Senate Committee on Local Government
Senator Patricia Wiggins, Chair
State Capitol, Sacramento, California 95814
(916) 651-4115
October 12, 2009
TO: People Interested in Local Government, Public Finance, and Land Use
FROM: Senator Patricia Wiggins
SUBJECT: Local Government Bills During 2009
Now that the Governor has finished acting on the bills passed by the Legislature, I want you to know about some of the more interesting bills that the Senate Local Government Committee worked on during 2009. The urgency bills took effect on the day they were chaptered; regular bills will take effect on January 1, 2010.
These brief summaries cover a selection of the 75 bills that the Committee has reviewed. If you want to read the Committee’s bill analysis or get a copy of a bill, please go to the Legislature’s official website www.leginfo.ca.gov. You can also use that website to retrieve other bill analyses, official histories, voting records, and any veto messages.
LOCAL FINANCE & INFRASTRUCTURE
SB 27 (Hancock) prohibits counties and cities from entering into specified agreements to rebate local sales tax proceeds. Status: Signed; Chapter 4, Statutes of 2009.
* SB 80 (Senate Budget Committee) shifts $350 million in property tax increment revenues from redevelopment agencies to schools. Status: Senate Floor; concurrence in Assembly amendments failed, reconsideration granted, two-year bill.
SB 99 (Senate Local Government Committee) imposes additional transparency and accountability requirements on public agencies that provide conduit financing. Status: Signed; Chapter 557, Statutes of 2009.
SB 279 (Hancock) authorizes Mello-Roos Act financing for water conservation, energy efficiency, and renewable energy improvements on any real property. Status: Vetoed.
SB 676 (Wolk) increases or eliminates the statutory limits on 11 local fees. Status: Signed; Chapter 606, Statutes of 2009.
SB 684 (Cogdill) and SB 85 (Cogdill) modify the property tax allocation formulas to increase annual allocations to specific counties. Status: SB 684 - Assembly Appropriations Committee; two-year bill. SB 85 - Senate Floor; two-year bill.
SCA 18 (Liu) exempts stormwater and urban runoff management fees or charges from voter approval requirements. Status: Senate Floor; two-year bill.
* AB 14xxxx (Assembly Budget Committee) and AB 15xxxx (Gaines) rely on Proposition 1A (2004) to borrow $1.935 billion in property tax revenues from counties, cities, and special districts to help the State General Fund. Status: Signed; Chapters 13 & 14, Statutes of the 2009 Fourth Extraordinary Session.
* AB 24xxxx (Bass & Blakeslee) and AB 30xxxx (Assembly Budget Committee) divert and later repay $971 million in Highway Users Tax Account (HUTA) revenues from counties and cities to help the State General Fund. Status: Assembly Floor; concurrence in Senate amendments died without a vote.
* AB 26xxxx (Assembly Budget Committee) shifts $1.7 billion in property tax increment revenues from redevelopment agencies to schools in 2009-10 and another $350 million in 2010-11 to help the State General Fund. Status: Signed; Chapter 21, Statutes of the 2009 Fourth Extraordinary Session.
AB 474 (Blumenfield) authorizes contractual assessment financing for water efficiency improvements on real property. Status: Signed; Chapter 444, Statutes of 2009.
AB 1388 (Hernandez) authorizes counties, cities, and special districts to sell general obligation bonds at negotiated sales. Status: Signed; Chapter 529, Statutes of 2009.
LOCAL POWERS & GOVERNANCE
SB 43 (Alquist) authorizes a joint powers agency (JPA) to use a unique, no-bid design-build process to build a professional football stadium in the City of Santa Clara. Status: Signed; Chapter 330, Statutes of 2009.
SB 101, SB 102, and SB 103 (Senate Local Government Committee) are the annual Validating Acts. Status: Signed; SB 101 is Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009 (urgency); SB 102 is Chapter 163, Statutes of 2009 (urgency); SB 103 is Chapter 164, Statutes of 2009.
SB 106 (Senate Local Government Committee) requires school district, community college district, and county board of education officials to receive the same ethics training as other local government officials. Status: Assembly Appropriations Committee; two-year bill.
SB 113 (Senate Local Government Committee) is the annual Local Government Omnibus Act, making 39 relatively minor and noncontroversial changes to the state laws affecting local agencies’ powers and duties. Status: Signed; Chapter 333, Statutes of 2009.
SB 250 (Florez) requires dogs and cats to be spayed or neutered under certain circumstances. Status: Assembly Floor inactive file; two-year bill.
SB 694 (Correa) requires competitive bidding on certain types of local public works contracts. Status: Senate Local Government Committee; two-year bill.
AB 18 (Knight) extends city councils’ deadline to fill vacancies by appointment by 30 days and clarifies councilmembers’ terms of office in new cities. Status: Vetoed.
