Assembly Standing Committee on Transportation

The Assembly Transportation Committee is called to order. Good afternoon. Welcome, everyone. This is our last hearing before the summer recess. I would have to say to my colleague, who is here, I don't know about the rest because they're not here yet, but it definitely has been a pleasure working with you, sir, over the last few, the last few months.

And so we are going to--we do not have a quorum yet, so we are going to begin as an informational hearing only until we establish a quorum. Just a few housekeeping items; the hearing room is open for attendance of this hearing, and it can be watched from a live stream on the Assembly's website.

We encourage the public to provide written testimony by visiting the committee's website. Please note that any written testimony submitted to the committee is considered public comment and may be read into the record or reprinted. We will allow two minutes each for two primary witnesses in support and opposition, and these witnesses must testify in person in the hearing room.

Additional witnesses--witness comments will be limited to name, organization, and position. With that, as noted, we will begin our informational hearing with Item Number 20: HR 110: Arambula. Sir, you may begin at your convenience. Wait, press the button. We can't--

How about now?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to present House Resolution 110. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, much of California's infrastructure is in need of repair. The lack of adequate infrastructure disproportionately impacts rural and low-income communities.

For example, more than two-thirds of failing drinking water systems are located in low-income areas, forcing residents to purchase bottled water for drinking and cooking purposes. HR 110 demonstrates California's support of a national infrastructure bank that would facilitate funding of up to five trillion dollars for infrastructure projects that do not require additional federal taxes.

The bank will result in tremendous public benefit through infrastructure improvements and will ultimately create 25 million new jobs nationwide. A national infrastructure bank will become an additional source of funding for California's infrastructure projects and help to ensure that all Californians live in vibrant communities. Here with me testifying in support of HR 110 is Don Siefkes, a retired General Motors Executive and representative for the Coalition of a National Infrastructure Bank.

Thank you, Dr. Arambula. Chair Wilson, I'd like to begin with a very brief history of the NIBs we had in the United States, then say why California would not exist in its current state if we had never had a national infrastructure bank, and then I will discuss some details of the bill that we have in Congress.

We have had four national infrastructure banks in the history of the United States: the first bank of the United States that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton started. They were geniuses. John Adams had the second bank of the United States. Abraham Lincoln, with the Banking Act of 1863, was able to finance the Transcontinental Railroad.

And last and most importantly, we had the Reconstruction Finance Corporation started by President Herbert Hoover, a Republican conservative, and carried to great success by President Roosevelt to get us out of the Great Depression and World War II. Our group, the Coalition for a National Infrastructure Bank, is a nonprofit organization that is totally consists of volunteers.

The bill in Congress that we have, HR 4052, we have 37 co-sponsors on it, which is actually pretty good for a bill that was just introduced a year ago, but we need more co-sponsors to get it to the floor of the Congress.

If we can get it to the floor of the Congress, we're very confident we can get it passed. I'd like to explain what the last national infrastructure bank did, the RFC for California. It financed the Shasta Dam and the Shasta Reservoir, the O'Shaughnessy Dam and the Hetch Hectchy Reservoir. It financed Hoover Dam, Parker Dam, Imperial Dam, the All-American Canal, the Coachella Valley Canal that brings water up from the Colorado River all the way to La Quinta, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, those cities.

It financed the San Francisco Oakland Bay Bridge, it financed the Colorado River Aqueduct, it financed the number one and number two bores of the Caldecott Tunnel in San Francisco Bay Area, and they'll finance the Richmond Shipyards that built half the Liberty ships that brought all the stuff to Normandy so that Eisenhower could carry out the D-Day invasion successfully.

And, sir, I'll have to have you wrap your comments up.

Pardon? I thought I had four minutes.

Oh, no. Just two minutes.

Oh, boy. Well, okay. All right. Let me just short circuit this then. HR 4052 would provide five trillion dollars that would become the largest bank in the United States. Chase has 2.7 trillion dollars of lending authority. It has ten times the ability to loan for--ten times the ability of the IIJA. The IIJA is too small.

California can pay for all the high-speed rail it needs. It can pay for upgrade all the roads and bridges in the State of California, and from a C minus that the civil engineers believe we are at, up way up to at least to a B plus, and it can provide seven million units of affordable housing across the entire United States and so that we can finally be done with this homelessness problem for low-income housing once and for all. I'll stop there.

Thank you. All right, moving now to members of the public who would like to offer a MeToo support, name, organization, and position. Are there any? Seeing none. I don't see opposition on file, but wanting to be sure that there's no members of the public who would like to speak in opposition, whether through testimony or MeToo comments, name, organization, and position. Seeing none, I'll move it to committee members if there's any questions, comments, and concerns. Assembly Member Carrillo.

No questions; just nice seeing you down in person. We had a couple of Zoom meetings, and I think it's a vital project that we do in California, knowing the needs of the infrastructure that we have in California. I'll be happy to move the bill at the appropriate time. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Seeing no further, I'll note to the author, thank you for bringing this resolution forward and your dedication to infrastructure financing. It is estimated that the condition of California's roads is among the worst in the nation, and that approximately 50 percent of bridges in California have exceeded their design life, and that over seven percent of California bridges are structurally deficient.

Infrastructure banks have a myriad of benefits, including a sustainable, renewable source of funding, flexible and affordable loans, promoting economic development, and incentivizing regional solutions, as well as mega projects such as our High-Speed Rail Project. I definitely will be supporting this resolution today, and as was noted, at the appropriate time, we will call it for a vote. I'll give you an opportunity to close, sir.

Thank you for the opportunity to present. It's important for us to look back into history and to find times when that national infrastructure bank allowed us to continue to grow both our economy and to invest into our country. I look forward to how this HR 110 allows us as a state here in California to provide a leadership role that ultimately will result in a national infrastructure bank. With that, when the time is appropriate, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

All right, thank you. And as a reminder to members of the Transportation Committee, we are, we have started our committee. We are in an informational hearing status as we wait for committee members to arrive so we can establish a quorum. So calling all committee members to come to the Transportation Committee Hearing Room so that we may begin and be able to vote on these very, very important items. With that, we will be going in file item order unless an author comes in.

I do see an author is present, so I will invite Senator Dodd forward, the author of file item one, SB 295.

Regarding the pilot boat surcharge account. The surcharge account was established in 2022 to fund the cost of obtaining new pilot boats and engineering modifications to extend the service life of existing pilot boats.

Historically, surcharges have been used to finance the repowering of existing vessels and the purchase of new vessels, but payments were made directly to pilots and there was no established account to plan.

Capital expenditures and oversight in the creation of the account capped the annual expenditures which require these boats to be financed, adding millions of interest costs over time.

SB 295 fixes that oversight, removing the statutorily established caps and authorizing the board of Pilot Commissioners to collect, bank and spend the money necessary to directly fund the replacement or the re engineering of pilot vessels. With me today is Matt Robinson, representing the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

Thank you Madam Chair, and thank you Senator Dodd for carrying this bill. Matt Robinson as the Senator said on behalf of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. The Senator summed it up, but just to reiterate, this bill would get rid of the caps that were in statute.

Those have had an unintended effect of, in fact, limiting the amount of money we can pay towards pilot vessel replacement.

We would actually like the ability to bank and expend sufficient funding so that we can replace those vessels outright and save ourselves tens of millions of dollars in interest over the life of those vessel replacements, and this bill is a key piece of facilitating that arrangement.

And just quickly thank you to the Committee and to the staff for working with us on the amendments in advance of the hearing and glad we could get those done earlier. I was also asked to convey the support of Cruise Lines International Association and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Madam Chair of Members Alfredo Medina here on behalf of the San Francisco bar pilots, co sponsors of the Bill, would like to thank the author and the chair and the staff for helping us move forward with this technical fix and overall ensure that the piloted system in San Francisco and the state remains sustainable.

And thank you to our partners, PMC, for moving forward with this. With that, respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, now moving on to members of the public who would like to offer a me too support, name, organization and position, are there any? Seeing none. Moving on to opposition. Are there any?

I don't see any on file, but are there anyone in opposition wishing to offer public testimony or a me too in terms of name, organization and position? Seeing none. Moving it to Committee Members. If there are any questions, comments or concerns. Seeing none.

As noted to the author, we are in an informational hearing as we wait for members of our body to establish a quorum. So I appreciate you bringing this forward to elevate the issue. Bar pilots are an integral part of and steering large commercial vessels through the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay and adjoining navigable water support.

Removing the expenditure caps on the pilot boat surcharge account is necessary for the bar pilots to upgrade their bows, boas and come into compliance with air resources boards, commercial harbor craft regulation. I will, at the appropriate time, be supporting this Bill today. I give you an opportunity to close.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members, respectfully ask your aye vote.

thank you, Senator. All right, moving along. We do not have any author's presence, nor do we have a quorum. So I will once again make that call for a quorum and a call for Senators who are available to present their bills.

All right, I do see an author present. I will note I mistakenly called our Committee an informational hearing. But we are a Subcommitee. Until we have a quorum present and our quorum, we are waiting for a Republican Member to have a quorum as well.

And so we are just, for everyone's purposes, we are a Subcommitee, and we have been meeting as a Subcommitee since I gave it down earlier. And we've had a chance as a Subcommitee, hear two bills, item number 20, HR 110, Arambula, and item number one, SB 295.

With that, as we continue as a Subcommitee, our next Bill will be item number 16, SB 1487. Glazer, you may begin at your convenience.

Good afternoon, chair Wilson. Thank you, Members, for hearing this Bill. First, let me say I want to accept the Committee amendments and thank you to the chair and her staff for the work on the Bill. The Bill does three things.

Number one, it extends payment time before a late fee can be applied to 30 days, ensuring individuals have sufficient time to address their citations before late fees apply. Number two, it caps at 30% of the original penalty, preventing disproportionately high fees that exacerbate financial strain.

And number three, it allows payments received by mail to be deemed received by the postmark date. Members cities across California are provided the flexibility to implement their parking enforcement policies that work best for them. However, residents in these cities are regularly burdened by excessively punitive late fee policies that are unrelated to the original infraction.

As a result of these policies, late fees can quickly escalate. For example, here in Sacramento, I'm sure none of this, none of you have had this happen to you. A parking ticket. Anybody got a parking ticket here? A parking ticket doubles after just 21 days.

If you get a parking ticket because you're a few minutes late, it's a $60 fine. But if you're one day late, it goes above $120 for missing that one day. By implementing these safeguards, SB 1487 would prevent abusive schemes that nickel and dime residents while maintaining a city's ability to uphold parking laws effectively.

By alleviating these financial strains, we empower individuals to address their citations responsibly and avoid cycles of debt that exacerbate poverty. In conclusion, SB 1487 is a critical step towards ensuring that parking ticket policies in California are reasonable.

