Assembly Standing Committee on Local Government

Good afternoon, everybody. In the interest of time and since we have an author pressing, we're gonna get started. Give me one minute. Okay, we're gonna get started since we have an author present and we don't have a quorum yet. But we need to get started as a Subcommitee. So I'm gonna go through some housekeeping items.

Welcome to the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing. I would like to remind the public that testimony will be in person for this and future hearings. As we no longer use a moderated telephone service. We also accept written testimony to the position letter portal on the Committee's website.

We seek to protect the rights of all who participate in the legislative process so that we can have effective deliberation and decisions on the critical issues facing California. Protesters have appeared at some of our legislative hearings. Some of these people have yelled from the audience and issued threats of potential violence.

These actions actually disrupted the legislative hearing and the persons who caused the disruption were removed from the hearing. As we proceed with witnesses and public comment, I want to make sure that everyone understands that the Assembly has rules to ensure we maintain order and run an efficient and fair hearing.

We apply these rules consistently to all people who participate in our proceedings, regardless of their view, the viewpoint they express, in order to facilitate the goal of hearing as much as possible from the public. Within the limits of our time, we will not permit conduct that disrupts, disturbs or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings.

We will not accept disruptive behavior or behavior that incites or threatens violence. The rules for today's hearing are as follows. No talking or loud noises from the audience. Public comment may be provided only at the designated time and place and as permitted by the Chair. Public comment must relate to the subject of bills or information being discussed today.

No engaging in conduct that disrupts, disrupts, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of this hearing. Please be aware that violations of these rules may be subject to removal or other enforcement auctions. We have 24 bills on our agenda today. Item 21, SB 802 by Senator Ashby has been pulled from this hearing by the author.

Five bills are proposed for consent calendar and they are. Item number five, SB21, by Senator Durazo. Item number 11, SB340 by Senator Leard. Item 13, SB507, by Senator Limon. Item 19, SB781, by Senator Reyes. Item 24, SB858, by Senate Local Government Committee. And I will be presented under item number 12, SB415, on behalf of Senator Reyes.

Two bills will be heard as special order of business today. First, we will hear SB753 by Senator Cortese. Second, we will hear SB445 by Senator Wiener. We will then move back to a regular order of business and hear bills in file order. Unless there is an offer here before the file order.

We will take up to two primary witnesses in support and up to two primary witnesses in opposition for each Bill. These witnesses, these witnesses will have three minutes each to provide their testimony. All subsequent witnesses should state their name, their organization, and their position on the Bill only.

We do not have a quorum, so we will be conducting this as a Subcommitee and we are going to start with the first item, SB753 by Senator Cortese. Senator, when you're ready.

Well, thank you Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm here to present SB 753 and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. A Bill to modernize California's outdated shopping cart recovery law and give local governments tools they need to keep our streets, sidewalks, and waterways clear of abandoned carts.

SB753 simply allows cities and counties to direct, to directly return abandoned shopping carts to retailers rather than being forced to store them in impound areas for up to 30 days in those costly lots.

The Bill also allows local governments to recover actual documented costs, cost recovery as we call it, from retailers when they step in to retrieve or return a cart. Let me be clear, the government's already involved in this process and has been for years and years.

Through current state law, cities are already required to recover and store abandoned shopping carts. As I said, in 30 pound, 30 day impound areas, typically using public dollars under current law there are often they being the cities losing money doing so. Current law already allows cities and counties to recover their actual costs for impounding abandoned shopping carts.

SB753 simply allows cities and counties to also recover actual costs for retrieving and returning carts before impoundment. It allows local governments to pick up carts immediately and return them to retailers without the current three day notice requirement and also gives local governments flexibility to address repeated non compliance.

This Bill makes an inefficient system more responsive and cost effective, addressing the real and growing issues of abandoned shopping carts blocking streets, sidewalks, and communities, particularly in our urban suburban areas.

This Bill is sponsored by the City of San Jose and separately San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and supporters include other big city mayors, the League of California Cities, the California State Association of Counties, the California Contract Cities Association and more.

With us today we have San Jose Council Member Michael Mulcahy representing the City of San Jose, and I might add, in case there's question and answer, a longtime retail and real estate business person from the City of San Jose, Lifetime and Caroline.

Caroline Grinder, on behalf of the League of Cities, is also here to speak in support and Mr. Cruz is here for technical assistance on questions and answers at the appropriate time, I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Please.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Members of the Assembly Local Government Committee. My name is Michael Mulcahy. I'm a San Jose City Council Member for District six, and I'm here on behalf of the city in support of Senate Bill 753, which seeks to address the widespread impacts caused by abandoned shopping carts.

As a local leader, I hear from residents about these carts. They are a blight in our community, create hazards by blocking streets and sidewalks, and frequently end up in our creeks and waterways. I've been in business for many years as a commercial property owner and have worked with retail tenants to address the issue of abandoned shopping carts.

So I understand all too well we need a solution that keeps our cities clean as our residents deserve and expect, and treats the retailers fairly. I believe SB753 strikes that balance. San Jose's goal is to retrieve these carts and return them to their owners as efficiently as possible.

But state law makes the process burdensome and difficult, and under current law, cities must store these carts in an impound lot where they sit for up to 30 days or until a retailer retrieves them. This outdated, impractical process is challenging and expensive to implement, especially for large cities like the City of San Jose.

We would need to store hundreds of abandoned shopping carts at any given time. We believe there's a better, more effective way to retrieve carts and eliminate unnecessary delay and costs. SB753 seeks to modernize the law regulating the collection of abandoned shopping carts by providing local jurisdictions the option to return carts directly to retailers.

By picking them up immediately returning to them, this legislation achieves the right balance of creating an efficient, cost effective system to remove abandoned shopping carts while allowing cities to recover their costs for providing the service.

Up to a cap set in the statute, this legislation will modernize an outdated system and provide cities with a better tool for cleaning up streets, neighborhoods and our precious waterways. With that, I respectfully ask for your support for SB753. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Caroline Grinder. I'm here on behalf of the League of California Cities, which is proud to support SB753. Abandoned shopping carts are a growing problem across California's communities, blocking streets and sidewalks, polluting waterways and parks, and straining our city resources.

SB753 offers a common sense update to outdated laws that no longer reflect the scale or nature of the problem. Thank you. Thank you. Under current law, cities are prevented from retrieving abandoned carts until the retailer is notified and requires cities to store carts at an impound lot. This approach is inefficient, costly and burdensome.

You've heard from the City of San Jose, which is dealing with this issue at a really large scale. But smaller cities have similar experiences and concerns with existing law. In cities like Concord, residents and maintenance staff frequently encounter cards discarded in parks, residential neighborhoods and commercial areas.

In response, the city has implemented a dedicated reporting system just to manage the overwhelming volume of complaints and coordinate costly retrieval efforts. In the City of South San Francisco, they've identified abandoned carts as a direct threat to public safety, posing hazards to both pedestrians and drivers.

Cities agree that SB753 would finally create the flexibility for cities to act quickly and effectively. SB753 would allow our cities to bypass that costly impound process, returning carts directly to retailers, eliminating the unnecessary three day wait period and enabling the recovery of actual costs.

This would incentivize better collaboration between our retailers and our cities, ensuring that stolen property is returned quickly. SB 753 recognizes the reality on the ground. The current law has not kept pace with what cities are facing day to day in our communities. For these reasons, we're proud to support SB753 and we respectfully urge your aye vote.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Before we proceed with me toos switch his reach Forum. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

Carrillo. Here. Carillo. Present. Ta. Here. Ta. Present. Hoover. Pacheco. Here. Jacob. Present. Ramos. Ransom. Rubio. Rubio. Present. Stefani. Stefani. Present. Ward. Ward. Present. Wilson. Wilson. Present.

We have a quorum now. We'll continue those in support, me toos in support of SB753. Please name, affiliation, and position on the Bill.

Thank you. Chair Members Ashley Walker with Nosman on behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Water District in support for it.

Thank you Chair, Members. Moira Ta on behalf of San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and the City of San Diego. Support.

Mr. Chairman. Jason Gonzalez on behalf of the cities of Cupertino and Norwalk, in support. Thank you.

Caitlyn Leventhal on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition, please come to the desk.

Sorry.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. Support still in support.

Carrie Weston with the City of Concord and the City of Oakland in support.

Anybody else in support? Seeing no more support. Primary witnesses in opposition.

Good afternoon. Chair Carillo. Daniel Conway with the California Grocers Association here to express our strong opposition this afternoon. I think I heard the word modernization used, like 37 times in two minutes. But I think from reading the staff analysis, it's clear that this Bill is really more back to the future, right?

Where what we've had is we've had a well organized policy framework in the state for nearly three decades, and now we have an attempt to essentially undermine that. So I want to talk about how we got here.

We were contacted by the City of San Jose late last year with their concerns about shopping carts and other trash ending up in a river in the city, and the concerns that that was going to lead to a Clean Water Act violation and fines for the city. We said, that's terrible. How can we help?

Next thing we know, there was language moving through the Legislature to address this. I think our concern is that to the extent that this is about trash ending up in the river from homeless encampments, this Bill does nothing to address that, right? This does nothing to address encampments. It does nothing to address trash getting in there. Nothing.

