Existing law, the Cemetery and Funeral Act, establishes the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau within the Department of Consumer Affairs and sets forth its powers and duties relating to the licensure and regulation of, among others, cemeteries and cemetery authorities. This bill, if the County of Marin acquires title to the Mount Tamalpais Mortuary and Cemetery pursuant to specified provisions, would authorize the county to transfer its ownership, care, and management to a California nonprofit organization in good standing or a cemetery authority, as specified. The bill would provide that a successor that acquires ownership of, or assumes responsibility for the care and management of, the Mount Tamalpais Mortuary and Cemetery is not liable for any debts, obligations, taxes, fines, judgments, or recordkeeping failures of a prior owner or cemetery authority arising before the date the successor acquires ownership or assumes responsibility for the Mount Tamalpais Mortuary and Cemetery. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2029. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the County of Marin. This bill would also make its provisions operative contingent on the enactment of SB 1312 of the 2025–26 Regular Session.
(1) Existing law, the Cemetery and Funeral Act, establishes the Cemetery and Funeral Bureau within the Department of Consumer Affairs and sets forth its powers and duties relating to the licensure and regulation of, among others, cemeteries and cemetery authorities. Existing law defines specified terms for purposes of the Cemetery and Funeral Act and the general regulation of cemeteries, but provides, however, that these definitions do not apply if expressly stated otherwise. Existing law states that the definitions and specified provisions that regulate cemeteries are inapplicable to religious corporations, a public cemetery, or any private or fraternal burial park, as specified. This bill would also make the definitions and regulation of cemeteries described above inapplicable to any California nonprofit public benefit corporation that manages the continued care and maintenance of an abandoned endowment care cemetery that oversees or performs interments pursuant to prepaid burial contracts and does not enter into any new contracts for the sale of new burial spaces to consumers, as specified. (2) Existing law authorizes a cemetery authority that maintains a cemetery to place its cemetery under endowment care and to establish, maintain, and operate an endowment care fund. Existing law requires each cemetery authority to file with the bureau annually, on or before June 1, or within 5 months after close of their fiscal year, as specified, a written report in a form prescribed by the bureau setting forth, among other things, the amount collected and deposited in both the general and special endowment care funds, as specified. Existing law requires certain information set forth in the report, including the information described above, to be accompanied by an annual audit report prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles of the endowment care fund and special care fund, as specified. This bill would require the above-described information to instead be accompanied by an annual audit report for each year within that reporting period. (3) Existing law generally regulates cemeteries, including private cemeteries. Existing law, however, makes provisions that regulate private cemeteries inapplicable to any religious corporations, public cemeteries, or private or fraternal burial parks, as specified. This bill would also make provisions that regulate private cemeteries inapplicable to any California nonprofit public benefit corporation that manages the continued care and maintenance of an abandoned endowment care cemetery that oversees or performs interments pursuant to prepaid burial contracts, and does not enter into any new contracts for the sale of new burial spaces to consumers, as specified. (4) Existing law authorizes a city or county having a nonendowment care cemetery within its boundaries that threatens or endangers the health, safety, comfort, or welfare of the public to, by resolution of its governing board, as specified, declare the abandonment of the cemetery as a place of future interment. Existing law requires the city or county to permit interment therein of any person who, among other things, is an owner of a plot in the cemetery on the date of adoption of the resolution. After the work that the governing body, in its discretion, finds necessary and practicable has been completed, existing law requires the governing body to immediately thereafter, by resolution containing a legal description of the cemetery, dedicate the abandoned cemetery as a pioneer memorial park, as specified. Existing law requires, upon recordation of the resolution with the county recorder of the county in which the cemetery is located, fee title to the cemetery to vest in the city or county, as specified. Existing law requires any county or city acquiring fee title to a cemetery under these provisions to only use the property for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a pioneer memorial park. This bill would define "abandoned endowment care cemetery" to mean a cemetery that was formerly licensed, as specified, that meets other specified criteria, including that the bureau has conserved the endowment care fund and the property is negatively impacting the public health, safety, or welfare, as specified. The bill would require a county, if it determines that an endowment care cemetery has been abandoned, to provide the owner of the property 90 days' written notice to correct the health, safety, or welfare concerns it has identified. If, after 90 days, those concerns have not been corrected, the bill would require the county to declare the property an abandoned endowment care cemetery and ownership of the real property may be transferred to the county and promptly be recorded in the records of the county. This bill would require that, within 3 years of the transfer of title, the county take title to any remaining endowment care funds of the prior cemetery authority held by the bureau, and of all necessary books, records, property, and assets, which shall be placed in a special fund within the county treasury and only be expended on care, maintenance, or embellishment of the abandoned endowment care cemetery. The bill would authorize the county to transfer the care and management of an abandoned endowment care cemetery to a California nonprofit public benefit corporation, as specified.