With me today is Miguel Mauricio, policy Director for the East Bay Leadership Council, and at the appropriate time, Madam chair respectfully asks for your aye vote thank you.

You may proceed.

Madam Chair Members. Miguel Mauricio on behalf of the East Bay Leadership Council. For 85 years, the East Bay Leadership Council has been a nonprofit advocacy organization representing employers across Contra Costa and Alameda counties with the purpose of improving the quality of life for those who call the East Bay home.

Our organization is proud to support SB 1487 by Senator Glazer and applaud his leadership and effort on this front. As we know, this Bill would cap late payment penalties for parking violations to 30% of the original penalty, extend the deadline, and make several other conforming changes to the law.

As mentioned by the Senator, the East Bay Leadership Council supports this measure for several reasons. Our current laws around parking violations have the ultimate effect of penalizing poverty and driving low income Californians deeper into debt.

Although all Californians are impacted by the current parking fee regime, the weight of the law falls most harshly on low income Californians who are already struggling with the high cost of living in the state. When low income Californians are unable to pay their parking tickets, they'll be charged a late fee, which can often be excessive.

If they are unable to pay these late fees, the state will prevent them from paying their car registration, which then consequentially leads to further fees and citations for failure to pay the registration. In many cases, this leads to cars being towed.

Some reporting from August, for example, found that thousands of Californians have their car towed every year from being able to from being unable to pay fees such as these.

When Californians don't have enough time to pay these fees or are overburdened by excessive penalties, they're put in a hole that is often too difficult to get out of and are put into even further financial strain.

Our East Bay region and I would go as far to say any region in the state cannot have a thriving and inclusive economy if those with the greatest need in our community are overburdened with these excessive fees.

By extending the window to pay these fees and setting a reasonable cap on late fees, this law this proposal provides the proper balance between protecting Californians from those excessive fees while still allowing municipalities to enforce those laws. We ask for your support on this Bill today.

Thank you. Now moving on to Members of the public who wish to offer support, and a me too as a me too name, organization and position seeing none. Moving on to opposition if they're come forward two minutes as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Matthew Cyberling, on behalf of the California Mobility and Parking Association, which is unfortunately opposed to Senate Bill 1487, CNPA does agree with two out of the three issues raised by the Senator in this Bill.

However, the restriction of delinquency fees to 30% of the initial fine is a severe overstep of local authority ignores the local context upon which parking policies are built. Briefly, for example, some parking jurisdictions may prefer smaller initial fines with a higher multiplier for those who decline to respond to citations.

Other jurisdictions prefer larger initial fines with smaller additional fines for delinquency. They come from a viewpoint that if the fine is already large, then it might be too difficult to settle large delinquency fees. There are some jurisdictions that have both high base fines and high delinquency fees, but even their rationales are valid.

The cost of building and operating a parking system is high, and we would prefer to have lower parking prices for those who abide by parking policy rules to subsidize lower parking prices with the fines collected by those who choose to break the policies in each case, it's important to note that local parking policies are not established without oversight.

Consideration of driver convenience, local commerce needs, public safety, affordability, usability, accessibility, and how all of these balance with the cost of building, maintaining, and operating a parking system will lead to the appropriate formula for each agency that works best for their jurisdiction. And it's for these reasons that CNPA urges a no vote on this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, moving on to Members of the public who would like to do a me too. For the opposition of this Bill, name, organization, and position. Seeing none, moving it to Committee Members or any comments, questions or concerns. Seeing none, I'll note. Nope, not yet. We are still operating as a Subcommitee.

I'll note to the author, I appreciate you working with myself and the Committee to help ensure that parking penalties are not excessive and unreasonable. Current law allows late fees on parking citations to be waived for persons on public benefits, and they may utilize a $25 per month payment plan to pay for the citation.

However, my understanding, as I've learned from you and in studying this Bill, is that many people do not use the Low income waiver. Parking citations and late fees are an important source of revenue for local departments of transportation.

As a result, capping the penalty may have the unintended consequence of local governments increasing the base fee for parking or increasing other levels local sources of revenue to offset the revenue loss from the penalties being capped.

I appreciate you accepting the amendments to delay the implementation of this Bill to the first day of a local jurisdiction, first fiscal year following January 12025. This will allow for local jurisdictions to plan ahead for a possible loss of revenue at the appropriate time. I will be supporting this Bill.

I ask, sir, to give you an opportunity to close.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First, I want to shout out to Assembly Member Kara, who's really been a leader in this space in terms of making sure these fines and fees and the rest aren't unfairly burdening our lower income communities throughout the state. And he's been leading in this space, of course, is a co author of this Bill.

I also want to shout out to Assembly Member Lackey, who did try to find some equilibrium in this space with this waiver program. But when we talk to the DMV, they won't even tell us how many people even try to take advantage of it.

We think it's very massively underutilized and not really a remedy to the problem that we're trying to address. And finally, I know that cities have utilized fees and fines to try to make up for a lot of their deficit problems. And I appreciate that.

I come from local government, but I think that as the opponent who came here to argue about right sizing the fees and penalties and where that should be, I support right sizing it on the fee side, not on the penalty side. They're using the state to enforce their usury rates, and that's the part that gets us involved.

Otherwise, I'm a local control person and want them to make whatever choice that they want to make. But I don't mind the right sizing. Let them establish the fee at the level that's appropriate. Don't just have it be hidden in the fine side. That's what we try to correct in this Bill.

With that, I respectfully ask for your support whenever it's appropriate.

Thank you, sir. All right, I see another author in the space. So moving on to item number three. Umberg, you may begin at your convenience.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Today I present SB 359, the automobile dismantling task force. This Bill will indefinitely extend the vehicle dismantling industry strike team so it can continue to address the serious environmental, public health, and economic impacts caused by unlicensed and unregulated auto dismantlers.

SB 359 addresses these unlicensed, unregulated vehicle dismantling shops by successfully coordinating with enforcement across the state. Also will address the issue of catalytic converter theft, a serious issue in everyone's district. I urge an aye vote and with me here is the ever-renowned Mr. Gavin McHugh as a witness.

Thank you, Senator Umberg. Gavin McHugh, on behalf of the State of California Auto Dismantlers Association, would like to thank Senator Umberg for his leadership on this issue going back the last four or five years. And for you, Madam Chair, you and your staff have been working on this since 2016 and done a great job working with us.

This is a really important issue and as Senator Umberg pointed out, it helps to address the public health and environmental impacts of unlicensed auto dismantlers that are improperly processing vehicles at end of life. This Bill also helps the good actors, the licensed dismantlers that are complying with all the requirements and are doing the right environmental processing, making sure they pay their taxes, have safer workplaces, better employee training, workers comp, all those things.

So this is a good Bill. We want to keep the momentum going, and that Bill will do this. So we urge an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public to offer me testimony, name, organization, and position.

Ryan Flanigan on behalf of the Recycled Materials Association West Coast chapter in support.

Curt Augustine with the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. Happy to support the Bill. Thank you, Senator.

Seeing no others. Looking for anyone in opposition who would like to provide testimony or anyone who wanted to just give a simple oppo statement of noting name, organization, and position. Seeing none. Moving it back to members of the Committee for any questions, comments, or concerns. Seeing none. Senator, thank you for bringing this Bill forward.

The vehicle dismantler industry strike team has been a valuable investigative body to go after unlicensed automobile dismantlers. DMV owed the Legislature a report seven months ago so that we could properly evaluate the program. It is unfortunate that DMV has not provided this report to the Legislature and I hope they do so before this Bill is heard in Assembly Appropriations Committee. I will be supporting this Bill today because of the VDIST track record. With that, Senator, I give you an opportunity to close.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I regret that report hasn't been produced. If I were in charge of DMV, I would hope it would be produced. With that, I urge an aye vote.

Thank you and at the appropriate time, we'll vote on the matter.

Thank you.

Thank you. We continue as a Subcommitee as we look for our members of the Committee. We always had one for a second, for 1 second almost had one. And we also look for authors, our Senators, to come to present the Bill.

We needed you. We needed you. Madam Secretary, could you call the roll?

[Roll Call]

All right. A quorum was present with eight Members accounted for. Glad to have everyone here. This is our last hearing before the summer recess. Today we have six bills on consent. File item six, SB 632, Caballero. File item nine, SB 708, Jones. File item 10, SB 936, Seyarto. File item 11, SB 983, Wahab. File item 15, SB 1417, Allen. File item 19, SCR 143, Gonzalez. Is there a motion? Is there a second? All right. Moved by Aguiar-Curry and second by Davies. Madam Secretary, could you call the roll?

[Roll Call]

That bill has seven votes for now. Moving on. As a subcommittee, we heard four bills. Starting in file order. We will need a motion and a vote on all four of these bills. Item... Hold on a second. You have to do them separately. Item number one, SB 295, Dodd. Been moved by Aguiar-Curry. Seconded by Carrillo. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That bill has seven votes and six... Sorry, six votes and will remain open for other Members to add on. This will be the same for the consent calendar. Item number three, SB 359, Umberg. Need a motion. Moved by Aguiar-Curry. Seconded by... Seconded by Ward. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote has... That bill has eight votes. We'll hold the roll open for other Members to add on. Moving on to item number 16, SB 1487, Glazer. It's been moved by Ward, seconded by Aguiar-Curry. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1487, do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill has nine votes, and the roll will be open for Members to add on. Our final bill that we heard as a subcommittee is item number 20, HR 110, Arambula.

The motion is to be adopted. [Roll Call]

Wait. We gotta... We need a motion. Moved by Ward, seconded by Aguiar-Curry. Madam Secretary.

HR 110 to be adopted. [Roll Call]

That bill has seven aye votes and two no votes. The roll will be open for Members to add on. Will remain open for Members to add on. We do have an author present. Now we will be moving to item number four, SB 532, Wiener. And we also, I assume you'll be presenting item number five as well, SB 960. You can begin at your convenience.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and colleagues. I want to thank the Chair and Committee staff for working diligently with us on this Bill, and I am happy to accept the Committee amendments outlined on page three of analysis, which will be taken technically in privacy committee due to timing constraints. But I am accepting those amendments.

The amendments shorten the San Francisco pilot program, the five years, as well as a few other amendments as enumerated. SB 532 modernizes parking payments by authorizing, but not requiring, a time limited pilot program for San Francisco to implement paid parking without having to incur the high cost of meter installation and maintenance.

And because this is now a San Francisco pilot, San Francisco will be able to show that this can work and that it can be done in an equitable way. Current law effectively requires city to spend significant, precious transportation resources installing and maintaining frankly outdated and expensive parking meter equipment.

Last year, physical meters cost the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency $26 million to install and maintain. This was equivalent to more than half of SFMTA's parking revenue. This is in a time period when our transit systems are struggling financially.