What this Bill basically does is it gives cities one tool, the ability to charge us more to retrieve our stolen property. And I guess I just want to emphasize it from the perspective of our Members, like, this isn't litter, right? This isn't that we're being careless with our property. Our property is being stolen and taken off site.

And now the conversation we've been having with six months for the City of San Jose is how much are we willing to pay to get our stolen property back? And so I think for us, it's been problematic all along. That said, we've had several productive conversations with the Senator and his team, and we've tried.

We offered amendments to try to address their concerns around impoundment, around the timing of retrieving the car, things like that. And unfortunately, we got nowhere. And so for us, we're once again in strong opposition. At the end of the day, what we're really looking for is to maintain that right of retrieval, right.

If our property gets stolen, if somebody stole your ipad, like, shouldn't you at least have some opportunity to get it back without having to pay to get your stolen property back? Right. And then beyond that, you know, we really have concerns about cost controls. This proposal from the City of San Jose came about during their budget process.

Right. So Mayor Mahan has a homelessness problem and a budget problem. Right. And his solution is to try to solve both of those by charging retailers more to get their stolen property back. We don't think that that's a healthy dynamic or an appropriate set of incentives for anyone involved.

So we look forward to partnering with the City of San Jose and our partners at the League of Cities to address these concerns because they are, they can be real.

But in terms of just creating a new revenue stream for cities with budget problems, we don't want that because ultimately this is something that becomes a cost for our customers and your constituents. So with that, thank you so much for your time.

Good afternoon, Members. My name is Randall Lane. I'm with the California Retailers Association. First, I want to apologize for not getting our letter in on time, but I am here in respectful, opposed unless amended position on a highlight. We've had conversations with the Senator's staff and we continue to have those.

Our concerns primarily stem from the cost recovery that cities can can apply to retailers under this Bill, inclusive of the proposed amendments by the Committee. While we appreciate the cap on costs from what it previously was as having no cap, unfortunately, $500 per cart is fairly steep and actually costs more than nearly all carts.

Most importantly, we would like to allow our Members the first right to retrieval of the carts instead of competing with cities that will soon have a significant financial incentive to return carts at $500 a piece.

Additionally, it's unclear if the fine on here for carts not retrieved within three days can be that can be imposed per occurrence as defined in the Bill could be added on to that $500 actual cost recovery. So work. I'm kind of, I need to see what the language comes out to.

But that could possibly lead up to $650 for carts if they were out for three days. And arguably that could just in our view, be a cash grab opportunity at the expense of retailers having carts taken off their property.

Lastly, there is no consideration in the Bill or in the amendments of the location of carts that are inaccessible for retailers to retrieve, such as private property, easements prohibiting access, refusal to turn over, threats of violence, and so on. And that includes in waterways.

And I'll just add, I was actually in the Bay Area this weekend and I saw a shopping cart on BART, so I'm curious how that one would be retrieved as well and where it would be returned to.

So should a shopping cart be stolen from our stores, then dumped in an accessible area, retailers would then have to eat the price of the cart that is likely damaged depending on the location that is dumped at and addition to the $500 cost recovery levered by the city.

I want to highlight again that CRA is more than willing to continue to work and I think we could find some path forward. Appreciate the Senator and his staff. I appreciate the Committee but at this time we just ask for an opposition unless amended. Thank you.

Thank you. Any others that want to add on the opposition please come up to the mic. See no opposition. Taking it back to Committee Members. Questions? Comments? Assemblymember Ward.

Great. Thank you Senator and to our cities and representatives for bringing this issue forward. I thinking about I try to maybe deescalate you know some of the rationale and because what I see here is just a very kind of basic incident and transaction and who should pay for it, how are we going to remedy it.

So I'm nervous about the idea that we're supposed to find a grocer. They did not take their cart to the park. Right. They did not put it in there. I get you needed out of the park.

This is kind of like you know a lose lose situation here because we don't want it over here or it is causing a Clean Water Act issue in the stormwater channels or wherever it ended up. Right.

And so that comes on the public sector, it comes on taxpayers to have to be able to resolve and maybe we should think about ways to be able to make that hole and we know how it got from A to B and we're not going to able to cost recover, you know from that person.

It just it seems that a fine is a little bit unjust I guess because it wasn't their fault. How do I find somebody when it wasn't their fault being with it? Of course they don't want their cart to leave their property.

But I have heard in conversation leading up to this today that there is an openness or an interest.

I like to hear your level of commitment to be able to at least try to give them a chance to recover themselves so they don't even begin the process of needing to utilize up to $500 of public personnel to be able to recover in the first place, let alone the fine on top of that.

Thank you very much. Those are, you know, great clarifications to request and let me just do something I didn't do earlier. I know the Cheryl appreciate that. As make it clear that we're taking the Committee amendments on this Bill and the Committee amendments I thought went a long way toward Addressing some of this.

For example, they make it clear in the Bill that the city or county has to adopt an actual ordinance to allow cost recovery for the retrieval and the return of shopping carts. So there's that hearing.

And you know, the folks here, opposition or whoever the local folks are, have every opportunity, like they do at City Council meetings, to come in and address should there be a fee, should it be X, should it be applied citywide, should it be in certain areas, should it be waived in business districts, for example.

All that can be done at the local level with an ordinance. What we started to. Let me repeat the, let me indicate what the other two amendments are, just for everybody's benefit. The next amendment requires that the ordinance describe how the actual cost of retrieval will be determined. So that's clear.

The cap on actual cost recovery, no matter what it costs. If the city spends $400 fishing golf carts from a certain retailer out of the riparian corridor, the cap is $150 based on the amendments. And then there's a reinforcement.

The Bill now with the amendments reinstates a clear fine amount of $150 per abandoned shopping cart that's not retrieved three days after actual notice is provided to the card owner. So you can show up within that three day period and avoid that. There's, there's a lot of avoidance mechanisms in here. There's nothing in the Bill that stops.

And I want to be clear on this because, you know, somebody representing the opposition who I don't believe is here today, reached out to me this morning and just, and said, can't the retailers have sort of the first right of retrieval? And I think, I think, you know, this in terms of your question, they have that.

The question is, are they going to go get their cart before the city sends somebody out to do that or has to send somebody out to do that? Because it's blocking a, whatever, it's blocking a right of way. But that is the case right now, the local ordinance.

One of the reasons we took that First Amendment is to allow in the local ordinance in that process for a discussion, a more articulated discussion, depending on small city, large city, all those different things we see in cities, what should be happening, you know, in terms of any grace period. For example, the cities don't.

This Bill is not a mandate to change from current state law. The cities don't. If the cities don't adopt an ordinance, the default is these retailers will wait if they don't show up upon that initial notice for 30 days to get their cart back, that can't be. Time is money. That can't be a great option.

And the inspiration for the Bill in the first place, you know, coming out of San Jose was this is not helping anybody. We're taking carts, we're ending up holding them on very expensive property for 30 days and nobody's getting to use them, retailers, customers or anybody else.

So I'm open to answer your question, to discussing and I had one of those discussions this morning. I mean, is there some kind of clarification or intent language that makes what I just said clear that you.

That if a city wants to create either by zone or just by its General ordinance, some sort of a grace period, they can. I don't think we should be mandating that here in Sacramento, statewide for, you know, thousands of cities large and small, not knowing exactly what their circumstances are. Okay. And I don't think we should be.

I just want to say I'm open to that. Like I was this morning on the phone call, but I'm, I think a non starter is that the city subsidized this process by mandate of the state, any city. That just shouldn't happen.

Okay. So in your response, you had said that on your amendments. I think that you have on your table here because I'm looking at the Committee amendments on page six of our analysis. So we haven't yet really nailed down whether or not there needs, you said a three day notice to the retailers.

But I had also heard a discussion earlier for 48 hours.

There's, there's already a three day notice in state law before this gets triggered. Right, right. Okay. Three days notice in state law.

If, if there's. And so what is so relying on state law and so with that notice. Because then you are. That's right. Then you're motivated to say, okay, well we got 72 hours, we have to go out there and get it and I don't want to get fined.

And, and to your point, assembled Member, that's essentially the current framework. And it works because at this point, you know, this law has been in effect for almost 40 years. And so you have third party vendors who basically contract with jurisdictions or contract with retailers.

And they're usually like, they're like Seal Team 6 out there picking up these carts and bringing them back by the end of the day. So that is essentially. That's currently working now. Exactly.

Does that change if this Bill goes into it or do we need other amendments to make sure that that step is reflected?

That's what we're looking for is essentially amendments that can maintain that window and that opportunity.

The process is not free. Assembly Member but the implication is we've got a situation now that's free under this current state law. Notice process and the Senator wants to come in and create a revenue stream for the cities. First of all, the city. Cities are charging now. It's not a revenue stream.

You're doing cost recovery. You're not actually like putting anything into your General Fund. I get that. I'm still having a disconnect.

Under either option, they're going to pay. It's just a question of whether or not.

You know, they're, they're paying after 30 days or not, basically.

Right.

What's that?

And there's some variation. We put a cap, a different cap on.

