I feel like. Make everybody put pellets there and we're good to go.

Thank you. Anybody, any other Committee Member with questions or comments? Seeing none, sounds like there's a willingness from the author to keep on working. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote on behalf of Senator Stern.

Thank you, Senator, for presenting this bill today on Senator Stern's behalf, I will be voting aye on this bill. The motion is we have a motion for a second first and a second. The motion is to pass to the utilities and energy Committee secretary, please call roll motions.

Do pass the utilities and energy. [Roll Call]

Bill is out 9-0. Thank you. Congratulations. We do have a couple of add ons for a couple of bills. Assembly Member Ward, please call the roll for the add ons.

[Roll Call]

The final vote on this one is 8-0. And that concludes our hearing for today. Thank you very much.