Parking meters are frequently vandalized and take up significant sidewalk space that could be used for all sorts of other uses. To help reduce the costs, SB 532 will allow San Francisco to pilot meterless parking payment zones, provided that the city provides signage in such zones and alternative means for cash payments of parking fees.

Specifically, there must be a sign within 100ft of any meterless space clearly stating that payment is required and how payment may be made. The Bill also requires San Francisco to adopt an equitable and accessible parking cash payment plan that provides means of cash payment and assesses specific strategies of payment.

The city must work with local stakeholder groups to develop the plan. The Bill will now be a five-year pilot and that five years will start once the program is actually kicked off so that we don't consume parts of the five years ahead of time. Again, thank you so much to the Chair and her staff for working with us on this.

With me today to testify in support of the Bill are Matt Silverling, representing the California Mobility and Parking Association, and Raynell Cooper, the residential parking policy manager at the SFMTA.

Thank you Madam Chair and Members. Matthew Silverling on behalf of the California Mobility and Parking Association. Without being too repetitive, we're enthusiastically supportive of this Bill and very excited to see technology being used to improve upon the services we provide and to normalize some of these business practices to get the public prepared for, frankly, the way things are going to be done in the future.

We know that this is starting small in San Francisco. We're excited to see how it goes there. We're excited to help promote this statewide at a later date, but for the meantime, we're happy to support this Bill and urgency an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wilson and Committee Members. My name is Raynell Cooper and I'm a parking policy manager at San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, SFMTA. We appreciate Senator Wiener's leadership and introduction of SB 532, which would authorize this time-limited pilot that would allow San Francisco to modernize the way we accept payment in paid parking zones and allow the city to save millions of dollars at a time when budgets are tight.

Paid parking is the best tool cities have to create parking availability, which benefits businesses, minimizes circling and double parking, reduces emissions, speeds public transit, and makes streets safer and more efficient. But parking meters are expensive. The SFMTA spent close to $26 million last year to purchase, install, manage, and maintain the meters.

They're purposefully broken or vandalized to avoid payment and are targets for criminals looking to rip off the city or members of the public. State law currently prohibits mobile-only payment, effectively requiring cities to use physical parking meters and pay stations to accept payment for parking.

SB 532, as proposed to be amended, would authorize San Francisco to pilot mobile-only parking payment zones for a five-year period after implementation of the first zone. For people who don't have a bank account or don't have a phone, the legislation also requires that San Francisco develop an accessible and equitable parking cash payment plan in mobile-only payment areas.

This plan for cash payment would be required to be created in consultation with local stakeholder groups and approved by our local governing body. This legislation also included a provision that would require San Francisco to study the option of sending mailed invoices for parking sessions that could be paid for later through cash or other payment methods, and signs must also be posted no more than 100 ft from any paid parking space that clearly states that payment is required and how payments may be made.

Mobile payment is not new. Park cities all around the world, including San Francisco, have offered phone-based payment for over a decade. So many motorists will be already familiar with paying for parking on a mobile device, and you don't even need a smartphone to pay by mobile device. Our vendors accept payment by phone call as well. For all these reasons, the city and county of San Francisco supports SB 532 and we respectfully request your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who wish to add on their support. Looking for name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon. Stephanie Estrada, on behalf of the City of San Jose, in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Silvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of San Francisco Mayor London Breed in support, and also on behalf of CACTI, the California City Transportation Initiative. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Apologies for no letter, but as of today, Streets For All is in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Laura Tolkoff with SPUR in support.

All right, moving on to opposition. We don't note any on file, but I'm looking to see if there's any member of the public who would like to provide testimony and opposition. Seeing none. Are there any members who would like to just note a quick opposition to this Bill? Seeing none. Moving it to members of the Committees for comments, questions, and concerns. I see Papan and then Aguiar-Curry. Yes. Okay.

I just want to thank the Senator for bringing this Bill. I look forward to the pilot proving very effective. It really appeals to my sense of local government and how we get things done and this presents a tremendous opportunity to save money. I was staggered by those statistics when you and I spoke before this Bill came up. So I wish you godspeed. I hope it works out and other municipalities can replicate it. So thank you for your efforts.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator, for bringing it forward. So, as we talked before, I'm always concerned about equity, and so it sounds like you've addressed some of those things. Just being one of those that don't know how to use their smartphone at pay stations and it drives me nuts and I want to kick something, but I'm sure we'll get this through during the time for the pilot. But let's not forget the people that don't have a smartphone.

Let's not forget the people that don't have a phone or even cash. So I appreciate what you're doing. I'm supporting the Bill because I think you're going to move this forward with the technology. But thank you very much and please make sure we don't forget about our small people.

Absolutely, and we are San Francisco and so our city is a huge believer in equity and access.

All right, seeing no one. Oh, Hoover.

Sorry. I just want to say thanks for the Bill, Senator. Happy to support it today, and I know you'll continue working on it, but I like where it's going. Thanks.

Thank you.

All right, seeing no further. Thank you for bringing this Bill forward and working with the Committee to take the amends in privacy, the next Committee. I appreciate you taking amendments to shorten the length of the pilot to five years and to reduce the cost of the tickets until the Legislature has had the opportunity to see what types of cash options that you're able to come up with to ensure the unbanked are those less tech-savvy, like our majority leader, are able to pay for the parking.

I will support your Bill today. With that, I give you an opportunity to close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. With that, looking to the Members for a motion. I mean, there was a motion. I'm sorry. Aguiar-Curry. Is there a second? Papan. Oh, okay. Motion made by Papan, seconded by Aguiar-Curry. With that, Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 532, the motion is do pass to the Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. [Roll Call].

That Bill has eight aye votes, one no vote. And we'll hold the roll open for Members to add on. Before we go on to item number five, just a little bit of housekeeping. We had on our agenda. We had 20 items listed. We did six bills on consent. One item, item number 14, will not be heard today.

SB 1372. And we have added a file, item 18, to today's agenda, which was not listed in the daily file, SCR 150 Stern. That left us with 13 bills to discuss, and we've already dispensed with quite a few. And so now moving on to item number five. Wiener.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Colleagues, SB 960... And for those of you, I'm looking around for who was here in 2019. Yes, Madam Majority Leader, I think, yes, maybe it's just you. We have been working on this for a long time. The long and the short of it is that there are a significant number of, quote unquote, state highways that are state owned roads that are actually city surface streets.

Some of these are places like El Camino Real in San Mateo County, or 19th Avenue or Lombard or Van Ness in San Francisco, or parts of Santa Monica Boulevard in LA, or a huge number of small cities or small towns where their main street, maybe their only street, is actually a state highway.

And I want to be very, very clear. Caltrans has, there are some amazingly progressive, forward looking folks within Caltrans who care deeply about street design and pedestrian and bike safety, and transit rider safety. The agency, the department as a whole has a long history of not doing what it needs to do to make these, effectively, city surface streets safe for people to be on if they're not in a car. And it is a real, real problem.

We just learned that last year in the City of Oakland, the number of people who are dying on state owned roads because Caltrans has not done enough. It is just outrageous. And we know that we have a road safety crisis in California. And thank you for passing our speeding bill a few weeks ago.

I'm deeply appreciative for that. But Caltrans needs to do better. And what this bill does is it only applies when Caltrans is already doing a project. So Caltrans is going in and doing work on a road. To say that when you are doing that, you need to also take into account the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, transit, and so forth. Because all too often, Caltrans doesn't do that. In 2019, I authored in this Legislature, thank you for your support. This committee passed. We put on the Governor's desk a similar bill.

The Governor vetoed it and basically said, I have new folks in charge of Caltrans and CalSTA, give them an opportunity. Right after that, Caltrans did put out a complete streets policy that looked really good. Unfortunately, we're now five years later, and Caltrans very frequently does not follow its own policy.

And that's why we finally reintroduced this bill. Say if you're already doing street work, make sure that when a family lives across the street from their kid's school, that the kid can actually walk across the street. We literally have talked to people.

They live across the street from their school, and they have to drive their kid to school because there is nowhere to cross the street safely. There's nowhere to walk on the street safely, let alone bike or wait for the bus safely.

And that's all we're asking is for Caltrans to actually take this as an institution as seriously as it should. We've worked very hard on this bill. We worked very hard with Transportation California, to try to move to a place where we can, you know, get them at least not to oppose the bill.

And we've been making good progress. We're accepting the amendments in the analysis today. As the Chair knows, I'm not enthusiastic about those amendments. They would, in my view, keep us fairly close to the status quo.

But I am very appreciative of the committee's willingness to continue to engage with us, and we will engage with the Administration because, of course, we have to, or, you know, the bill could easily get vetoed again, and we don't want that.

So over the course of the summer, we will absolutely take the committee up on its very generous offer to work with us and engage with Caltrans and the Administration. And I'm really hopeful that we can send something to the Governor that moves the ball forward here.

We just want people to be able to be safe on our streets, in addition to investing in those roads and making sure that people driving also have a good experience. And I'm committed to that work. So thank you, Madam Chair. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with me today testify is Kiara Reed, the Executive Director of Civic Thread and previously the Executive Director of WALKSacramento, and Laura Keenan, member of Families for Safe Streets San Diego.

My name is Kiara Reed, Executive Director of Civic Thread, active transportation advocacy and planning organization based here in Sacramento, and I'm glad to support SB 960. As you know, we faced an alarming rise in roadway fatalities and a climate emergency caused largely by over reliance of personal vehicles.

To that point, Sacramento's unhealthy air quality is largely a result of transportation exhaust, and the Sacramento MSA is one of the most dangerous metro areas for cyclists and pedestrians in the nation, with our black residents being disproportionately killed on the transportation system. To address these crises, we urgently need a stronger mandate for Caltrans to build more comfortable, convenient, and safer multimodal systems. SB 960 requires Caltrans to implement their own policy and plans for walk, bike, and transit priority facilities on the state highway system.

Caltrans still has a really long way to go before investments in projects reflect their actual goals. CalBike investigated the 2024 State Highway Operation and Protection Program, or SHOPP, and found that 600 projects in the 2024 SHOPP will add only 215 miles of bike lanes and 30 miles of sidewalks. Compared to Caltrans 10 year targets, that's less than 8% of the bike lanes target and 2% of the sidewalk target that will get built in the next four years. Caltrans is even further behind in identifying and implementing transit priority facilities.

These projects have the potential to get buses out of traffic, make service more reliable, support riders who are transit dependent, and get folks who are currently in their cars riding the bus. However, Caltrans developed a policy last year that has yet to be adopted, and the districts are just beginning work on transit plans that will take several years to complete.

SHOPP repaving projects present the best opportunity to cost effectively build walk, bike, and transit facilities, rather than having to come back and build them as standalone projects later down the line. Thanks to SB 1 and the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Caltrans budget is larger than ever. With the influx of funds, Caltrans should not miss opportunities to make our system safer, greener, and more accessible for those those who need it most.

You will have to wrap up.