You know, I hear that either way they're going to pay. Option A. Is that under the existing process or the existing process plus the improvements here, they still have the opportunity to go out there and get the item first, which is going to be the least costly path to resolution here, right? That's right, Senator. And that.

And that is retained.

Can I ask. So just to clarify, under existing law and the way it works in San Jose and other cities, the underlying statute we're trying to address says that a city retrieves the carts, takes it back to huge impound yard and then they notify the grocer and the grocer has three days to pick it up.

If they pick it up within those three days, there's actually no charge. So in San Jose, it's effectively a free cart retrieval service for the grocers that they bring back to the yard.

What we're trying to do, and that's not working in San Jose, and the councilman can attest to that, is to try to create the incentive for the grocer to move more quickly is to put in place and there's two paths.

The Bill says you can stick with existing law and you can any city can choose to say we're going to give them the three days, we're going to pick it up for free. We're not going to charge them anything. They can still do that.

The amendments that the chair and the consultant required of the Senator, which I think was a good one, is a city has to pass an ordinance and the ordinance has to clearly be transparent and how they come up with a cost recovery fee. There's, there's all kinds of constitutional protections.

There's underlying statutes that limit how much you can actually charge. The $500 was an amendment from the chair just to say that there is a limit, the actual cost will be far less than that. It has to be justified. The grocers can participate at the local level. Not every city is going to have an ordinance.

So it simply says the cities can pick them up and take it back to the brochure and charge a nominal fee and limited by a cost recovery mechanism. So that's effectively what the Bill does. I hope that helps with your question.

Can I, can I just make one point of clarification?

Can we just stop there going back and forth? Did they answer your question?

Well, I'm not sure.

Okay.

Is the ability to have, whether it is a 48 hours or I'm hearing this existing three day notice to allow them to be able to go out there in the most least costly way, be able to resolve this issue. Is that still on the books? If this Bill makes it to the governor's desk, yes.

But it has to be, it has to be negotiated with the actual ordinance that's adopted.

If that enables an ordinance at the city level. I'm sorry. Sorry. And that ordinance can have the provision in it you're describing or not local control.

But it doesn't.

That provision is currently in state law. Is that what you're saying? Yes. So why don't we just retain that. You've captured this.

Thank you, Assembly Member.

Because that, because that provision is tied to a 30 day impound, it's intended to encourage, to try to encourage them to come forward so that to save the cities of 30 day impound cost. It wasn't a good statutory scheme in the first place. It the real answer to your question.

I was always a fair protection. Again, like fair protection. Should you say it's a fair protection. Because it gives them the chance to be able to correct the issue first. And rather than have to also assume more fees on top of that when they're probably getting damaged material back.

The best way for most retailers, and I am one right, I am one of the situation and you're welcome to see if we have violations on our property, we don't for the last 30 years is to make sure that you have the folks in place, the security in place, the provisions in place that people aren't walking off of your shopping carts or if they do that, you go retrieve them yourself.

There's no cost if the city isn't there retrieving it for you. The question is whether or not the taxpayers up and down the State of California should be subsidizing retailers for the work they're doing to gather the cart for them and say, hey, it's over here. Come and get it. Okay.

I'm saying that's, I'm just being honest with you. As far as the negotiations go on, any remaining amendments that I'm saying, I think it still has to be a matter of local control, but we can certainly put language in the Bill and I don't want to negotiate a negotiate amendment in this Committee.

I'm sure the sheriff would want me to do that, but we can do that before conclusion of this Bill. Intent language that encourages the cities to create a grace period that's similar to the one in, in the default state law.

I, I can concluding I can put that language in the Bill, but that's different than forcing the cities to, okay, actually subsidize.

I think I've heard everything now.

And just to conclude that I would like to see that retained in the condition of being able to implement a new structure here at the city as well, because at least that gives them the right to be able to try to resolve the issue and that's actually least costly on everybody in the first place.

And then, yes, the rest of this all starts to flow and makes sense. And I do think the state has a role to be able to codify that as well because we're setting the conditions for which this ordinance can actually be implemented in the first place.

So I think without that, is the local government going to elect that to be able to allow for a waiver? Maybe, maybe not. And then I think the whole fairness argument starts to fall apart.

So if that's your commitment to be able to continue to work on that, that, that, that, that, that, that structure, retaining that structure to trigger this, this, be this new, this new structure, this new opportunity for the city, then, then I'm there with you.

But, but if it's not, then I, I'm not going to be able to support the bill.

Look, I can't, I can't tell you I have agreement. Assembly Members.

As you well know from opposition.

Sure.

Until we have some language, amendment language that they sign off on and I sign off on.

I had a discussion this morning with a representative who's not here today who represents significant retail interests, proprietary interests, who seemed fine with intent language that would encourage direct in the, in the hearing, the public hearing process and the ordinance making process.

For this kind of a grace period to be taken up, it has to be on the table, as we would say. I think that's as, I think that's as far as we're going to be get. I'm just trying to be honest.

I don't think, you know, an actual mandate of, of the old structure is going to work.

one minute.

But, but I think, I think we have, we have some agreement on that. We just need to see in the coming days if, if everybody who's whoever's in opposition agrees to that.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you, Assembly Member. Assembly Member Pacheco.

So thank you for answering the question. You don't have the answer? Yep. Anybody else?

I'm working on.

Assembly Member Pacheco.

Thank you. And this is, the shopping carts is something that we experienced in the City of Downey and when I was on City Council, so it was also a frustration that I dealt with and my council colleagues dealt with on City Council.

So what we dealt with and this was like probably before COVID So this was several years ago, 2017 or so, we were dealing with situation where you know, people were stealing these shopping carts and they were just abandoning them, abandoning them throughout the city. And so it was creating a nuisance.

Residents were complaining and so we had to start retrieving them. So in Downey alone and I just recently reached out to my assistant city manager. Currently city is paying approximately $16,000 per year to retrieve these shopping carts. So it's an issue that, that we have in my Assembly District.

In fact, one of my cities did submit a letter of support, the City of Norwalk. So I think something needs to be figured out. I had a question about that three day notice, bringing it back to that.

So with respect to that three day notice, isn't there a way to like put implement that, that we will keep the notice, that three day notice period. But maybe the cities adopt an ordinance and if they don't specify something in the ordinance, it should revert back to state law.

Is there, is that a possibility or what's the rationale behind not giving some kind of notice in allowing the grocers to retrieve their, their shopping carts? I'm just curious to hear.

Yeah, I think the rationale is really pretty basic. It's that you think of a city like San Jose with a 1 million population or Los Angeles, for example, you know, essentially we would, if we mandate the three day notice or continue to mandate that they make that notice to try to encourage the retailers to get their asap, that itself is a cost and expense.

I mean, first of all, they've got to go out there. There is state law that says that the cart has to have, you know, the name and the contact on it. They have to go out there and do that, take that inventory. Right? Somebody's got to do that. I'm just saying that's just not a free task.

They've got to do that and then they've got to come back to the city and issue a notice, a legal notice to, you know, to the grocer. Your identified cart is out here, you can imagine, in a big city sounds like maybe even in the one you're describing, a medium sized city or small city that's going to add up in one day.

In the City of San Jose, for example, you might be talking 75 or 100 carts that are just rolled into creek ways or, you know, expressways or whatever they are interchanges. And so they.

To mandate that they need to go out and do that so that at their cost, at our cost, taxpayer costs, so that the retailer who owns it, you know, can get a hall pass. not to pay anything is just the fundamental question there.

Or should they be entitled, like on almost every other ordinance and code enforcement provision that we have, a local government, should they be entitled to basic cost recovery? Here's our actual cost. We don't want, we're not trying to make money on this.

This is what it costs to send, you know, employee X out there, identify this and pay for postage and send you the notice or whatever the requirement is. All that's got to be articulate.

What we said is it gets complicated to try to do that from here, you know, with sort of the meat cleaver of legislation that we, we believe that the local ordinance needs to take that up and they need to make that decision. And it might not be, it might not even be the same in a big city, for every section of the city.

And then next question would be, what is the time frame in San Jose? What is the time frame it takes for like the grocers to get their shopping carts? What is the typical timeframe? How long does it normally take them?

Can we have Mr. Mulkay respond to that?

Yeah,

Is that all right if I do that? Let me just answer that question a little bit differently from the standpoint of what San Jose's expectations would be, is that we're looking to create some accountability here. We know that we have national grocers in our district that have just written off 40% of their carts on a quarterly basis.

So they've sort of, they're not motivated to go out and be proactive to retrieve these carts. So what San Jose is really interested in is creating that time period where we're all. We're hoping that our retailers will be out there looking for carts, too.

They may hire the same vendor that San Jose will hire to be out doing that same thing. If they get to them first, great. Our main objective is, when we see it, we want to know that we can take action to pull those out of the creeks, to pull those off the sidewalk.

And there's a system in place to notify the retailer for them to come get them. If they don't come get them and they've written those off, there should be some cost to that retailer for having left those for the city to deal with. If they come and get them, I don't want to have to find them.

