RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL
As the legislative session progresses, staff will continue to bring the full list of priority bills to the L&R Committee to provide updates and to receive the Committee’s input on bills of particular importance.
| BACKGROUND
Staff continues to focus on identifying bills that would impact local control, would have implications to both land use and housing, and that would require the City to provide a service or benefit without appropriate and full funding. Unfunded mandates negatively impact City revenues including the General Fund, enterprise funds, and sales or property taxes.
The following bills represent several of the critical issues that are of specific concern to various City departments:
Housing
• SB 50 (Weiner) – Housing (Watch) - This bill would authorize a development proponent of a neighborhood multifamily project or eligible transit-oriented development (TOD) project located on an eligible parcel to submit an application for a streamlined, ministerial approval process that is not subject to a conditional-use permit.
Staff Comment: SB 50 would have circumvented local land-use authority pertaining to mid-rise apartments around public transit. Staff has been very engaged on this bill and has provided comments and suggested amendment language on sections of the bill that were troubling. The last set of amendments taken on the bill removed counties with populations of 300,000 or less from needing to comply with the bill. Staff’s initial reading of the amendments was that Roseville would no longer need to comply with the bill. However, after a more complete review of the bill staff understands that Roseville would still need to comply since cities with populations of 50,000 or greater, in a county with 300,000 people or less, would be required to comply with the new requirements proposed by the bill.
Earlier this month, this bill, along with other related bills, were placed on hold until 2020. In essence, the bill has become a 2-year bill, which raises many questions for the governor who pledged to build 3.5 million new units of housing by 2025 to help ease the state’s increasing rents and home prices. While the governor had not publicly supported SB 50, the bill was a key component of the governor’s comprehensive housing package. Staff will continue to monitoring any new developments with the bill and any attempt to place language from SB 50 in a current bill or in budget trailer bills.
Public Safety
• AB 392 (Weber) Peace Officers: Deadly Force (Watch) – This bill would redefine the circumstances under which a homicide by a peace officer is deemed justifiable to include when the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, that deadly force is necessary to defend against an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person, or to apprehend a fleeing person for a felony that threatened or resulted in death or serious bodily injury.
Staff Comment: Staff has been monitoring both AB 392 and SB 230 very closely over the past several months to track amendments and testimony taken on the bills during committee hearings. Last month, a statewide coalition of law-enforcement organizations agreed to major amendments to AB 392. The amendments significantly altered the bill from its original form, allowing every major law enforcement association that has been involved in the negotiations to take a neutral position on the bill. The primary concern with the initial bill language was with the definition of “necessary” that required officers to exhaust all reasonable alternatives before using deadly force and eroded an officer’s right to self-defense – this definition has been removed. As amended, AB 392 limits the use of deadly force to “only when the officer reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, that such force is necessary” and is defined by two very specific reasons within the bill. The defined reasons are consistent with current federal and state case law.
Although the law enforcement coalition were not able to get all amendments they were seeking into the bill, the coalition agreed the amendments safeguard a peace officers’ ability to protect communities without facing potential criminal charges stemming from courts second-guessing fatal split-second decisions by officers. Throughout the negotiations, the Governor and his staff, along with Pro Tem Senator Toni Atkins and her staff, were essential to resolving this debate. Staff will continue to track AB 392 closely as it moves through committee and floor votes in the senate.
• SB 230 (Caballero) Law Enforcement: Use of Deadly Force: Training: Policies (Support) - This bill will require each law-enforcement agency to maintain a policy that provides guidelines on the use of force and to make their use-of-force policy accessible to the public. Requires the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to implement courses of instruction for the regular and periodic training of law enforcement officers in the use of force.
Staff Comment: SB 230 takes a comprehensive approach in addressing law-enforcement officers’ involvement in serious use-of-force incidents and defines measures to effectively implement the changes being proposed in AB 392. The bill would 1) require all law-enforcement agencies to maintain a use-of-force policy that provides guidelines on topics including, but not limited to utilizing de-escalation techniques, alternatives to deadly force when feasible, specific guidelines for the application of deadly force, rendering medical aid and dealing with vulnerable populations, among other things; 2) require each agency to make their use-of-force policy accessible to the public; and 3) standardize use-of-force training and education for officers across the state, through both coursework and uniform minimum guidelines on use-of-force developed by the Commission on Police Office Standards and Training. Staff will continue to stay engaged in this bill to understand the implications for the city’s police department and if the bill identifies any funding sources to help implement the new training programs required if the bill is signed into law.
Transportation
• AB 252 (Daly) Department of Transportation: Environmental Review Subsidies (Support) - This bill would indefinitely extend existing law which provides that the state consents to the jurisdiction of the federal courts with regard to the compliance, discharge, or enforcement of the responsibilities it assumed as a participant in the federal surface-transportation project-delivery program.
Staff Comment: The City is supporting this bill because it would repeal the sunset date for the State of California’s limited waiver of sovereign immunity, which is necessary to allow the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to continue its assumption of National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) responsibilities. The NEPA assignment program has allowed Caltrans to achieve time savings in preparing and approving both routine environmental documents as well as full Environmental Impact Statements that require regulatory coordination with federal agencies. In addition to expediting state projects undertaken by Caltrans, these improvements facilitate the completion of local projects that include federal funding and require NEPA review.to understand how it would attempt to modernize and restructure the state’s tax system and realign the state’s current tax code with the State’s 21st century economy.