Urge you to consider supporting SB 960. Thank you so much for your time.

Good afternoon, Chair Wilson and Assembly Transportation Committee. I'm Laura Keenan, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets San Diego.

I'm gonna have you pause for just a moment because we did make the members of the audience put it down. Our requirement for any kind of signage is eight and a half by 11 for it to be shown, and it can't block others. And so, my apologies. The Members of the Committee did get to see it, but I want to make sure I'm holding you all to the same standard that we held the members of the public to.

No problem. Thank you.

Madam Chair, may I hold the signage?

I don't think there's a rule against that, so you can.

Thank you.

Did you want to take a moment?

Yeah. Do you mind if I start over?

Yeah, yeah. And take a moment. When you're ready to start, we'll start the time, so just take as much time as you need.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wilson and Assembly Transportation Committee. I'm Laura Keenan, co-founder of Families for Safe Streets, San Diego chapter. Our members have lost loved ones or survived crashes themselves. Most were walking or biking.

In September 2021, my 42 year old husband, Matt, was biking to the movies when a driver struck him in the bike lane. I remember saying, see you later, but he never made it home. The road was not designed to protect Matt, and he didn't stand a chance. He died at the scene.

The next morning, I had to tell our 15 month old, Evan, his dad would never come home again. I'm confident Matt would be alive if that street had a protected bike lane or traffic calming to reduce speeds. SB 960 would ensure these life saving measures existed. Matt and I were married just two and a half years.

September marks his third death anniversary. He will be dead longer than we were married. Matt was robbed of fatherhood and Evan of his amazing dad. Now four, Evan knows Matt through stories and pictures like that one, but no memories of his own. He says, I wish Daddy were here. I reassure him. Daddy loved you beyond words.

He was so proud of you and always will be. Matt exuded passion and made you want to say yes. He'd laugh so hard, he'd cry. To me, he felt like home. Together, we'd be raising our son if California prioritized safety for all road users. My memories of Matt and the echoes of his laughter are with us daily. The hole in our heart is forever. Please use your power. Support SB 960, the Complete Streets Bill, to protect our most vulnerable road users. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to offer a support as a me too. Name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon, Senators. My name is John Irwin. I'm a volunteer with AARP California. Also like to mention I moved here for three years ago from Arizona...

I have to have you... And my apologies, but this is the portion of... We've already had two witnesses from the public in support. So this is a portion where you do your name, organization, and position, which is support or oppose.

I apologize. Yes. AARP is, along with its 3.2 million members in California, is a co-sponsor of this bill and strongly supports the bill.

Thank you, sir.

Stephanie Estrada with the City of San Jose in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Steve Wallach on behalf of the Alameda County Transportation Commission, the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District, the Napa Valley Transportation Authority, and the California Association for Coordinated Transportation in support.

Matt Robinson on behalf of the Monterey–Salinas Transit District in support. Thank you.

Michael Pimentel, here on behalf of the California Transit Association and our more than 220 member organizations in support. Ask for your aye vote.

Jeanie Ward-Waller representing CalBike and TransForm in strong support.

Hi, I'm Grandma Beverly. I'm in support of this bill. I co-founded SoCal Families for Safe Streets Los Angeles.

Good afternoon. Alexandra Ramirez on behalf of Los Angeles Walks and Southern California Families for Safe Streets, and we support this bill.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. McKenna Jenkins with NextGen California in support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Catherine Charles on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition in support.

For Seamless Bay Area and Traffic Violence Rapid Response. George Spies from Oakland, California, where we lost 20 people over the last two years on Caltrans properties. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jonathan Cole with Climate Action California, also on behalf of Climate Reality Project, California Coalition, Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, Glendale Environmental Coalition, 350 Humboldt, and 350 Bay Area Action, all in support.

Dan Allison, citizen in support.

Andrew Wright, CalBike, in support.

Marc Vukcevich on behalf of Streets for All, as a co-sponsor of the bill, in support.

Silvia Solis Shaw on behalf of the Cities of West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Goleta in support. And also on behalf of City and County of San Francisco, Mayor London Breed, all in support. Thank you very much.

Laura Tolkoff with SPUR, co-sponsor in support. Thank you.

John Skoglund with the County of Los Angeles in support.

Lili Trujillo Puckett, I'm the founder and Executive Director of Street Racing Kills, in support.

Thank you. Got that. Moving on to opposition. Is there any opposition testimony being provided today? Seeing none. Is there any members of the public who wish to provide a quick opposition in terms of name, organization, and position? Seeing none. Moving to Members of the Committee, we do have a motion on the floor by Lowenthal and a second by Aguiar-Curry. Ward?

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to thank you as well for your flexibility. I want to thank my constituent for coming up here, traveling 500 miles to really talk about the importance of establishing best practices in all of our streets, and especially where we're trying to make sure, to the author, that we're using our state agencies with all of their responsibilities to be able to adopt some of these best practices makes this bill, leaves us with all the sense in the world.

You know, it's frustrating when we kind of deal with this conversation because, you know, we see this as somehow, you know, being something that's in competition with other, other interests that are out there. But the fundamental thing that we should be doing is designing our roads safely for all users. I think that's an underpinning of what you're trying to do here. And I'm grateful for your hard work in this and working with committee staff as well to make this an improvement. Happy to support this bill here today. Thank you.

Thank you. Aguiar-Curry?

Senator, you and I are probably the only ones here that remember your bill. A lot gone. It's always a shame when we have a problem, try to fix it and try to implement it, and then before that, we get vetoed. So I understand that you're not real happy about the amendments at this point, but, you know, we got to start somewhere, and we'll just build on it from the years going forward. So thank you for bringing the bill forward.

Thank you.

Seeing no other... Thank you, Senator, for your steadfast commitment to a statewide multimodal infrastructure. I thank you to both witnesses to be able to share, one on expertise and one personal story. California has ambitious climate and safety goals that remain a challenge, that remain a challenging balance to codify and statute.

Your last attempt at this policy in 2019 was vetoed with the message, I fully support improving facilities to increase walking, biking, and accessing public transit. However, the bill creates a prescriptive and costly approach to achieve these objectives. The amendments the committee proposes are based on technical assistance Caltrans provided.

The amendments maintain the requirement for complete streets projects be incorporated into the state highway system consistent with current Caltrans guidance. They represent what I believe probably is the first round of potential amendments from the Administration and are not the last negotiations for this bill.

However, they bring all stakeholders to the table, signal a willingness to the Administration to continue conversations, and maintain an appropriate level of contextual guidance for when and where complete streets projects are required to be incorporated into the state's road maintenance projects.

I appreciate you accepting the committee's proposed amendments and recognizing, you know, it's frustrating, as we navigate this process, when our bills are narrowed as such. However, with these amendments, you know, I will be supporting your bill today and completely understand that I have a main street that's a highway in my community as well. So I look forward to continuing to work with you on this bill as it moves forward. We do have a motion by Lowenthal and is seconded by Aguiar-Curry. I'll give you an opportunity to close before the Secretary calls the roll.

Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, colleagues, and thank you to our witnesses. And I'm so sorry for what happened. We're going to try to make sure that doesn't happen to other people. And so thank you. I want to thank you for... It's so painful to... and I'm always in awe of people who are able to take the most horrific loss and to try to make sure it doesn't happen to other people. So thank you. And, Madam Chair, with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you.

SB 960, do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That bill has seven aye votes, one no vote, and it is held open for other Members to add on. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, colleagues.

All right. I will continue to move in file order. I see... As authors arrive, would like to note that item 12, SB 1081, Archuleta, has been pulled and will not be heard today. Item 12, SB 1081. All right, moving on to item 13, SB 1481, Archuleta. I'm sorry, 1418. I was, like, making up numbers. Archuleta, you may begin at your convenience.

Move the Bill?

Yeah, it's been moved. Is there a second? Yeah, seconded by Papan. So, Carrillo and Papan.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I really appreciate your time today. I know you've been extremely busy and trying to get through these bills. And, you know, speaking of bills, you heard me. I pulled one because we're still working on it, and I want to bring you the positives, not the negatives.

And so that's why I pulled that one. And I appreciate your patience on that.

Thank you.

But again, thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members, for allowing me to present Senate Bill 1418 regarding hydrogen fueling stations.

As the chair of the Senate Select Committee on hydrogen energy, it has been my attention, and it's been brought to my attention that a pivotal component of our transportation and transition towards a cleaner, more sustainable mode of transportation, hydrogen fueling stations, it's essential, and there are times that not being built, these things are not being built as they should be as quickly as they should be, because there are issues that present these block walls, I guess you'd call them.

So, it's essential that we find out what these delays are and try to overcome these burdensome permitting process. That's what it is, the burdensome permitting process. So, Senate Bill 1418 addresses this important issue.

As hydrogen has been shown as a great potential towards decarbonizing our transportation sector, Senate Bill 1418 transcends simple local ordinances or municipal concerns and rather addresses a statewide imperative.

This bill recognizes the vital need for consistent standards across our jurisdictions, yours, mine, across the state, to facilitate the prompt and cost-effective deployment of these critical zero-emission fueling stations. Senate Bill 1418 underscores our legislative commitment to fostering zero-emission vehicles infrastructure while mitigating barriers to the installation of hydrogen fueling stations.

Senate Bill 1418 brings parity to the electric vehicles permitting process by streamlining the administrative approval process for hydrogen fueling stations in the same way that we do for the charging stations. Specifically, Senate Bill 1418 mandates that cities and counties must adopt an ordinance and checklist that creates an expedited, streamlined permitting process for hydrogen fueling station.

This directive is designed to expedite procedures and ensure that citizens have access to clean energy options without unnecessary administrative burdens and hurdles. While Senate Bill 1418 streamlines the permitting process, health and safety remain top priority.

My previous bill, Senate Bill 1291, which passed and was signed by the Governor, ensures hydrogen fueling stations permits adhere to stringent health, safety, and performance standards. So, this bill, Senate Bill 1418, keeps these core components in place.

So, furthermore, to address the fiscal and procedural concerns, Senate Bill 1418 phases in its requirements so that most cities and counties in the state will not have to develop an ordinance until September of 2028, well after GO-Biz releases its model ordinance and checklist for hydrogen fueling stations and permitting.

In conclusion, California has more fuel stations, fuel cell electric fuel stations, and hydrogen stations necessary to fuel them than any other state in the nation.

And with California's recent success in securing substantial federal funding for clean renewable hydrogen initiatives through the Alliance for Renewable Clean Energy, the ARCHES, this timely passage of Senate Bill 1418 is essential to take full advantage of these federal dollars. I understand it's $1.2 billion to get us into that hydrogen world.

What we want to do is expedite the development and the deployment of hydrogen infrastructure, so in turn facilitating our state's transition to a cleaner transportation future. So, Senate Bill 1418 represents a pivotal step, as I had mentioned, towards realizing our environmental stewardship and obligation in advancing our sustainable transportation objectives.