And I think that that's where we have our local ordinance, some leeway. Because ultimately the goal is to get them off the street, get them off the creeks, get them out of the neighborhoods, and return them to the retailers.They decide not to ever pick them up, San Jose shouldn't be bearing the cost of that in the long run.

So from what I hear you say is you are in agreement with providing some kind of notice to, like, the retailer or grocer.

Absolutely.

And so it goes back to the original question, how long does it right now take for a grocer or retailer to pick up their shopping carts? How long is the time period for them to pick it up?

It's indeterminate.

The city actually does not have an ordinance in place. And that's a key detail that we somehow have not mentioned in this, that the City of San Jose, which is here trying to change current state law, does not comply with current state law.

Let's stop the back and forth. Again, we're asking the questions.

So I just want to know how. Long does it take right now for the grocer? If that information. If you don't have that information, that's okay. But I just. I'm curious to know.

Yeah.

How long does it normally take right now in the City of San Jose for, like, the grocers or retailers to obtain back their shopping cart? Approximately.

We can get you the answer. I don't know if we have, I don't have with me that clear answer to that question.

So thank you for answering the question. You don't have the answer. Anybody else?

Okay, wait. I'm going to take it back to either the grocers or the retailers. So what you would like to see is some kind of notice to be provided so that you can retrieve the shopping carts or is it that you would proactively go out and retrieve these shopping carts.

But what is that whole, do you want 24 hour notice to be able to retrieve them. Retrieving them from the city or retrieving them from the location out in the city?

So candidly, that's one of the points that we are flexible on and I think that's part of our, it's interesting hearing some of the points that are being made here of what we'd be happy to discuss the impound time or the fine amounts or things like that. Because we had multiple meetings with this piece of paper.

We were offering those kind of amendments saying, hey, it doesn't need to be 30 days, maybe it can be shorter, things like that. So we've tried to work with the author and the sponsors to address these issues, but have just not had the luck.

But I think from our perspective, like I just mentioned, first of all, the City of San Jose does not have a current law in place. So you're asking a question that they don't have an answer to because they're like, we don't actually currently do that.

They just passed an ordinance in April, I believe that would be enacted in January under current law. But they're essentially betting that something will happen here this year so they can raise the money on it. Right? So they don't, they don't currently comply with state law.

I think beyond that though, to your question, we would happily work with the author and sponsors to kind of come up with, with, with ways to truly modernize this ordinance. Right? Like if it needs to go from 50 to $100, that's fine.

If it needs to go from 30 days to 20 days, sure, we can have that conversation. The problem is we never had a chance to have that conversation.

And this is, this came from the Senate. So the conversations weren't held in the Senate?

Yep, we've been having conversations since the day when a lot of work has gone into this tremendous amount of work.

The sticking point, as I think the last potential amendment, is whether or not the retailers pay or not for the retrieval during the first 48 hours after. The notice question that some of you have been asking is it's already in the, it's already in the bill. They already are going to receive notice.

The only question is does you know, do they have to pay cost recovery for this work, which is akin to code enforcement work or not? Are they exempted from that? That's really, in the earlier question, I was opening the door to trying to give the cities more direction that they need to affirmatively take up that issue each time they have an ordinance.

If I can just set the record straight as I was a member of the San Jose City Council from 2001 through 2008, the city has an ordinance, it was superseded by this state law.

It's still on the books, but it's superseded by this state law because the state came along and preempted the city's law, which was in the early 2000s with this 30 day impound period. I think probably would have it's not fair to speculate is that folks in Sacramento said let's not have.

I don't think the original question was answered.

I would say can I answer?

So again, again. Let's not do that. Let's not do that.

So I asked the question of have conversations been had in the Senate?

Conversations have been happening with opposition as recently as this morning at.

No, no, in the Senate.

In the Senate process, you have conversations getting your bill to the Senate Committee? I think that's your question.

That's my question.

Yeah. We've this is not a gut in the man. We've worked this bill all the way since.

Okay. I'll take it to opposition conversations been had with the Senator's office since Senate. Since it was in the Senate.

Yeah. From when this bill is introduced. I've had conversations, Retailers have had conversations with the Senator's office. So we've been having these conversations, at least from our end.

I just want to say one thing.

I want to hear from.

Yeah, no, and we have and I want to acknowledge that. But again, I think the frustration is we heard their concerns around the cost, the impoundment, all those things. And so we tried to come up with proactive solutions.

We tried to come up with like a menu of possible changes and never were we really given a straight response to some of these suggestions. And so I think that's to make.

I just want to make clear most cities can choose to do what exactly what's happening today. If they want to pick up the cards and give a notice and not charge them, they can do that. If they want to provide that service for free, they can do that. In San Jose, it's not working. What this bill does is give one option.

It allows the city to go out and pick up a cart so that it's not sitting there for a week or a month, whatever it is. Because, right now, there's no incentive. It's a business model now, because the maximum five is $50. Just leave the cart. Let the city take care of it.

So what we're trying to change is the city can go out and pick up the cart, take it to the grocer, drop it at their lot, and charge them whatever it is, $25, $30, $15, whatever it is. There's a limit on what we can charge. We want to be proactive in the city in addressing neighborhood beautification.

And in your community, if there's not enough incentive, it provides a tool to say, we're going to pick them up and we're going to take them to you. It's not $500. It's a cost.

Thank you, Mr. Cruz.

So I'm just going to make a comment. This is an essential tool for the cities, but we need to figure this out. We need to work with opposition. We need to work with our grocers because they also. They're vital to our communities. And so we just need to figure this out.

And I am supporting your bill today, but we really just need to figure it out because we can't have the shopping carts everywhere in our cities. And it's just something that we need to take care of. This should have been taken care of probably a long time ago, but we really just need to figure it out.

So I hope, and I think you've already committed, Senator, to working with the opposition. So I'm asking you to work with the opposition. I will be supporting today, and I'm looking forward to the final outcome.

But I will reserve my vote for the floor once I see the final outcome of this bill, because I really want us to all to, like, sit down and work it out and have meaningful conversations so that way our cities win, and also our retailers and our grocers also win.

It's got to be a try to see how we can do a win win for everybody. And that means compromise. So hopefully we can all sit down and work together. Thank you.

Anybody else? Assembly Member Rubio and then Stefani.

I'm sorry, I thought that the whole cost recovery was already settled. I think from what I understand, the only point of contention right now is the time frame. I thought that the cost was already part of the negotiation. Am I not Correct.

No. So to answer the question that Assembly Member Pacheco asked, in terms of what are we ultimately looking for here, it's to maintain the actual notice. Right? So that we are told by these jurisdictions there it's the right of retrieval. Right? Which is currently 72 hours. And we're prepared to kind of talk about that.

And then it's some kind of cap on cost. And I think coming prior to this hearing that the there was no cap on cost. Right? It was unlimited. In terms of what it is. Now, I think the $500 number is unreasonable because for like a city like San Jose that has apparently like 2,000 carts, they collect every year, that's like $1.0 million in revenue that they're just going to get to sit on.

So we're kind of back to the conversation that Assembly Member Ward was having. We want to be accountable. We want to be able to retrieve our stolen property, and we do that. And so I think for us, we want to be able to maintain that.

And what we don't want to do is create a new revenue source for local governments because respectfully, I was a Chief of Staff to Mayor. I know the League of Cities. You guys are great at putting together model ordinances, pushing out email blasts, having great conferences. We remember Skinoza.

Yeah, but I haven't been in a Committee room where at home and attacks were allowed.

Okay, lets. That's not the question.

So. So there is, I guess.

Okay, let's focus on the question that Assembly Member Pacheco asked.

From what I hear, there's one major point of contention is that time frame, because we all. Look, I'm going to bring campaigns, for example. We do campaign signs and we have ordinances for that. We get a notice and they say if you don't retrieve it by, you know, it's $5 fine every single day. So is.

But it seems like the cost is already built into to this bill. Am I correct?

Yes, we have a cost structure built into the bill. The bill requires an ordinance to be enacted by the city.

But I know we're getting into the.

But the cost structure can be modified in the ordinance itself.

Right.

These are up to amounts.

Yes, I know. I understand that. The thing is that what I'm getting frustrated over is we keep talking about we shouldn't mandate this, but we should mandate that. But everything we do here is a mandate. Like everything that happens at this level were mandated for everybody.

So it's not news to anybody that any bill that passes through here is a mandate. So saying that the cities can do their own ordinance. Well, if that were the case, they could do their own ordinance for everything. And that's not what we do here. What we do here is mandate for the whole entire state.

And we don't like mandates, but that's essentially what we do up here. And so that's the part that gets, is getting convoluted here and it's getting frustrating because, you know, in other situations we say, oh, we shouldn't mandate, we should do local control except for, you know, when we don't do local control and we mandate things.

So we do both here. So I just want to know what the major point of contention is. From my understand it's the time frame that there's a notice and if they don't retrieve it within the three days, then there's a fine.

And what I'm hearing is that you said or you indicated that it's already, if the ordinance is not passed that it's already, it reverts back to state law. Well then why, if it does, then why don't we just write it in there?

Like what's the, I don't understand what the argument about putting in the 48 hour, the three days, whatever the 48 hours in this particular bill.