AB 155 (Mendoza) and * SB 88 (DeSaulnier) require a local public entity to obtain approval from CDIAC to file a federal bankruptcy petition. Status: AB 155 - Senate Local Government Committee; two-year bill. SB 88 - Senate Rules Committee; two-year bill.
AB 715 (Caballero) permits cities and counties to post approved ordinances on their websites in lieu of publishing the ordinances in general circulation newspapers. Status: Senate Local Government Committee; two-year bill.
AB 772 (Ammiano) authorizes counties to issue local identification cards that meet statutory criteria. Status: Vetoed.
LAND USE PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
SB 12 (Simitian) creates the Delta Ecosystem and Water Council with authority over planning and development decisions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta. Status: Senate Floor; Conference Committee report pending; two-year bill.
SB 194 (Florez) enacts the Community Equity Investment Act of 2009 with special provisions for development in disadvantaged fringe, island, and legacy communities. Status: Senate Appropriations Committee; two-year bill.
SB 457 (Wolk) creates the Delta Stewardship Council with authority over planning and development decisions in the Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta. Status: Assembly Water, Parks and Wildlife Committee; two-year bill.
* SB 458 (Steinberg) expands the Delta Protection Commission’s role, and creates the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Fund. Status: Conference Committee report pending on the Senate and Assembly Floors; two-year bill.
SB 505 (Kehoe) expands the fire safety planning requirements in local general plans’ safety elements. Status: Vetoed.
SB 737 (Negrete McLeod) restores the requirement that every county with a public use airport must have an Airport Land Use Commission, with exceptions. Status: Senate Appropriations Committee; two-year bill.
AB 45 (Blakeslee) authorizes (and in some circumstances requires) cities and counties to permit the installation of small wind energy systems that meet statutory criteria. Status: Signed; Chapter 404, Statutes of 2009.
* AB 81xxx (Hall) exempts the approval of a professional football stadium in the City of Industry from requirements of the Planning and Zoning Law and CEQA, nullifies pending lawsuits, and prohibits future lawsuits. Status: Senate Rules Committee; two-year bill.
AB 300 (Caballero) requires the reduction of a proposed development’s anticipated water demand based on voluntary water demand management measures. Status: Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee; two-year bill.
AB 333 (Fuentes) and AB 1084 (Adams) extend the life of existing tentative subdivision maps by two years. Status: Signed; AB 333 is Chapter 18, Statutes of 2009 (urgency); AB 1084 is Chapter 507, Statutes of 2009.
AB 338 (Ma) exempts cities and counties from statutory voter approval requirements for forming and financing of Infrastructure Financing Districts (IFDs) that finance public transit facilities in transit villages, and increases the maximum area of a transit village development district. Status: Vetoed.
AB 494 (Caballero) exempts leases of agriculturally-zoned land for farmworker housing from the Subdivision Map Act. Status: Signed; Chapter 447, Statutes of 2009.
* AB 602 (Evans) changes the statute of limitations deadline for filing land use lawsuits involving affordable housing. Status: Senate Rules Committee; two-year bill.
AB 666 (Jones) requires county supervisors, when approving subdivisions in fire-prone areas, to find that adequate fire protection exists. Status: Vetoed.
REDEVELOPMENT
* SB 4xx (Cogdill) allows redevelopment officials to use the design-build contracting method for 10 public works projects. Status: Signed; Chapter 2, Statutes of the 2009 Second Extraordinary Session.
SB 93 (Kehoe) limits redevelopment officials’ spending on public works outside of redevelopment project areas. Status: Signed; Chapter 555, Statutes of 2009.
* AB 27xxxx (Evans) allows redevelopment officials to extend their project areas’ time limits by 40 years in return for shifting 10% of their property tax increment revenues to a new state account to securitize a multi-billion state bond issue. Status: Assembly Floor; concurrence in Senate amendments died without a vote.
LAFCOs & BOUNDARY CHANGES
SB 215 (Wiggins) requires LAFCOs to consider regional transportation plans, including sustainable communities strategies, before they act on boundary changes. Status: Signed; Chapter 570, Statutes of 2009.
AB 528 (Silva) clarifies the reporting requirements for political contributions and spending on proposed boundary changes. Status: Signed; Chapter 113, Statutes of 2009.
AB 853 (Arambula) expedites city annexations of unincorporated fringe communities and unincorporated island communities. Status: Senate Local Government Committee; two-year bill.
AB 1582 (Assembly Local Government Committee) makes six changes to the state laws affecting LAFCOs. Status: Signed; Chapter 155, Statutes of 2009.
* This bill did not come to the Senate Local Government Committee.
For copies of the Senate Local Government Committee’s detailed reference materials and other publications --- including the citizen’s guides to joint powers agreements, special districts, and LAFCOs --- please go to the Committee’s website: www.sen.ca.gov/locgov