For these reasons, I would respectfully ask for your aye vote. And today with me in support is Teresa Cooke, representing the California Hydrogen Coalition, who can also sit in answering any questions, technical or otherwise. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Wait. Microphone.

Aha. There we go. Good afternoon. Teresa Cooke on behalf of the California Hydrogen Coalition, California Hydrogen Business Council, I want to thank the Committee and their senator for this work on adding the build-out of hydrogen fueling infrastructure to support zero-emission vehicles.

Sadly, California's ratio of fueling infrastructure to vehicles on the road is the worst in the world. So, we have a lot of work to do, to reiterate Senator Archuleta's point. And unbeknownst to most, California is one of the top three hydrogen-producing states. We have more than 100 years safely making, handling, distributing, and using hydrogen.

Now, it's one thing for us to support bills and regulations, setting ambitious climate goals and standards, and a whole nother thing to work the policies to actually allow them to come to fruition. SB 1418 is an important piece in the delivery of California zero-emission vehicle goals across all communities and households.

And for these reasons, we are pleased to support this bill and request your aye vote today. Thank you.

Thank you. Looking for members of the public who would like to offer me too testimony, name, organization and position.

Good afternoon. Chris Mauer on behalf of Oberon Fuels, my client has is sort of a tweener. We're a supportive amended appreciate the senator's leadership in this regard. Fully support his bill but would be remiss if it didn't point out that the fact that the definition of hydrogen fueling station doesn't include onsite generated hydrogen fueling station projects as well.

These projects have been permitted in California.

This is the me too part I was going to unless there's not someone testifying for opposition. Yes. Yes, quite a bit. Quite a bit. Next, name, organization, and position.

Mandy Isaacs-Lee here for the California Chamber of Commerce and support.

Thank you. Moving on to any members of the public who wish to offer testimony in opposition, I'll give the opportunity for the opposed unless amended or tweener to speak now if they would like to. They're not. So, moving on for anyone in a quick opposition. Name, organization and position. All right, seeing none.

Moving back to Members of the Committee for any questions, comments, concerns, and then we did have a motion on this one already, I believe. Lowenthal and Papan. Yes. Sir, thank you for bring. Oh, I'm sorry, Carrillo Lowenthal. No, wait, I'm messing it up. Carrillo and Papan, my apologies.

Thank you for bringing this bill forward and for accepting the amendments proposed in Local Gov. I am supporting this bill today. We have a motion on the floor made by Assembly Member Carillo and seconded by Lowenthal. Would you like to close?

Madam Chair, thank you for your time and consideration. And your time is so valuable, each and every one of you, so I just urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Secretary.

SB 1418, the motion is do pass as amended, to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll call].

The bill has 10 aye votes. We'll hold the row open for members to add on.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Thank you.

Thank you. We are calling Senators to come. We're looking for Senator Limon, Senator Blakespear, and Senator Stern, and we'll be complete. I will give an opportunity to--yes, we will go from the beginning to have members to add on while we wait for Senators to come.

After we add on, if Senators do not come, we'll take a quick break in waiting for them and allow members to go to the restroom or take a comfort break without worrying about votes. And so with that, we'll start with consent calendar. Madam Secretary.

[Roll Call].

That has now 11 votes and we'll continue to hold the roll open for members to add on. Moving on to Item Number One: SB 295: Dodd.

[Roll Call].

Nine votes. Holding the roll open for members to add on. Moving on to Item Number Three: SB 359: Umberg.

[Roll Call].

That has 11 votes. Continuing to hold the roll open for members to add on. Item Number Four: SB 532: Wiener.

[Roll Call].

That has eight aye votes and three no votes. Continuing to hold the roll open for members to add on. Moving on to Item Number Five: 960, SB 960: Wiener.

[Roll Call].

That has seven aye votes, three no votes. Moving on--I will continue to hold the roll open for members to add on--moving on to Item Number 13: SB 1418: Archuleta.

[Roll Call].

Ten aye votes. Continuing to hold the roll open for members to add on. Moving on to Item Number 16: SB 1487: Glazer.

[Roll Call].

There are 11 aye votes. Continuing to hold the roll open for members to add on. Moving on to our last item, to close out or to add on, Item Number 20: HR 110: Arambula.

[Roll Call].

That has eight aye votes, two no votes. Continuing to hold the roll open for members to add on. Moving on. We have an author present item number two, SB 299, Limon.

Thank you, Chair and members. California is currently home to 4.6 million eligible unregistered voters, a disproportionate number of whom are youth, people with disabilities, Black, Latino, Asian American, Native, Indigenous, Indigenous and other people of color. SB 299 is an opportunity to upgrade our voter registration system and help welcome eligible voters into our democracy. Thank you.

As amended, this bill will do three things. It requires the DMV to implement a non-citizen filtering system, so if a person provides proof of non-citizenship, such as a green card, the applicant will automatically be filtered out of the voter registration system.

It also requires the DMV to automatically check voter registration status during a driver's license or ID transaction. And lastly, the bill grants the secretary of the state the authority to adopt regulations to generate a list of people pre-approved for registration.

With me today testifying in support of the bill, we have Seamus Hannon from the department, from the DMV Department in Oregon, as well as Dolores Huerta speaking in support of the bill.

Good afternoon, Chair Wilson, members of the Committee. My name is Dolores Huerta, and I am the Dolores Huerta Foundation for Community Empowerment. I, like many of you, have been involved in doing voter registration since I was in my early twenties.

And as part of my work that I've done here in Sacramento, I was able to pass two important laws, lobby these through the Legislature, one of them to get rid of deputy registrars here in California so that we did not have to go to find a deputy registrar to register somebody to vote. And then I passed.

I lobbied another bill to have a voting ballot in the Spanish language, which, of course, that was also able to add a lot of people to the voting rolls. Okay, well, this bill that we have here today can undo decades of voter suppression and make voting so much easier for millions of eligible voters.

Making eligible people bear the burden of registration is a remnant of discrimination. Voter registration requirements were designed in the 18 hundreds in California and other states to suppress turnout by poor and less educated communities. Instead of a one step process for eligible people, voting became a more complex, multi-step process requiring planning and knowledge of the law.

This still affects hundreds of years later. Each election, millions of people, many of them Black, brown, young and poor, don't vote because they aren't registered. Many of these people find registration procedures confusing, daunting or inconvenient, but the burden is still put on them to overcome these challenges. California, we have 4.6 million unregistered eligible people that could vote.

And that population, as was said, is disproportionately poor, Latino, Black, Asian American, and young. This bill gives California Secretary of State the power to identify clearly eligible, unregistered Californians at the DMV and provide them an easier path to registration and voting. Instead of individuals alone.

And I have to, with all respect in the world, I'll have to ask you to wrap up.

Okay, well, just. We know that California, we have the power to really have so many people in the Congress because the things that have happened just recently, like the Supreme Court decisions, we know that our House of Representatives is going to have to counter a lot of the suppressive type of decisions that have been made, starting with women's right to abortion, affirmative action, etcetera.

So, I think we in California have a special burden, and there are 10 other states that already have these procedures. I know all of us want to see more people vote. So, it's not a question of policy, it's a question of procedures. Thank you.

Thank you so much. To the second witness, as a reminder, we have two minutes.

Chair Wilson, members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Seamus Hannon. I'm the application development manager for Oregon's DMV, where I oversee our AVR system. Previously, I was the application development manager at Secretary of State, where I oversaw implementation of the AVR system in Oregon.

I'm here to discuss the Oregon DMV's extremely positive experience with Secure AVR and how our DMV implemented the processes proposed in California SB 299. Oregon implemented Secure AVR in 2016, and in the eight years since, we've registered roughly 1 million new voters while reducing DMV transaction times and reducing costs. Secure AVR relies on existing DMV procedures.

As most of you know, when you apply for a driver's license, you provide identifying documents like a U.S. passport or green card. Oregon DMV system, like California's, retains the type of document a person provided during their license transaction. Secure AVR leverages this information.

Under our AVR system, the Secretary of State has identified which documents clearly establish eligibility to register to vote like a U.S. passport, and which clearly indicate ineligibility like a green card. Our DMV system is hard coded around this list.

If a person's license record confirms that they provided a document like a U.S. passport, our system automatically shares their data with election officials. By contrast, if the person's license record confirms that they provided a document like a green card, the system is hard coded to filter them out of the voter registration for their license transaction.

DMV clerks just follow their normal routine practices, and the system is automated around them. This is not the DMV making citizenship determinations. We're just sharing existing information in our system with the Secretary of State based on Secretary of State instructions.

This automated process has been highly successful in Oregon, creating an auditable, efficient system to streamline registration for clearly eligible people while protecting ineligible people from risk. The system was also straightforward to implement since it relies on existing DMV procedures. Our DMV's startup costs were only $33,000, and other DMVs have budgeted similar amounts.

In closing, ultimately, secure AVR has created a simpler, more efficient process at the Oregon DMV. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

All right, thank you. Looking for members of the public who would like to offer me too testimony, now would be appropriate time with name, organization, and position.

McKenna Jenkins with NextGen California in support.

Michael Locke with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, also OCA, Asian Pacific American Advocates, the East Bay, Silicon Valley, San Mateo County chapters, and the National Center. Thank you.

Gordon Maher with the National Union of Healthcare Workers. We're in strong support. Thank you.

My name is Christopher Kenison with Alliance San Diego. I'm here in support of SB 299, also on behalf of pillars of the community, CHIRLA Action Fund, Southeast San Diego and the South Bay communities as well.

Good afternoon, my name is Mackenzie Martinez, also with Alliance San Diego, showing support. Si se podemos.

Good afternoon. My name is Tammy Alvarado. I'm here on behalf of Cali Calls. I'm also in strong support of SB 299.

Toya Vick with Starting Over Inc. in support of SB 299. Thank you.

Jalisha Smith, on behalf of IE United in support.

Hello. Dabrae Sanders with Callus California as well as on behalf of the California Black Power Network in strong support. Thank you.

Hi. Faith Lee with Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Southern California were in support. Also providing me too for a coalition for humane Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Cha Vang, on behalf of Chinese Progressive Association and Services Immigrant Rights and Education Network in support.

Good afternoon. Samuel Choi with the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium as well as the California Grassroots Democracy Coalition in strong support.

Francisco Ramirez with Alianza Comunitaria from North County, San Diego.

Arcella Nunez with Universidad Popular and the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium in favor.

Good afternoon. Sydney Fong, Policy Director at AAPIs for Civic Empowerment, co-sponsor of this bill in support, as well as Khmer Girls in Action in support. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Jonathan Nguyen. I'm representing the California Healthy Nail Salon collaborative and I'm in support of 299. SB 299.