Existing law vests the Department of Food and Agriculture with general supervision of the weights and measures and weighing and measuring devices sold or used in the state, including devices used to measure electricity sold as a motor vehicle fuel. Existing law authorizes the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to adopt regulations to carry out the provisions of state law governing weights and measures, and requires the secretary to establish, by regulation, tolerances and specifications and other technical requirements for commercial weighing and measuring, as specified. Existing law authorizes the secretary, and each sealer acting under the supervision and direction of the secretary, to enforce provisions of state law governing weights and measures, as specified. Existing law requires the sealer of a county to inspect and test weighing and measuring devices, as specified, that are used or sold in the county. Existing law requires the secretary to adopt regulations governing the inspection frequency of all commercially used weights, measures, and weighing and measuring apparatus in the state and requires each county sealer to perform those inspections as may be required by the secretary. Existing law makes a violation of the provisions of state law governing weights and measures a crime. This bill would require the secretary to adopt regulations governing the inspection frequency of electric vehicle fueling systems used for commercial purposes, as specified, and would require a sealer to inspect those systems in accordance with specified requirements. The bill would require a sealer to submit data and information relating those inspections on a monthly basis, as prescribed by the secretary, to the Division of Measurement Standards and would require the division, no less than biannually, to provide the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission with that information and data. Existing law requires the secretary to provide rules and regulations for the submission for approval of types or designs of weights, measures, or weighing, measuring, or counting instruments or devices, used for commercial purposes, and to issue certificates of approval of those types or designs as the secretary finds meet the requirements of state law, as specified. Existing law prohibits a person from maintaining, installing, adjusting, reconditioning, or servicing a commercial weighing or measuring device for compensation unless the person registers with the secretary as a service agency. Existing law authorizes a weighing or measuring device to be placed in service only by a sealer or a service agency. This bill would exempt electric vehicle fueling systems used for commercial purposes meeting type approval requirements that are factory tested and certified for metrological requirements by a factory registered service agency from, among other things, the requirement to be placed in service in the field by a service agency or sealer. The bill would require a metrologically relevant repair of those systems to be performed by a registered service agency or service agent, and would authorize a repair that is not metrologically relevant to be performed by any person competent to perform the repair, as specified. The bill would require the operator, or the operator's designee, of such a system to report the installation of the system with a county sealer by submitting a placed in service report to the county sealer and to register the system with the county sealer, as specified. Because a violation of that requirement would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require, by July 1, 2028, the secretary, in consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, to update the regulations regarding electric vehicle fueling systems to conform to the requirements of the bill. To the extent that the bill would expand the duties of county sealers, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons.
The Capital Programs and Climate Financing Authority Act establishes the Capital Programs and Climate Financing Authority, consisting of the Director of Finance, the Treasurer, and the Controller. Among other things, the act authorizes the authority to establish one or more small business assistance funds to do various things, including fund a capital access program for small businesses pursuant to specified law, provide various forms of financial assistance, and make or acquire loans or guarantee commercial loans to participating parties eligible for assistance from those funds. The act requires any moneys repaid or returned to the authority in connection with or as a result of any loan or financial assistance made pursuant to these provisions to be deposited in the small business assistance fund from which the loan or assistance was originally provided. For the purpose of establishing and maintaining small business assistance funds, the act authorizes the authority to levy fees or other charges on, or require deposits from, participating parties receiving financing for a project under the act, as specified. The act requires the authority to establish the California Investment and Innovation Program for the purpose of providing grants to enhance the capacity of community development financial institutions to provide technical assistance and capital access to economically disadvantaged communities in the state, as specified. Existing law defines various terms for these purposes. This bill would authorize the authority to establish one or more small business assistance funds to fund a grant program for community development financial assistance pursuant to the California Investment and Innovation Program. The bill would include in the list of allowed financial assistance that the authority may provide under the act grants made to community development financial institutions in furtherance of that program. By expanding the purposes for which moneys in a continuously appropriated fund may be used, this bill would make an appropriation.
Existing law generally regulates contracts for health studio services, as defined, including prohibiting those contracts, beginning January 1, 2010, from requiring payment in excess of $4,400, inclusive of initiation or initial membership fees and exclusive of interest or finance charges, by the person receiving the services or use of the facilities. This bill would exempt a multiservice health club studio from the above-described provision on payment limitations and would define a "multiservice health club studio" for these purposes.