That's, that's a request by the opposition. We have taken amendments, Committee amendments that require the local ordinance.

So that. But what I'm hearing.

The bill originally.

So that no, it's not going to be in this bill is what I'm hearing.

What is not going to be in?

This, the 48 hour.

I assured Mr. Ward we'll continue to discuss. The eight hour grace period.

Senator Cortese with all due respect, the con, the we're, we've done this a long time and we know that at this point we're in, you know, at the end of this, you know, the bill hearings.

So the opportunity to do that is today because I already know that we can, you know, if we are not interested in something we can say, oh well, I tried and it didn't work. That's why we have these hearings to have these debates here.

Because once it gets here, then people hope and pray that in Appropriations it gets fixed and if it doesn't, we hope and pray that it happens on the Floor and we can reserve our votes to the Floor.

But why not take care of it already so that we don't have to have these arguments on the Floor about, you know, what you could have done or should have done or they didn't. I think we create a lot of our own problems by not addressing the issues in Committee. That's why we have the Committee hearings.

At least that's my understanding. And I don't want to argue about, you know, timeframes. You didn't do this or you did. And then we're having this debate back and forth over, you know, who's right. I don't want to know who's right. I want to know that what we're doing here is addressing all of the issues.

And I understand that cities have the ability to do the ordinances, but again, it's true with everything else. What we're doing here is setting a structure for the whole entire state. And then if cities want to do above, you know, whatever the ordinance is, then that's their choice, to your point, that they have to opt in.

But if they don't, we already are laying this groundwork for them or the framework for them that it's already going to happen. So that's where I'm getting frustrated because we're going back and forth and it doesn't seem like it's a outrageous request. You know, the money situation, you know, I understand the cost of recovery for everything.

You know, again, I mentioned the lawn signs as an example. We all get notices. If we don't pick them up, you get fined and that's fine. But the first right of recovery, when you call, you know, when I get a call, then they're saying, you pick it up. If you don't, you're going to get fined.

That should be the same with, you know, with that the, the grocers or whoever, the retailers should have the first right of recovery. And then, but write the, the 48 hour recovery period in the bill. Like I said, it feels like we're just mad at each other and we're just arguing for the sake of argument.

And I don't want to do that. I want us to. The whole purpose of this Committee is to try and figure this out so that we don't have to go into, you know, the Appropriations or the Floor and get this whole conversation. And so again, to me, it just doesn't seem like an unreasonable request. That's, you know, just my opinion.

Right. Hey, I came in here told that I need to accept Committee amendments. We've accepted the Committee amendments.

You have.

It sounds like ad hoc individual Members of the Committee might be asking off the Dais to stop recess or something and try to write the legal language for an additional amendment. I, I don't understand that.

I'm a little confused. It's not, it's not typically done.

So let me just, now.

Obviously that would have to be.

You know, my comments. Thank you for accepting the Committee amendments. Appreciate that. And I believe that there's still an opportunity to continue with those conversations. As it was stated, we all reserve the right to act differently on the Floor when the bill comes out. If it gets out of this Committee.

Yes.

Now when every city, obviously all communities have this issue with shopping carts, not something new, every city also has mechanisms to retrieve those shopping carts putting in on the retailer, the store owner, whoever it is, a pharmacy. And those are typically done through the entitlement process.

So if it's a CUP, conditional permit, there are conditions in that approval in that land use entitlement. One of those conditions is that there should be a shopping cart retrieval plan. That's typical. So if the store, a supermarket or pharmacy, anybody that provides shopping cart for the customers, they have to comply with those conditions of approval.

If they don't, then that entitlement can go back for review. At the council level or at the planning Commission level. There is a risk of pulling that entitlement. That's not something that anybody wants. The cities don't want that. Residents don't want that. We want to be able to go do our shopping.

Cities don't want to do that either because that's a form of tax revenue for them. Obviously the industry does not want to do that either. So to address the drastic solution when these things happen, cities have the opportunity to take it back for review. That's a lose lose for everybody.

It's already been stated that it's an issue across the state. Cities already have that mechanism in place. If a city hires a third party program to hire somebody to go pick them up, that's in the benefit of everybody. The cities have their streets clean, there's no issues with that.

The grocers have the opportunity to retrieve those cars and they're complying with their CUP with the conditions of approval. Striking that balance again, whatever the cost associated is for cities that have to do that because they have to provide that safety and appearance of their cities is a fair assessment. That's what we're trying to value here.

To your question on accepting the community amendments, those are amendments that we ask you to accept and you have done so to address further concerns of. You keep working on this conversation with both sides. That's still possible, right?

Yes.

But we're here to review the proposal in front of us with the Committee amendments that you've accepted.

Yes.

But again, I just want to emphasize that the mechanism is already in place for those that violate their conditions of approval by not retrieving those shopping carts, by having a shopping cart retrieval plan. That's the bottom line. Again, cities don't want to do that. That's the worst possible way to solve the issue.

Nobody wants to do that. But I also believe that Assembly Member Stefani had some comments or questions.

Thank you, Chair. My comments and questions have changed quite a bit since I entered. First of all, I want to thank Senator Cortese for accepting the amendments. And I want to acknowledge the concerns that were expressed by Assembly Member Ward in terms of the right of retrieval.

I will be supporting this today with the hope that these issues that have been brought up can continue to be worked on with the grocers and the retailers. And sounds like we have opportunity to do that outside of this Committee in Approps or on the Floor. So amendments can be made. And I do want to acknowledge you.

I'm probably the only one here on this panel that has actually worked for the City of San Jose in 2006, when you were on the council. I worked for Vice Mayor Cindy Chavez at the time.

So I had the benefit of actually working in San Jose and then contrast that with then working in the City and County of San Francisco, for 17.9 years as a legislative aide and as a supervisor on the Board of Supervisors.

And I raise that because each city's different and each city is going to have a different solution to this problem. It is a problem, as Assembly Member Pacheco expressed, how it affects Downey. So each city is going to be able to craft a solution to this problem.

And I recognize that in the bill and I thank you for amending it to make it optional for cities to even engage in a retrieval process at all. So, you know, like I said, San Francisco is very different. We have a different dynamic. We have food security issues.

We have grocery stores closing down in areas where it's very difficult for people to get to a grocery store. And for San Francisco to make it more difficult on grocers, I don't think the Board of Supervisors would engage in something like that.

I know that I probably wouldn't on the board because it's so expensive anyway to operate a business in San Francisco. So I know that my locality probably will not engage in the same type of mechanism that the City of San Jose will, and I respect that. We are all different. We come from different areas.

So I will be supporting it today with the understanding there are some outstanding issues that have been articulated by many on this panel. And I'm hoping that maybe cooler minds can prevail and we can, you know, retreat from this and go back and really try to come up with something that we all support. So thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member Stefani. Assembly Member Ransom.

I'm going to be really brief and try not to be redundant. I think I'm wondering what the concern is about an amendment that would provide a notice. So I come from a city where on my City Council, what we did was we did have a, the city would, you know, contact people, give them an opportunity.

And I want to make sure that we are being mindful that these shopping carts are not leaving because the stores are taking the shopping carts. In our community, it would be homeless folks, and they would take the carts. And sometimes when the, when you found the condition that maybe the grocer doesn't want the cart back. Right?

Because maybe it's something, it's more expensive to take it back. In that case, somebody needs to deal with a nuisance. But I do feel that it is important, especially when we're dealing with businesses. This is not happening because of their negligence or nuisance. This is happening because people are taking the shopping carts off of the property.

And I don't think that it is fair to allow a city to, you know, impose something without giving them an opportunity to retrieve what's actually stolen property. And so I have problems with the, the inability or the refusal to accept giving a notice.

And that is a concern for me because I want to make sure that we're crafting legislation that is fair to all involved. So I just wanted to go on record with that. Thank you.

Thank you. See nobody else in the Committee with questions or comments. Is there a motion to move the Bill? Is there a second? First and a second. Would you like to close, Senator?

Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I won't engage in further robust discussion in my close. But, you know, I just again want to repeat that there. The government already is involved in requiring that these carts be retrieved or there's consequences for that. All laid out in state statute. It's not something new.

We're not, you know, just decide to wake up one morning in January and come after businesses. There's a couple of us up here testifying, who have extensive, extensive experience with retail, both property owner standpoint and the retailer standpoint. So I would suppose beyond some of the individuals who are testing in opposition. But we could have further discussions.

The bottom line is we will continue to try to close this gap about whether a 48 hour notice should be. Should be free, should be not free as a matter of state law, or should be, you know, taken up by the locals, which is the way we have it now.

And you have my commitment that we'll keep working on that. I think we've been working on this bill back and forth with various representatives of opposition, literally on a daily basis right up to this morning. So we'll keep doing that and we would appreciate your confidence in us to get that done. And I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Senator, thank you for presenting your bill today. I thank you for working with the Committee to place some guardrails on how much can be charged to retailers, including a cap on the actual cost, which was one of the amendments.

While I don't believe that the existing process for shopping cart retrieval is sufficient, I am sympathetic to the concerns of the retailers as I've expressed it. Please continue to work, retailers, which you've agreed on. And with the amendments, I will be voting aye. The motion is due pass as amended. Secretary, please call the roll.