Good afternoon, my name is Andrew Phan. I'm representing PowerPAC in support of SB 299. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Tina Tran on behalf of Cypress College Associated Students supporting SB 299. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Arjun Ayyappan on behalf of OC Action here in support of SB 299.

Thank you, thank you. Moving on to any public testimony in opposition. You may begin at your convenience.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Brittany Stonesifer for ACLU California Action. We're grateful to Senator Limon and sponsors for continuing a dialogue with us, and we share their goals of increasing registration among eligible voters and protecting non-citizens.

However, because there is insufficient time to resolve critical questions around the language this year, we propose that SB 299 become a study bill before its changes are implemented. We strongly support thoughtfully designed and effective automatic voter registration AVR programs like the one we currently have at the DMV.

The DMV's AVR system has become the most powerful tool that our state has for maintaining accurate voter rolls and registering new voters. In only six years, the program has resulted in over 26 million new or updated voter registration transactions.

It's the top registration method for youth and voters of color, and only 14% of eligible DMV users opt out despite being either unregistered or having an outdated registration.

The DMV's existing AVR system has worked so well that we believe a more effective investment of California's limited resources would be to extend this AVR model to places like Covered California. We expressed concerns that previous versions of the bill would create serious risks for noncitizens without evidence that this restructuring would result in improved equity or engagement.

Unfortunately, the language before us does not resolve those concerns, primarily because they still make the DMV responsible for identifying citizenship, which is outside of DMV's current capacity. Similarly, by creating a new pre-approved registrant and activation system without clear guardrails, the amendments present significant questions about implementation that have yet to be addressed.

Finally, the current bill language does not protect privacy for individuals placed on the pre-approved voter list, including people who may be added in error. For these reasons at this time, we must continue to ask for your no vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Looking to members of the public who like to add on their opposition to this bill, name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon, chairing Members. My name is Ruth Dawson, also with ACLU California Action, but I have the proxy of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, NALEO Educational Fund, and also the League of Women Voters California continue to be opposed, but also thank the author for her continued conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, now moving it back to members of the Committee for any questions, comments, concerns. See, we have a mo. I see someone's hand. And we also have a motion by Jackson. Did we, did we do that? Oh, there already. Okay, we needed a second.

So, we have Aguiar-Curry as a first and Jackson as a second. Moving on to Lowenthal.

Thank you, Senator, and thank you for everybody who came and provided testimony. I have very clear vision of the benefits of this bill, and I truly appreciate the reasoning behind it, and I, in all likelihood, will be supporting it. I have concerns around privacy.

When somebody signs up to become a voter, registers to become a voter, they are acquiescing to the very public database about becoming a public voter. Some people are comfortable with that. Some are uncomfortable with that. As elected officials, we leverage those lists all the time, reaching out to voters who didn't necessarily reach out to us first.

My question for the author and for anybody else who may be qualified to answer this is, what becomes of the list of those that are going to be provided by the Secretary of State? Who's the safeguard of that list? What is the privacy guarantees for the people on that list? Who has control of it, etcetera?

Thank you. I'm going to pass it to Neil, who is going to be able to answer that.

Thank you for the question. I think the Secretary of State is the keeper of the list, and this bill would give the Secretary of State discretion over how that list is distributed or not distributed. That is left to Secretary of State regulation.

I would say in other states, safeguards have been built to protect privacy of people who are registered to vote or are put on something like a pre-approved list. People with a confidential address are automatically filtered out. Those are survivors of domestic violence, people with sensitive addresses such as law enforcement or court officials.

You start off by saying in other states, is that what's happening in other states, or are these safeguards that are saying automatically will happen in California?

This is left to Secretary of State discretion. We would strongly support it.

So, what you're saying is these are examples of things that are happening in other states of such privacy guarantees.

Exactly.

But there are no such guarantees delineated in this right now. Are there any policies from the Secretary of State's office that you're aware of that guarantee any of the examples that you're laying out in other states?

So, the current AVR system filters out people with a confidential address. The Secretary of State, I assume, would extend those same filtering mechanisms for people with a confidential address.

Can I ask a question about that? So, you're saying it filters out people with a confidential address as defined by when they're signing up for services at the DMV?

That's correct.

And they would affirmatively be able to check what is confidential address or not.

So when people apply for a license at the DMV, some people indicate I have a confidential address, and the DMV records that status. And so people who have a confidential.

Is that a checkbox? Is that something in the process of applying for a license?

It's a particular type of license you apply for.

It's a very specific license. So, for those who are applying for a regular driver's license or regular services, not a very specific one. Would they have an option to have a, you know, how did you describe it?

Confidential.

Confidential address.

Those are things that could be built into the system through implementation fairly easily.

Okay. But they do not exist right now.

They do not exist.

Are you aware of any privacy protocols from the Secretary of State as it relates to this that's in place right now?

The Secretary of State has a separate list of individuals who have a confidential, who've requested address confidentiality in government services. That's another filter that the Secretary of State could add to this program to filter out those people as well from being included on this list.

For now. I mean, Madam author, I would continue to have concerns about this if this is not laid out and fundamentally describe what the policy is going to be from the Secretary of State. Once again, I completely and totally applaud the effort to get more people voter, registered, and engaged.

We have to consider the Californians who do not want to be on the grid in that regard.

Right. And so, this bill doesn't specify that out because it gives the authority to the Secretary of State. So, you are correct that there isn't specifications. It would be up to the Secretary of State. I also just want to note that, you know, California has a pre-approved registration list also for high school students. So that exists.

So, this is not a foreign concept, and we do have protocols in place for that. But ultimately, as written, this bill would allow the Secretary of State to make that decision on what protocols would be applied to this particular new list.

But we do have other pieces in place that are used for other circumstances that could be adopted. But it's not, this bill doesn't, it's not the Legislature who would do that.

And hate to put you on the spot, Senator, but are you aware of any of the privacy protocols that have been put in place by the Secretary of State's office in any of those other scenarios?

In addition to the ones that mentioned.

Again, I'm putting you on the spot right now.

So, I mean, only the ones that have been mentioned now. So, I don't know if there are other ones besides what's been mentioned in terms of the confidential list, and in terms of, you know, law enforcement. There's a list of them.

Which one the Secretary of State will apply to this we cannot say. And we do grant the Secretary of State that authority to make that decision.

My. May I Madam Chair?

I would say that we are going very far down the trail of our privacy committee and our elections committee. So, we do have to stay, you know, allow a little bit of latitude, but stay focused on our role.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. And you know, lastly, I'll just certainly wrap as it relates to when people are signing up for services at the DMV. It sounds like it will be a very significant sized list that should be guarded.

And so, I would, in supporting this legislation, also want to follow up with the Secretary of State that those that are signing up for services at the DMV are knowing that they are placing their information that could be subjected to whomever as of this time. Right? That's my only concern.

Assembly Member Lowenthal, I would just add that there is a notice requirement in the bill, so people will be notified that their information would be added to the list. Nobody would be added to this list without awareness.

And can I just add, though? But it would not give them an opportunity to opt out of that system at the time of their transaction.

Thank you. Moving to Vice Chair Davies.

Thank you. And I'll be very brief. I just want to jump on Assembly Member Lowenthal's bill or question for you. I know that they have the Safe at Home, which is, that's where you can go ahead and have a confidential address, obviously, with domestic violence and so forth.

But for those that are not signed up for that, I think that is my concern, that they wouldn't have that opportunity to go ahead and hit a confidential address.

So again, as Senator Limon mentioned, this is left to the Secretary of State's discretion based on practice from other states. People in programs like Safe at Home are filtered out.

There are other ways for people who just say, I would like my information to be confidential, or I would like to be removed from this list to request that. And those specifics could be added by the Secretary of State as well.

Okay. So that decision wouldn't be made by the Legislator, that would be made by the Secretary of State.

Under the current version of the bill. Yes.

Thank you.

All right. Not seeing any other comments. Thank you to the author for bringing this forward. I believe the changes in this bill would help improve customer service experience while when registering to vote at DMV, while also making common sense changes to help prevent a person ineligible to vote for mistakenly registering to vote.

I am concerned, though, that DMV may have difficulty implementing this Bill as they are going through their system upgrade, while at the same time facing insolvency. And so, with that, I will be supporting your bill today. There is a motion made by Aguiar-Curry, a seconded by Jackson.

And so I'll give you an opportunity to close before the secretary calls the roll.

Thank you. And to your point, Madam Chair, we do acknowledge the current delays in the updating of the DMV systems and are committed to continuing engaging in discussions with the DMV to establish the appropriate timeline for this bill to become operative. So, that's something we are working on. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Madam Secretary.

SB 299. The motion is do pass to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll call]

It has seven aye votes and four no votes. We will leave the roll open for members to add on. Thank you.

All right. We do have an author in the room. Senator Blakespear, there are two bills that you'll be presenting. Item number seven, SB 689, and item number eight, SB 1216. You may start at your convenience. We have a motion by Lowenthal. Is there a second? Oh, I'm sorry. Was that... That was Ward? My apologies. A motion by Ward is seconded by Lowenthal. I'm assuming that is on item number seven, SB 689. All right. Oh, microphone.

Thank you, Chair and colleagues. I appreciate the early motion and the second, but since I do have my witnesses here, we would like to present the bill publicly. I'm pleased to present SB 689, which will reduce delays in the building of bike lanes, dedicated transit lanes, or pedestrian walkways along California's coastline in already developed areas.

During my time as the mayor of the City of Encinitas, we built several protected bike lane projects, amending the Local Coastal Program, otherwise known as the LCP, and commissioning the required additional traffic studies resulted in expensive, time consuming, and at times needlessly contentious process for building a bike lane.

It's important for us as policymakers to ensure good governance through the state and eliminate bureaucratic hurdles that may prevent or prolong projects that provide a net positive to society and our environment. My team and I have had productive conversations with the Coastal Commission over more than a year about this effort, and we are now on the same page with how to achieve this objective, with the Commission now being in strong support and here to my right. This bill does two things.

First, it states that a new traffic study, a new traffic study, which can be costly and time consuming, is not necessary for an LCP amendment when a local government is converting an existing motorized vehicle lane into a dedicated bicycle lane, transit lane, or pedestrian walkway.

Secondly, it allows for the amendment of the LCP to be processed under a De minimis exemption when the Coastal Commission's Executive Director determines that that is warranted. SB 689 is a good governance bill that will improve the efficiency and responsiveness of the Coastal Commission in the construction of bike lanes, dedicated transit lanes, and pedestrian walkways. And with me today, I have Sean Drake on behalf of the Coastal Commission and Moira Topp on behalf of the City of San Diego.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. I'm Sean Drake, Legislative Manager for the California Coastal Commission. The Coastal Commission supports SB 689, which would add language to the Coastal Act streamlining the process for local governments to create bike, pedestrian, or transit lanes on roadways in the Coastal Zone.