• SB 137 (Dodd) Federal Transportation Funds: State Exchange Programs (Support) - This bill would authorize the Department of Transportation to allow federal transportation funds that are allocated as local assistance to be exchanged for Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Program funds appropriated by the department.
Staff Comment: The City is supporting this bill because it would reduce duplicative federal transportation permitting and environmental review by authorizing the expansion of the State’s existing program to exchange federal surface-transportation revenues for state transportation revenues, referred to as the Match-Exchange Program.
SB 137 will allow the state, regions, cities and counties to reduce the cost of transportation projects and provide for more projects to be completed with the same amount of revenue by expanding the Match Exchange Program to regions over 200,000 in population and to other federal surface-transportation programs including, the Highway Safety Improvement Program, and local bridge projects.to understand how this new enforcement program would function, how local governments would interact with the process and the overall benefits that could be realized from the program.
Other Areas
• SB 12 (Beall) Mental Health Services: Youth (Support) – This bill would require the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission to administer an Integrated Youth Mental Health Program for purposes of establishing local centers to provide integrated youth mental-health services. Authorizes the Commission to establish the core components of the program, subject to specified criteria and requires the commission to develop the selection criteria and process for awarding funding.
Staff Comments: The City is supporting this bill for the benefits that would be derived by the establishment of Integrated Youth Mental Health Programs throughout the state. The programs would be carried out in centers that provide integrated mental health, substance use, physical health, social support, and other services for youths aged 12 to 25, and their families. With more than 75% of mental health issues developing before a person turns 25, early detection and treatment greatly improves the health of adolescents as they transition to adulthood. This bill takes proactive steps to reduce the number of underserved or unserved youth by bolstering the mental health/behavioral health treatment infrastructure for adolescents regardless of insurance or immigration status.
• SB 582 (Beall) Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder (Support) – This bill would require the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission, when making grant funds available to allocate at least half of those funds to local education agency and mental health partnerships. Requires this funding to be made available to support prevention, early intervention, and direct services.
Staff Comments: The City supports this bill as it would establishes the Investment in Mental Health Wellness Act of 2013 (IMHWA), which requires funds appropriated by the Legislature to be made available to specified entities to be used, among other things, for a complete continuum of crisis services for children and youth 21 years of age and under. In addition, the bill would require the Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC) to allocate grant funds from the IMHWA for triage personnel, using specified criteria, to provide intensive case management and linkage to services, as specified, for individuals with mental health disorders at various access points, including schools. Both SB 12 and SB 582 are focused on providing much needed resources to address mental health issues in California’s youth at a time in their lives that can have the greatest positive impact.
• SB 287 (Nielsen) Commission on State Mandates: Test Claims: (Support) – This bill relates to the filing date on test claims for the Commission on State Mandates. Specifies that for purposes of filing a test claim based on the date of incurring increased costs, "within 12 months" means by June 30 of the fiscal year following the fiscal year in which increased costs were first incurred by the test claimant.
Staff Comments: The City supports this bill as it would clarify the timeline for the submission of test claims to the Commission on State Mandates (COSM) to track with the fiscal year, thereby providing public agencies with sufficient time to adequately track associated costs and submit accurate test claims. In December 2017, the COSM approved amendments to California Code of Regulation, which reduced the filing period for test claims from the fiscal calendar year, ending June 30, to the calendar year, ending December 31. The COSM stated this change was necessary in order to align COSM regulations with the current government codes, which did not provide clear direction.
However, the revisions further narrowed the window of time for public agencies to submit a test claim to the COSM by six months, creating a substantial challenge for local agencies that intend to submit test claims to the COSM but did not have the resources to comply with such a strict timeline. SB 287 clarifies in the Government Code by plainly stating that the filing period deadline for mandate test claims is defined as June 30 of the fiscal year following the fiscal year in which increased costs were first incurred by the test claimant, thereby making it more feasible for local agencies to consider and/or bring a test claim to the COSM.
Conclusion
Government relations staff will continue to refine the active list of priority bills from the bills introduced this year. The priority list of bills establishes the City’s legislative advocacy efforts and staff will continue to update the L&R Committee each month on the most critical bills on the list. Staff will also remain actively engaged in informing the City’s state and federal representatives regarding the City’s positions as the bills move through the legislative process.
| FISCAL IMPACT
The costs of these activities are contained within the City’s current budget.
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ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT / JOBS CREATED
The activities detained in this report will not result in job development or creation.
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ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) does not apply to activities that will not result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, or is otherwise not considered a project as defined by CEQA Statute §21065 and CEQA State Guidelines §15060(c)(3) and §15378.
The action of reviewing legislation meets the above criteria and is not subject to CEQA. No additional environmental review is required.
| Respectfully Submitted,
Mark Wolinski, Government Relations Administrator
Megan MacPherson, Public Affairs and Communications Director | | | 
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Dominick Casey, City Manager
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