[ROLL CALL]

Congratulations. Thank you. Go south.

Thank you.

Moving on to item number two on the agenda. SB 445 by Senator Wiener. Senator, when you're ready. When you're ready, Senator. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Colleagues, I think we're going to switch out shopping carts for trains today, if that's okay. Nothing against shopping carts. They're very important.

Colleagues, I'm here to present Senate Bill 445, which is focused on moving high speed rail along more expeditiously by trying to expedite third party permits and permissions that are so essential for this project being able to move forward. I want to say when this bill first started, it was a very different bill.

The bill I introduced earlier in the year applied to all transit systems, any kind of multi jurisdictional rail or bus line that would require permits from cities or utilities, telecoms, cable companies, et cetera. And it put a 30 day shot clock on those permits. I thought it was a great idea.

Not everyone thought it was a great idea. So we hit the pause on that and agreed to work, continue to work with the Senate committees and with the three Assembly committees on a good approach. And we, once it got over to the Assembly, we took a different approach which is the approach in the bill which is about requiring early engagement from high speed rail.

Requiring high speed rail to issue regulations that set structure around these third party type of third party engagement and adopt a model of binding arbitration when there are disputes. So so that decisions can be made quickly and we limited the bill only to high speed rail.

I am interested in the future on working on a broader transit approach because other transit systems do experience these problems.

But high speed rail is time sensitive because we know it's been in the news a lot and frankly it's been a real black eye for California that the project which continues to have voter support according to polling has moved along so slowly.

We need to get this done for the future of the state but also to show that we can deliver large projects. And I want to just be clear about what this bill the period of time when this bill goes into effect for high speed rail and when it used to include other projects.

This is about when we as a state have decided that we are going to do a project and we've approved the formal approvals, environmental clearance under CEQA, the funding or at least partial funding.

When we when we have decided we're doing a project in this case high speed rail and provided funding for it, are we going to allow 100 different entities to be able to veto it?

Because that's a system we have right now where any city or water district or special district that where some sort of encroachment permit is required or a utility or telecom that may be a wire has to be moved or some sort of infrastructure change has to be made, we effectively give them a veto because they can just not respond or drag their feet.

Sometimes for good reason. Maybe they have good reasons, sometimes not good reasons. And there is nothing that in this case high speed rail can do about it.

And it's not the only reason why high speed rail has been slowed down, but it is absolutely one of the reasons according to the inspector general report that came out earlier this year. So colleagues, this is a good bill worthy of support.

If the bill passes out of this Committee, we will be going this afternoon to the Utilities and Energy Committee having simultaneous hearings. I've never of heard had that before, but I didn't realize that was a thing.

But apparently it is from time to time and in utilities and energy we've agreed with the chair, in consultation with Chair Wilson and Chair Carillo that we will be we've already removed the IOUS from the mandatory binding regulation arbitration piece and we'll be also classifying other utilities like POUs in the same public owned utilities in the same category.

We also have and I'm grateful that all three chairs and both Senate chairs have agreed that over the summer we're going to work on this to really construct the best possible bill to try to move this project forward in a way that's fair to all stakeholders, but that also understands that we have to all be we need to all be rowing in the same direction when it comes to high speed rail.

And so I'm grateful to all the collaboration and I respectfully ask for your aye vote. With me today to testify is Keith Dunn with the Building and Construction Trades Council and Marc Vukcevich with Streets for All.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members Marc Vukcevich with Streets for All. SB 445 directly addresses one of the most persistent and costly problems affecting public infrastructure third party permitting delays. So today, the process for securing permits and approvals from utilities and local governments and other third parties is fragmented, inconsistent and onerous.

These third parties, some public, some private, are essential for the delivery of projects like high speed rail. Yet oftentimes they face no statutory deadlines and most importantly, little incentive to act quickly. That means multi year delays for something as simple as reviewing a relocation plan or signing off on a design.

This isn't an issue unique to high speed rail, it's systemic. In LA Metro, for an example, has found that getting permits and clearances from other agents agencies often adds 12 to 18 months for project timelines. And even this can this can even apply to some of the most modest pedestrian and bike safety infrastructure projects.

These delays are expensive and deeply counterproductive. Each month of delays increases labor and material costs, inflates project budgets and diminishes the return on public investment investments. Most importantly, these bottlenecks delay the public benefit for taxpayers that the taxpayers are demanding of the state.

By requiring high speed rail to adopt clear enforceable standards and regulations developed in consult in consultation with utilities, cities and other stakeholders, it ensures that early engagement happens, responsibilities are clearly defined and that projects don't get held hostage by foot dragging or red tape.

Every month we let third party permitting drag on, taxpayers lose millions of dollars and Californians wait longer for cleaner, faster transportation. This bill is the first to give high speed rail project hard timelines and early engagement rules and a backstop dispute process, the same playbook Caltrains has used for decades for freeways since the 1950s. I urge your aye vote thank you.

Yes, sir. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mr. Chair Keith Dunn on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council as well, the District Council of Iron Workers for the State of California. I guess first I'd just like to say a little cautionary tale. You sign up to work with Senator Wiener. I guess you get to work over summer recess as well.

So all of you be careful as you work with my good friend to my left. I would just say that, you know, as you build linear infrastructure through developed California, you are going to interact with other entities. Those entities are utilities, special districts, everything that the Senator has said,

I would like to tell those who you'll hear from in just a minute. You know, we are not trying to impede them, restrict them them or tell them exactly what to do. What we are saying is that relationships take communication, that communication sometimes needs a jump start. And that's what this is.

We'd like to have discussions with them about how to interact on their systems with this system. And it's important because as has been mentioned, this has caused millions of dollars of delays. High Speed Rail is the easiest to point to because it's been documented and I've been involved in this process since before the authority was in existence.

But I would tell you that it's important that we're having these conversations. It won't be the first. We're going to get to work on this over the next month. And we do want to work closely with those who have concerns. And again, we're not trying to tell them that their systems are not important.

What we're saying is we'd like to come to a point where we can have some certainty in time frames and what's expected and how much it may or may not cost and how we interact with them. So as this bill moves forward, I'd ask for your support.

As mentioned, we're going to get to do this again, again in very short order. And with that, I'd like to ask for your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Those in support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Mr. Chair and Members Matt Broad for the California Conference of Machinists in support. Thank you.

Robert Pearsall, US High Speed Rail, our partnerships director, California political director in strong support of this measure.

Katie McCammon, Climate Action California in support.

Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY in support.

Jordan Grimes, on behalf of Green Belt alliance, in support.

[unintelligible] Tang, American Council of Engineering Companies, in support.

Gavin Roth, Santa Cruz YIMBY in support.

Kyle Kelly, Neighborly Santa Cruz, in support.

See no one else in support. Principal primary opposition all right, Good afternoon, Chair and Members.

Derek Dolphin, on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association here in respectful opposition to SB445 as currently in print. The bill would give the High Speed Rail Authority the ability to develop regulations to relocate public utility infrastructure in the right of way.

However, we understand that a number of amendments are being taken today in the Utilities and Energy Committee, and we certainly appreciate those amendments. We appreciate the work of all the committees that have been involved and all the chairs certainly appreciate that work, and we look forward to reviewing the amendments once they're in print.

And we certainly will take the Senator's offer to work with him over the summer and with the sponsors on this bill. We look forward to those conversations. We want to make sure that nothing in this bill would impact our public utility affordability, safety or liability. So really appreciate that work and we certainly look forward to the conversations.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody else in opposition, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Hi, Katherine Borg with Southern California Edison. We're opposed right now and we're happy to look at all the amendments. Thanks.

Kiara Ross, on behalf of the City of Burbank, appreciate the amendments and look forward to more conversation.

Beth Olasso, on behalf of Water Reuse California, Inland Empire Utilities Agency and Cucamonga Valley Water District in opposition. Thank you.

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

Good afternoon. Ashley Hoffman, on behalf of the Cal Chamber, opposed unless amended. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Brenda Bass, on behalf of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, in opposition. Aligning our comments with CMUA.

Anthony Tannehill, California Special Districts Association, in opposition as in print and align our comments with CMUA.

Mark Newberg, California State Association of Counties, also providing comments on behalf of Legal California Cities. Want to outline our comments. Those of CMUA also want to thank the Committee author and sponsors for their willingness to work on this bill over the summer.

Kylie Wright, with the Association of California Water Agencies in opposition, also aligning comments with CMUA. Thank you.

Margie Lee, on behalf of Southern California Public Power Authority. Aligning comments to CMUA post. Thank you.

Apologies for reading. Carrie West, of the cities of Tustin, Fremont, Moreno Valley, Hemet and Buena Park, in opposition. Thank you.

John Kennedy, Rural County Representatives of California in opposition.

[Unintelligible[ on behalf of the cities of Merced and Vernon, in opposition. Thank you.

Juanita Martinez, on behalf of Cal Brodmann and U.S. Telecom in opposition.

Shane Levine, Northern California Power Agency in opposition.

Thank you. Seeing no one else, taking it back to Committee Members. Assemblymember Pacheco.

Senator, nice to see you. You always bring really tough deals for us.