First, the bill would specify, as the Senator mentioned, that if a Local Coastal Program amendment is needed as part of converting part of a roadway into a bike, pedestrian, or transit lane, the Commission will approve the amendment administratively upon making a specified finding.

The process the Commission would use for administratively approving such an amendment is an existing process for Local Coastal Program amendments that are considered De minimis. Second, the bill would clarify that a traffic study is not required as a part of a local government's application to the Commission for a bike, pedestrian, or transit lane project.

This change would provide local governments with greater flexibility to think about public coastal access more holistically and not simply in terms of traffic circulation. This flexibility will help promote diverse modes of coastal access that are abundant, equitable, and suited for the needs of communities and the broader public. To wrap up, while not all bike, pedestrian, or transit lane projects in the coastal zone currently require a coastal development permit or a Local Coastal Program amendment, there are some instances where one of these may be necessary.

This bill would streamline the approval of those particular projects, and in doing so, help promote public coastal access, minimize vehicle miles traveled, and mitigate the impacts of climate change on the coast. The Commission sincerely appreciates the author's partnership, and we respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members, I am Moira Topp here on behalf of the City of San Diego, co-sponsor of the measure. The author and the Coastal Commission outlined the provisions of the bill very well. I think the only thing we'd note is that the projects that we're looking to do are to meet our climate action goals. And so we really do think it's important to move quickly and swiftly. And I also note that, as you heard from the sad testimony earlier, that a lot of these coastal roads are curvy and dangerous.

And so we have a dual goal in a lot of these projects that we're working on to improve safety and meet our climate goals. So we're very appreciative of the partnership with the Coastal Commission and certainly the Senator for moving this bill forward that can help really trim time and the bureaucratic hurdles that we face when trying to implement these projects. And we respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Moving on to members who are at the public who are in support in a me too position. Name, organization, and position.

Marc Vukcevich on behalf of Streets for All in support. Thank you.

Jonathan Clay on behalf of the City of Encinitas in support.

Jeanie Ward-Waller on behalf of CalBike in support.

Kyra Ross on behalf of the City of Solana Beach in support.

Dane Hutchings on behalf of the City of Carlsbad in support.

Silvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the City of Santa Monica, the CaCTI, the California City Transportation Initiative, the City and County of San Francisco, and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, all in support. Thank you.

Hello. Waleed Hojeij on behalf of the League of California Cities in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jared Moss on behalf of the City of Long Beach in support.

Chris Lee on behalf of the County of Santa Barbara in support.

All right, moving on to opposition, which I don't believe there's opposition on file, if I remember. Oh, there is. But is there anyone here to testify in opposition? Seeing none. Is there anyone who wish to give a quick note of opposition with name, organization, and position? Seeing none. Moving it to Members of the Committee for any questions, comments, or concerns. Aguiar-Curry?

First of all, thank you, Senator, for taking the amendments. When I first looked at your bill and I saw the opposition, my heart sank because so many of the opposition were from my rural counties. And I looked at, and I said, a lot of those are up the elevations higher. And I just thought, Oh, my God, how are we going to handle this?

Are you talking about the other one?

No. Isn't this one?

1689?

Well, I guess I had the wrong one. I'll make sure I tell you that the next time. Let me make sure. Let me get 689 here.

No worries. We can give you a moment while we look to see if there's anyone else who wanted to talk.

I thought I had it in line here.

Okay. Did you still want to continue or you're good? Wait till the next one? Okay.

Already, she's got it.

No, it's okay. It's okay. So this had the early motion from Ward and Lowenthal. And so I appreciate you, Senator, for bringing this bill forward and for your support in reducing any barriers to multimodal infrastructure along the coast.

This bill allows local governments to convert an existing motorized vehicle travel lane into a bicycle, transit, or pedestrian lane without a traffic study. This has the potential to increase the number of lane conversions along the coast and provide additional safe multimodal access points to the coast for all Californians. I am supporting this bill today. With that, I'll give you an opportunity to close prior to the Secretary calling the roll.

Thank you. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Madam Secretary.

SB 689, the motion is do pass to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

That has ten aye votes, and we'll hold the roll open for members to add on. Now we'll move on to Item Number Eight: SB 1216. You may begin at your convenience.

Okay. Thank you, Chair and colleagues. I appreciate the committee's work on this bill, and I accept the amendments on page six of the analysis. These amendments come directly from a coalition of local governments, including Cal Cites, CSAC, and RCRC.

I am pleased to author SB 1216, which will improve safety for cyclists by limiting the overuse of sharrows and Class III bikeways. A sharrow is a painted marking on a road that indicates cyclists share the road with the cars. They are used when there is no separate bike lane or other space exclusively for bikes.

Class III bikeways, which can include sharrows, also do not have dedicated space exclusively for bikes. So long as there is limited or no physical separation between bikes and vehicles, many people won't consider biking a viable option, instead rely on their single occupancy vehicle to get around. This bill does two things to make cycling safer.

First, it prohibits the installation of sharrows on roads with a posted speed limit over 30 miles per hour. This is in alignment with design guidelines published by Caltrans earlier this year that shared lanes should only be used in very low-speed and low-volume locations and as a last resort when no other viable alternatives exist.

Second, this bill limits when state Active Transportation Funds can be used for Class III bikeways. These funds are meant for projects that encourage active transportation and reduce the risk of injuries and fatalities. They shouldn't be used for projects that don't actually make biking safer, like simply adding sharrows without including other features to slow traffic to safer speeds.

ATP, Active Transportation Funds, will be available for Class III bikeways in three circumstances: on roads with a design speed limit of 25 miles per hour or less, on roads where improvements will be made to reduce the design speed to 25 miles per hour or less, or when the Class III bikeway is otherwise appropriate for the local community context and creates a lower stress environment.

These amendments improve bike safety while preserving flexibility for the unique needs of local communities, especially rural areas. The bottom line is that we need to make our streets safer for all users, not just for cars. I no longer have my supporters with me on this bill because of the amendments I took, so they are no longer here to speak. So with that, I will respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who might like to offer a MeToo support, name, organization, and position.

Jeanie Ward-Waller with CalBike, in support.

Dan Allison, citizen, in support.

Waleed Hojeij, on behalf of the League of California Cities. Want to thank the author and committee for working with us. We are in support of the amendments. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have a motion, I believe. Was that not for a motion? Yes, we have a motion by Aguiar-Curry. Now moving on to public testimony in opposition to the bill.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Chris Lee, here on behalf of the Nevada County Transportation Commission. With the amendments, we'll be removing our opposition. Want to thank the author and her staff for working with us as well as the local government associations, and also thank the committee for your work on this. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to still give a quick note of opposition, name, organization, position. Seeing none, moving it back to committee. Okay, we have a motion, Aguiar-Curry, and a second, Carrillo. Seeing no comments.

Senator, thank you to you and your staff for working with opposition to find a compromise on the prohibition of sharrows. As you stated, Caltrans's design bulletin states that Class III shared lanes should only be used in very low-speed and volume locations and should be the last resort when there are no other viable alternatives.

As amended, this bill would prohibit sharrows on roads over 30 miles per hour and prohibit the Active Transportation Program from funding projects that create a Class III bikeway on roads over 25 miles per hour, with some exceptions. The California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, also known as MUTCD, generally dictates standards for traffic signs, road surface markings, and traffic signals based on research and best practices rather than legislation.

Ideally, this bill would require an update to the MUTCD, incorporating current state and national guidelines on the use of Class III bikeways instead of banning the use of sharrows in statute. However, I appreciate your work on compromise, on compromise with the opposition.

As noted in our many discussions, I do have a sharrow that connects two of my cities, the City of Dixon, the City of Vacaville, in county rural words, and without the sharrow, there would be an unsafe way to navigate where people do try to navigate between the two cities. I'll be supporting this bill as amended today. We have a motion made by Aguiar-Curry, a seconded by Carrillo. I'll give you an opportunity to close prior to the secretary calling the roll.

Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to make sure that Senator Aguiar-Curry had the opportunity to make all the comments she wanted to. Okay. All right. With that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Madam Secretary.

SB 1216: the motion is do pass as amended to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call].

Has seven/four, and we'll hold the roll open for members to add on.

Thank you.

All right, I believe we have our final author in the room for our last two bills: Senator Stern, Item Number 17: SB 1509, Item Number 18: SCR 151. For Item Number 17?

Okay, you had an early motion in a second on item number 17 from assemblymember Wallace and followed by Vice Chair Davies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't want to talk past yes, so I'll just truncate my remarks.

But I would appreciate you all just given just a moment to our lead witnesses here who have been through hell in their lives, and I would just say thank you to the Committee will be accepting the amendments, and I wanted to get this law on the books as quickly as possible.

Nobody likes waiting on DMV in line, let alone on an it project. And so I appreciate the chair working with us to ensure that these amendments.

To make sure when you're excessively speeding, especially multiple times in a three year period, that we're not going to have to wait forever for that to become law, because we know lives are lost every day. So, with that, I respectfully ask your aye vote and turn it over to Lily Trujillo.

Can you press the microphone? Yes.

And this is her first time, so give her attention, if you don't mind.

Hello. Okay. My name is Lily Trujillo Paquet, and I am the founder and Executive Director of street racing kills. But most. Nathan, I'm a mother that lost a child. I lost my daughter, Valentina, back in December 7, 2013. And, yes, you might think it's been a long time, 10 years. But it's actually worse for me.

I never, ever thought that I would outlive my daughter. She was just getting a ride home when she was 16 years old with a couple of her girlfriends. And the teenager that was taking them home decided to engage into a street race on a 25 miles per hour sun, and he was going 80 miles an hour.

At the time, I thought my life was difficult. Being a single mom and working paycheck to paycheck. I never know how beautiful my life was. Not looking back, you see, when he decided to take that challenge, he ended up crashing against a lady that was actually going to work.

And my daughter was the only one that was killed. And I thought to myself many, many times, like, was I a bad mom? Was she a bad teenager for hanging out with her friends? And I said, no. If he didn't go over 80 miles an hour, my daughter would be alive.

I would have picked her up the next day. She was going to sleep over to her best friend's house. And I learned a lot about crashes. And I read the report, knowing how many times she hit her head from the blunt force of 80 miles an. Hour.

How her brain was bleeding and stopped her heart, how she didn't make it to the hospital. Because when you die at the scene, they take you to the morgue, they stripped you of your clothes, and they put you in the refrigerator.

How could I think of her little body as 16 year old, be in a refrigerator when she no longer had a name and she was a number and she was called the body? I live in regret for not hugging her more, for not kissing her more, for not spending every second of my life with her.

And as I'm flying today to come here to talk to you, there was a grandma with her little girl. And I see this five year old, and I couldn't think of how her little witty little remarks, a little spicy personality. And I see her girlfriends growing up, getting married, having kids, traveling.

