Regional transportation plans: sustainable communities strategies: procedural requirements.

Existing law requires certain transportation planning agencies to prepare and adopt a regional transportation plan directed at achieving a coordinated and balanced regional transportation system. Certain of these agencies are designated under federal law as metropolitan planning organizations. As part of a regional transportation plan, existing law requires a metropolitan planning organization to adopt a sustainable communities strategy or alternative planning strategy, which is designed to achieve certain targets for 2020 and 2035 established by the State Air Resources Board for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks in the region. Before the adoption of a sustainable communities strategy or an alternative planning strategy, existing law requires a metropolitan planning organization to complete certain procedural requirements, including a requirement to conduct informational meetings, as specified, and a requirement to adopt a public participation plan that includes, among other things, workshops throughout the region and public hearings on the draft sustainable communities strategy or alternative planning strategy, as specified. The Ralph M. Brown Act, with specified exceptions, requires that all meetings of a legislative body of a local agency be open and public and that all persons be permitted to attend and participate. This bill, until January 1, 2023, would recharacterize the workshops as public engagement gatherings and would authorize these informational meetings, public engagement gatherings, and public hearings to be conducted by electronic means if a call-in telephonic option is also provided and the meeting is not required to be conducted pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act. The bill, until January 1, 2023, would make other related changes.