Not as hard as a shopping cart.

So true. But you work your bills really hard and I commend you for working so hard on your bills. I know your bill has already gone through transportation and you've already made a commitment to working and it sounds like you'll be working over the summer.

So I'm looking forward to seeing the outcome and continue working hard as you always do. And I will be supporting your bill today. So I want to thank you.

Assemblymember Wilson. You mean ran round some then first.

It's okay, it's okay. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, no worries. Senator, thank you. I would have to agree that you definitely like to make us work hard and I just wanted to make a comment because I laid off of this b ill in transportation because of the concerns about the amendments.

But being able to see what you plan to accept in une, I just want to let you know that I will be moving from not supporting to supporting.

Thank you, Assemblymember Wilson.

I'd like to thank the author who does all of our easy bills. I appreciate you for being really mindful of myself, Cheque Carillo and Chair Picchu Norris from the very beginning, even when it was the big, you know, expansive Harry Bill and then now narrowing it to high speed rail. High speed rail is extremely important.

You know, I come from the Central Valley. I think it's important for the Central Valley, but it is a strategic asset for our entire state. And one of the things that was really key and most of the decisions, well, not most, almost every single decision related to high speed rail happened before I got here.

But I could tell a key difference in how we as a Legislature approached high speed rail with the Office of Inspector General.

And I like to first applaud their work and this needs when we were tussling with the big Harry Bill, this need for high speed rail really was prioritized and laid out very clearly in the OIG's report that this authority was needed to be able to address prior issues.

And as we go forward, and we all wish, and I've heard some Members come to me as being one of the chairs involved in it, that too bad we didn't do this early on, but just because we didn't do it early on doesn't mean we can't do it now.

And that's the key part, that on a go forward we need to set this particular asset, strategic asset for our state up for success and do everything we can for it to be successful.

And I think that by pushing forward with this b ill, even though it's a lot of language, you know, near the end, I think it's worth it and so happy to give up time over the summer to make sure we deliver something back that the full legislatures can support.

And my colleague beat me to be in the motion and glad I can be this making the motion. Glad I can be the second. And just appreciate always your due diligence when it comes to your bills and your willingness to push, push, push until we find a pathway forward with everything that you do. Thank you.

Anybody else Committee Members seen? No. None. Nobody else? I believe we have a motion and a second. Would you like to close?

Senator, I appreciate the opportunity to keep working. I wanted to say to all the stakeholders and I've said this to all the chairs, my goal is not to like get out of, out of Committee and then wave goodbye.

We want, you know, we really want the engagement of the committees of our subject matter experts in the Legislature and we're committed to working with stakeholders.

And as someone who came out of local government along with the assemblymember from San Francisco and also has a publicly owned utility that I care a lot about, this is not about riding rough over people, but it's about give and take and for the cities and utilities, telecoms to also be part of the solution and helping us find a way to make sure that we don't have these constant bottlenecks and this continuing black eye.

I want to, I want the black eye to heal and I know that it will. And, and we're going to have a great train system. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. I continue to be a big supporter of high speed rail goes back to when I was a city planner, City of Palmdale. I actually worked on the plant station in Palmdale as a staffer working on that station. I look forward to seeing if not high speed rail but Brightline in the near future.

I do believe that Brightline will be a good competitor to the California high speed rail because we would have the opportunity to experience high speed rail and in the near future hope that we can continue that conversation how we can integrate Brightline coming to Palmdale and that people can connect to the Victor Valley for Bradley to continue to Vegas.

I do believe that that system, once Brightline comes in place, they already have place in place. Construction could start anyt now and ridership would actually increase if people were to come from LA to Palmdale to through the High Desert corridor to Brightline in the Victor Valley in their way to Vegas.

So continue to be a big supporter and I look forward to continue conversations to see how we can integrate other high speed rail projects with California high speed rail. I look forward to continue working with you. Thank you for that. And we do have a first in a motion.

The motion is to pass to the Utilities and Energy Committee. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll call]

The vote is 81. The measure south. Thank you, Senator. We do have another bill from you, but we have another.

So if it's okay, I. I should walk over to UN because I think they ran out of bills. So again, yes, thank you. And some of you are on that Committee.

So we are now resuming a regular order of business and will hear the bill in file order. And we do have an author here. Agenda item number four, SB9 by Arreguin. Senator, when you're ready.

Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present SB9. And SB9 really does one thing, and this is not the SB9 that we all know. This is a much narrower bill. And we started out this bill by really trying to address the issue of owner occupancy requirements for ADUs.

But in that process, and working with Senate Committee staff, we learned that existing law already does exempt owner occupancy requirements, which is a bill around jadus, which I strongly support. What this bill does is to ensure effective implementation of state ADU law. And so state ADU laws evolved over the years.

I really want to credit the Legislature for really making critical changes to streamline the process to get these affordable homes built in neighborhoods throughout California. Actually, ADUs I think, represent the biggest increase in housing production of any sort of type of building type in California as a result of this work.

But there are situations where local governments have not updated their local ordinances to reflect the changes in state AD law or are actively passing policies to circumvent the provisions of state AD law. And so what SB9, this, SB9 would do is if a local agency.

Well, first, when a local agency adopts an AD ordinance, they have to submit to state HCD to have state, state HCDA review it to ensure compliance with state law. If HCD says that that ordinance is not in compliance in any way. They specify the provisions of the ordinance that need to be corrected to ensure conformity.

And so what this Bill would do is if a local agency does not submit their ordinance to HCD for review or does not respond to the department's findings and by responding, respond simply just saying, hey, we got your your comments. We are working to make corrections.

We don't you don't have to amend your ordinance or amend your General plan to conform within 30 days. It's just simply responding.

So that's what this bill would say is if you fail to submit a copy of the ordinance by as required by state law or respond to the department's findings within 30 days that the local ordinance shall not be operative and the state standards shall apply until such time that the local agency upstate updates the ordinance to conform to state law.

That's what this bill does is to ensure effective conformity and enforcement of state AD law. With me to testify in support of the Bill is Max Dubler from California yimby and Jonathan Pacheco Bell from the Casita Coalition.

Good afternoon Chair Members of Committee. Thank you for having me. My name is Max Dubler. I'm a policy manager at California YIMBY. California's nation's leading ADU reforms have helped homeowners build tens of thousands of new homes, with ADUs growing from less than 1% of new construction in 2016 to fully 1/5 of new homes today.

These units blend into existing neighborhoods and add housing without disrupting their look and feel. UC Berkeley research shows us that ADUs are being built in almost every neighborhood in the state and that the overwhelming majority of them are being used as long term housing for family, friends and tenants.

Our statewide ADU reforms have succeeded in getting homes built in large part because they are statewide. They replace a patchwork of local zoning codes with a consistent set of simple rules for what homeowners can build, and they apply them in every jurisdiction. These consistent zoning standards are prepared with fast, consistent and reliable permitting procedures.

This standardization allows ADU builders to work across multiple jurisdictions and encourages investment by giving homeowners confidence that they will actually be able to secure permits. However, local ADU ordinances and permitting processes are not always consistent with state standards.

In these cases, HCD steps in and works with local governments providing technical assistance to help them adopt policies that are in line with the rules. SB9 strengthens existing state law by establishing a clear, straightforward accountability mechanism.

If a local agency fails to submit its ADU ordinance or fails to respond to HCD's finding of non compliance, that ordinance becomes null and void. The city or county must then apply default state standards until a compliant ordinance is adopted. This change reinforces existing law, ensures timely implementation, and protects homeowners from local barriers to Building ADUs.

We respectfully ask for your Aye votes.

Good afternoon, Chair Carrillo and Assembly Members. My name is Jonathan Pacheco Bell, VP of Policy and Programs at Casita Coalition. We're a statewide nonprofit that removes barriers to building smaller and more affordable homes. My background includes 14 years of local government service as a municipal urban planner and code enforcement officer in Los Angeles County.

From that experience on the ground, I've seen how the intent of state housing law doesn't always translate locally. SB9 will ensure that local laws regarding permitting and construction of accessory dwelling units are fully consistent with state law. SB 9 requires a municipality to submit an ADU ordinance to a CD for review within 60 days of adoption.

If HCD finds non compliance, the municipality must respond to those findings within 30 days. Otherwise, that ADU ordinance is nullified and state ADU standards apply locally until local compliance is achieved. SB9 is needed because some local ordinances and local practices are inconsistent with state ADU law.

This results in barriers barriers that delay or block production of ADUs, a widely popular and more affordable home type that all kinds of families use to meet their housing needs. SB9 creates a reasonable accountability mechanism to ensure local laws comply with both the language and intent of state law.

Casita coalition supports SB9 to ensure consistency between local and state ADU law to help community Members, small builders and local agency staff implement state law as intended. For these reasons, Casita Coalition urges you to vote yes on SB9. Thank you.

Thank you. Those in support, please state your name, affiliation and position on the bill.

Good afternoon. Chair and Member. Sosan Madanat, W Strategies here on behalf of Unidos US in strong support.

Good afternoon. Rebecca Marcus, on behalf of Leading Age California in support.

Excuse me. Bob Mailer, for Fuelsted and company in support.