And for the rest of my life, I will live thinking, what will her life be like now? Will she still color hair red? Will shoes to be like in the store? If I go to a store, all I can think is, like, would she like this? Would she like this color for her nails?

Thank you. I'll have to have you wrap up.

And thank you so much. I feel like we have been accustomed to see so many memorials in our streets. Flowers, beautiful flowers. This has to be a reminder for all of us to drive safer and to stop speeding and let's have more flowers in our homes and now on our streets. Thank you.

Thank you. Next witness. As a reminder, two minutes.

Hi. They call me grandma Beverly in the pedestrian safety world, and I don't come here voluntarily. I came here because my grandson was hit and killed at five years old. Unlike Valentina, that person just rolled a stop sign.

The problem with cars and people is that they don't go well together, especially if you're on the outside of that vehicle being hit again, who he'd be today and who val'd be today, we're never going to know. Zachary just wanted to cross the street.

Now, I could tell you a story about the Lamborghini crash in Laden, where the kids doing 120 miles an hour, 16 years old, in a Lamborghini that his parents gave him. You know, there's no common sense in that family, obviously, okay? But that family's changed and broken forever. My family's changed and broken forever.

The little children who went to school with him in kindergarten go to the intersection where he died and put, congratulations. You didn't graduate high school. Okay? They go and they decorate the freaking corner where he died to remember him. And it's a reminder to everyone in the neighborhood.

But you can't touch people's hearts until you hear these stories. And these stories are devastating. It doesn't stop just because their hearts stopped beating. The pain kills me and this woman every day. And if you haven't experienced it, thank God.

If you have experienced it, then everybody up here needs to get a lot more serious about making everyone safe. So, you can just cross a stricken road without dying, that you can drive down the road and know you have a green light and can go forward.

It's your right of way, and some clown ain't gonna come out of here at 120 miles an hour and rip your aortas out of your chest. Luckily, she died instantly, too. But her mother dies every day, and the families I deal with every day have this pain every single day. Now, I hope I'm not over two minutes.

My grandson didn't get six years, and he would have been 21 this year. We were supposed to be in Vegas playing bingo, having some fun. Not happening.

Understood. Thank you.

Okay. We all want to get across the street safely and be able to drive in our vehicles and worry about the people outside of our vehicles.

Thank you for ourselves. Thank you for your testimony. To both of you, I am, as chair, sorry for your loss. Moving on to Members of the public who would like to offer me to testimony, name, organization, and position.

Good afternoon. My heart goes out to the witnesses. Mark Fuksovich, on behalf of Streets for All, and also been asked on behalf of streets are for everyone out of Los Angeles. Thank you.

Jeannie Ward-Waller. On behalf of Caltrans in support.

Good afternoon, chair Members. Dane Hutchings. On behalf of the City of Merced, in support.

Sylvia Solis Shaw, on behalf of the City of Goleta and also on behalf of the City of Los Angeles, in support. Thank you.

Charles Watson. On behalf of the City of Malibu, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to anyone who would like to provide testimony in opposition. Seeing none. Are there any in the room? Oops. Zero, when it stops. Okay. Are there any in the room? Would like to offer a quick note of opposition. Name, organization, position.

Madam Chair, Members Matt Brody. On behalf of the Teamsters, I'd like. To thank the author and the Committee. For working on amendments that get us to neutral. Thank you.

Madam Chair. And Members Louie Costa with Smart Transportation Division, State Legislative Board. The amendments have also moved us to neutral, and we appreciate the Committee's work and the author's willingness to work with us as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no others moving to Members of the Committee, we have Berman and then Vice Chair Davies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Senator, for bringing this good and important Bill. I want to thank the witnesses for your testimony.

I, a year and a half ago, a friend of mine, a pretty good friend of mine from growing up, from middle school and high school, was driving home from dinner with her husband, and there are 26 or seven year old twins in the backseat, and they were smashed.

And my friend and her husband, who was two years older than me growing up, were killed. And their seven-year-olds survived. And the investigation is still ongoing.

The judicial process is still ongoing, but the belief is that two people were racing, two younger people were racing on a street that probably had a 35 miles per hour speed limit there, and they were going way over twice that. And so just really appreciate. I mean, it just wrecked. I mean, it wrecked the community.

It wrecked my class and all of us that had grown up with these two people. And the Committee knows it passed out of the Committee earlier. But I also have a Bill this year that came out of an eight year old boy who was killed in the intersection outside of his school and trying to make.

Yeah, totally agree. Totally agree. And so there's a lot more that we can do. I think this is a great step. I'd ask to be at it as a co author, if I may, and appreciate y'all's testimony. And there's more work for us to do. Thank you.

Moving on to Vice Chair Davies, we'll have to ask that there won't be back and forth without going through the chair. Vice Chair Davies.

Thank you, Senator. I'm so grateful that you brought this forward. And ladies, I want to say thank you for your courage and sharing your story. My heart goes out for you, and I would like to be considered as a co author. Thank you.

All right. Seeing no other comments. Thank you, Senator, for working with the Committee to address the equity concerns by making the two points count on your second violation instead of the first. This allows time for people to correct their behavior before losing their license.

I also appreciate you taking amendments to address the issues raised by moving the language out of reckless driving section of the state statute. I understand the frustration around the implementation of this being delayed until 2027 because of needing to allow the Department of Motor Vehicles to update its it system.

You know, as we know, DMV is facing insolvency, and really, this is a budget impacting good policy. And so with that, you know, I'm definitely okay as chair with amendments for an earlier enactment date.

If you can get the Administration to agree to implement Bill at an earlier date, I think it would be valuable during the interim to implement an awareness campaign, focus on the immense safety risk caused by excessive speed and the increased penalties that will result because of this Bill.

I am supporting your Bill today, and there has been a motion and a second, so give you opportunity to close before the secretary calls the roll.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Members. I know you're at the end of a long day and it's a very busy time, so I do appreciate the respect you showed not just our witnesses, but this policy issue. Madam Chair, appreciate your comments as well.

I got hard work to do in July so that when I hopefully, with all your support, end up before Chairwoman Wicks over here in appropriations, that the DMV doesn't view this single line of it code as something that should wait 34 years. We think we can get this work done.

I'm not saying skip the line, but I am saying lives are on the line. And so thank you for the nudge, and we'll keep doing our work. And with that, I would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Madam Secretary, SB 1509. The motion is do pass, as amended, to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

All right, that bill has 13 votes. We will hold the roll open for Members to add on. Moving on to our final item of the day, item number 18, SCR 151.

Yeah, thank you. SCR 151 seeks to create a memorial highway to honor Deputy Ryan Clinkunbroomer, his life of service. As some of you may know, on September 26 in 2023, the deputy lost his life at the age of 30 while on active patrol in the County of LA.

He was an eight year veteran, but he comes from a family of service. His father, grandfather and great grandfather, fourth generation peace officers. Everyone wonders in those families whose time for their watch to end may be called. And unfortunately, Ryan's was. He was a professional, and he asked countless times to protect others, and he did that.

But this family suffered immeasurable loss, as have we all in our region. So we're hoping to dedicate a portion of I-5 in the City of Santa Clarita for this memorial highway. I think this be the least we can do and a fitting tribute. And with me here in support, we have Matt Siverling.

Madam Chair and Members, Matthew Siverling, on behalf of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs. Never our favorite reason, to say the least, to come and support bills. But this is something that means very much to the family. We'd like to also thank the Committee and the Assembly for moving this bill along.

This bill was just on the Assembly Floor last week, and you guys were able to take this into this final Policy Committee Hearing, which was huge for the family. They were crying happy tears. So thank you to the author, thank you to the Chair, and ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to any Members of the public who would like to show their support for this bill. Name, organization, position. Seeing none. I don't think we have opposition on file, but I'll confirm. If there's anyone who'd like to give public testimony in opposition or in a me-too fashion. Name, organization, position. Seeing none.

Moving it to Members of Committee. We do have a vice. We do have a motion made by Vice Chair Davies and a seconded by Lowenthal. I see Assemblymember Carrillo, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Senator, for bringing this forward. Deputy Clinkunbroomer actually served in the LA County sheriff station in Palmdale. I do remember that day as he was starting his shift, he was coming out of the driveway from the station, right at the corner, right in front of the sheriff's station.

Got a red light, a car pulled over next to him, and he was shot in the head. Cowardly, that that happened. Remember that day when we got the call. Luckily, the killer was found within three days, and he actually lived about a mile and a half from my house. He had been suffering from mental health issues.

That's what the investigation came up with. And unfortunately, a public servant and a law enforcement officer lost his life due to the lack of providing mental health assistance. Thank you for bringing this forward.

Again, I'm choking up a little bit because I do remember when that happened right in front of the LA County sheriff's station in the City of Palmdale in my district. We have a first and a second, but I will be supporting the bill. Definitely. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further comments, thank you to the Senator for bringing this highway naming forward for an honorable individual doing their work, the public work, the good work. We'll be supporting this naming today and so give you an opportunity to close before turning to Madam Secretary.

Thank you, Madam Chair, to say we hope this memorial is not just a testimony to the greatness of this man and those who serve with the badge, but also a reminder of what happens when we fail them in our system and should ring in all our heads, his name. So thank you for the family, for all of you supporting in advance and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Madam Secretary.

SCR 151, the motion is to be adopted. [Roll Call]

That Bill is out 15. All right, we are going to go from the top. Since all Members are present who are. Who are. Who we've held the roll open for. We will only do this one time. Starting with consent calendar. There were six bills on consent items 6, 9, 10, 11, 15, and 19. Madam Secretary.

[Roll Call]

Calendar is out with 15 votes. Moving on to item number one, SB.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out with 13 to with 13 votes. Moving on to item number two, SB 299. Lamonte SB 299.

[Roll Call]

All right, confirming that Berman is not voting. 10 to four, that Bill is out with 10 votes for not four no with four no votes. Moving on. And that is close. Moving on to item number three, SB 539.

[Roll Call]

Bill is out with 15 votes. Moving on to item number four, SB 532.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out with 12 ayes and three no's. Moving on item number five, SB 960.

[Roll Call]

0114 my that Bill is out with 11 aye votes and four no votes. Moving on to item number seven, SB 689. Blakespear.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out with 15 aye votes. Moving on to item number eight, SB 1216.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out with 11 votes aye, four nos. Moving on to item number well, item number 12 was pulled. Item number 13, SB 1418.

[Roll Call]

That has 14 aye votes, one no vote. That Bill is out. Moving on to item number 16, SB 1487.

[Roll Call]

Out with 15 I votes. Moving on to item number I think 17 was out, right? No, sorry171509.

[Roll Call]

Bill is out with 15 votes. It was number 18 I was thinking of, and number 18 is done. Moving on to our last and final item number 20, HR 110.

[Roll Call]

That Bill is out 12 to two with 12 ayes and two nos. And with that, there is no further business of this Committee. So the hearing is adjourned.