Good afternoon. Allie Saberman, on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition, in strong support.

Good afternoon. Kate Rogers, on behalf of the Student Homes Coalition. In support.

Ryan O'Connell, on behalf of How To ADU and Napa Solano for everyone in strong support.

Jane Natoli, on behalf of Yimby Action in support.

Steve Boyle, on behalf of YIMBY Democrats for America. Strong support.

Jocelyn Wolf, on behalf of YIMBY Santa Cruz on strong support.

Charlie Natoli, on behalf of Grow the Richmond in support.

Hi. Mo Zhu, on behalf of SF Yimby Support.

Ann Paulson, on behalf of South Bay YIMBY strong support.

Philip Raffle, also on behalf of SF EMB Support.

Ani Gupta, on behalf of East Bay for Everyone's support.

Richard Frankel, on behalf of SFMB in support.

Gavin Roth, on behalf of Santa Cruz YIMBY in support.

Divya Singh, on behalf of Sf Yimby support.

Lucas Wang, on behalf of Abundance Support.

Hi. Ira Kaplan, on behalf of Northern Neighbors and support.

Josh Geier, on behalf of East Bay for Everyone in support.

Kyle Kelly, Neighborly Santa Cruz here in support.

Thank you. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Any witnesses in opposition at all? Seeing none. Committee Members questions? Comments on SB9? We have a motion. We have a second. Senator, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your Aye Vote.

Thank you for presenting your bill today. I will be voting Aye. The motion is due pass. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due pass. [Roll Call] Six. Zero.

Okay, six here the bill is out. Congratulations. Will they all open for the student? Thank you very much. Thank you. Two authors. Senator Wiener. Item number six, SB79.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. They apparently do have other bills over there. Okay. I thought that was fast hanging out in local government.

Are you waiting? You have more? If you want, I can go and then you can do yours. You're waiting for a Witness.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Colleagues, I'm here to present Senate Bill 79, which authorizes more housing near our highest quality, highest capacity public transportation stops.

This is really what this Bill bottom line is about is when we are making significant public investments in public transportation, when we're making these very significant taxpayer investments in public transportation, are we going to actually build enough housing around them so that people can walk to them and use them and we can have the ridership we need for them to succeed?

I want to first of all start by thanking the chair and Committee staff for working very intensively with us. I'm happy to accept the significant number of Committee amendments in the. In the analysis, except for amendment letter N as in Nancy, which we had the chair and I had agreed on after the analysis came out.

So we're accepting all the amendments except for N as in Nancy and the analysis. So again, we're very grateful to the chair and the Committee. You're welcome. Yeah. And colleagues, I also.

I do just want to say from the very beginning of this Bill, we have worked very hard, very, very hard to respond to feedback on the Bill, criticism of the Bill. We took a huge swath of amendments based on feedback from Members and stakeholders and Senate Appropriations.

We then worked very hard with Mr. Haney and Assembly Housing Committee and took significant amendments to protect against demolitions and displacement and to ensure there was adequate affordability in the Bill. We then worked, of course, very closely with the Chair on various amendments around local government issues.

In addition, last week we made significant author amendments to the Bill, primarily focused on the local flexibility option on this Bill, which gives local governments the ability to craft their own alternative plan if they don't want to do exactly what the Bill requires.

We flushed that out, made it more robust, and then we also included a temporary delayed implementation of the Bill for cities that have already engaged in Transit Oriented Development upzoning. If a city has done good work to do Tod, we want to honor that and they will have delayed implementation as a result.

And so, you know, colleagues, this is really about not only addressing our housing crisis by building more homes. We know that the housing crisis, which is a housing shortage, is having so many harmful impacts on California, ranging from driving middle class and working class people out of the state, pushing young people out.

It is harming our economy and the ability of employers to find workers. It is also harming us in terms of representation in the House of Representatives after the next census, where we are projected to lose seats to states that build more housing and we need to turn that around.

We also need to support our public transportation systems and this will help do that. And we need to give people options other than driving and the way to do that is to make it easier for them to live near public transportation. We have a broad coalition behind the Bill.

We're going to continue to work on the Bill if it gets out of the Committee today. I'm extremely appreciative for the collaboration and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

With me today to testify is Jed Liano, City Council Member at the City of Claremont and a board Member of the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency and a senior policy advisor of the Inner City Law center, as well as Michael Tubbs, formerly the Mayor of Stockton and the founder of end Poverty California.

Mr. Chair, esteemed Members, Judd Liano, Senior Policy Advisor, Inner City Law center and also Claremont City Council Member. I was first elected six years ago with an ambitious agenda of bringing affordable housing to an otherwise unaffordable city.

And since then we've approved our first affordable housing developments in almost two decades rezoned for over 2000 units and created an inclusionary zoning program that ensures market rate projects can still pencil. None of this would have been possible without cooperation from different levels of government.

And these initiatives reached the finish line only because leaders decided that working together was better than conflict. Resolving differences was better than elevating them. SB79 is a balanced Bill that recognizes both the absolute crushing demand for more homes with the value of local partnerships.

Opposition to this Bill is offering a theory of this case that is unfortunately based on conflict. It suggests that you must make a choice between local control and housing production, a choice between city self governance and required state mandates. But this is a false choice.

By including flexibility for alternative plans, SB79 isn't just a mandate, it's also an invitation. An invitation to partner in the shared goals of producing homes, reducing vehicle miles traveled and promoting sustainability. We should reject that false choice and instead work together to deliver solutions for people who cannot afford housing.

Please use your vote today to reject the politics of conflict. Vote in solidarity with those who are housing unstable in or on the brink of homelessness. People who are unrepresented in this room and do not have a voice like our clients at Inner City Law center. Thank you Mr. Chair, for the opportunity.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Assembly Local Government Committee. My name is Michael Tubbs. I'm the former Mayor of Stockton, California and the founder of End Poverty in California.

And I'm here to offer strong support for SB79, not because it's an easy Bill, but because it's a Bill that's geared towards solving one of our hardest problems, which is the severe housing shortage we have in the state.

We know that there's over 400,000 folks in this state that are super commuters who spend three hours or more a day going to work. And 8 million people in our state are rent burdened people who are spending more than 50% of their income on rent.

And we know that a big way of helping them solve their needs is to allow them to have housing near where they work, housing near transit, and housing that they can afford. We also know that this Bill helps tackle some of our other issues, those of climate change and those of severe transit underfunding.

So I would urge your strong, strong support for this Bill as a way to show our constituents and our citizens that we are again, very responsive to what they're saying they need from their government, which is a government that's responsive to needs of affordability and that allows folks to build what is absolutely necessary, which Is housing, housing, housing.

So thank you Committee for your support and looking forward to seeing this Bill work its way through the process.

Thank you. Those who want to add on in support please state your name, affiliation and position on the Bill.

Gracia La Castillo Cranes here on behalf of Enterprise Community Partners and strong support. Thank you.

Steve Wallach on behalf of the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District and support Mark V on behalf of Streets for all.

We're a proud co sponsor representing the transportation side. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Dora Rose, Deputy Director with League of Women Voters of California and very strong support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Rebecca Marcus on behalf of Leading age California and support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mckinley Thompson Morley on behalf of Zillow in support. Thanks.

Good afternoon. David Azeveda with AARP California in support.

Good afternoon. Jamie Pugh with NextGen California in support.

Bob Naylor with Fieldstead&Company in support.

Victoria Rome with NRDC Natural Resources Defense Council in support.

Good afternoon. Sylvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the City of Santa Monica and the City of West Hollywood in support.

Good afternoon again chair and Members Sosa Madden at W Strategies here on behalf of California Community Builders Neighborhood Partnership Housing Services as well as the Climate Action Campaign and strong support.

Nolan Gray on behalf of California yimby a proud co sponsor of this Bill and strong support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Brooke Pritchard on behalf of AHLA east side for all west side for everyone San Fernando Valley for all South Bay forward and everybody's Long beach and support. Thank you.

Hi friends. Steve Boyle on behalf of Yimby Democrats for America in enthusiastic support.

Thank you. Michael Hammersley as an Oakland render in with East Bay Yimby in support.

Charlie Natoli on behalf of Gorda Richmond in strong support.

Hello, Mozhou on behalf of SF Yimby in strong support. Good afternoon chair and Members.

Jordan Grimes on behalf of Greenbelt alliance environmental co sponsor of the Bill as well as the Environmental Protection Information center and strong support today.

Good afternoon. Allie Saberman on behalf of the Housing Action Coalition and strong support.

Good afternoon. Katherine Charles on behalf of the Bay Area Council of Proud co sponsored support.

Philip Raffle on behalf of Peninsula NIMBY support.

Valeria Pasillas on behalf of State Superintendent Tony Thurman public instructions and strong support.

Melissa Breach with Prosperity California and strong support.

Good afternoon. Ira Kaplan on behalf of Northern Neighbors and strong support.

Noor Jalanu on behalf of San Luis Obisto County Yimby in support.

Jane Natoli on behalf of Yimby action in support.

Josh Geier on behalf of East Bay for everyone in Strong support.

Katie McCammon on behalf of 350 Sacramento and support.