Asm. Buffy Wicks

Existing law, the Veterans Housing and Homeless Prevention Bond Act of 2014 (the 2014 bond act) , authorizes the issuance of bonds in the amount of $600,000,000, as specified, for expenditure by the California Housing Finance Agency, the Department of Housing and Community Development, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide housing to veterans and their families pursuant to the Veterans Housing and Homeless Prevention Act of 2014 (VHHPA) . This bill would enact the Veterans Housing and Homeless Prevention Bond Act of 2022 to authorize the issuance of bonds in an amount not to exceed $600,000,000 to provide additional funding for the VHHPA. The bill would provide for the handling and disposition of the funds in the same manner as the 2014 bond act. The bill would provide for the submission of the bond act to the voters at the March 5, 2024, statewide primary election.

Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt basic instructional materials for use in kindergarten and grades 1 to 8, inclusive, for governing boards of school districts in specified subjects and any other subject, discipline, or interdisciplinary area for which the state board determines the adoption of instructional materials to be necessary or desirable, and requires the governing board of each school district maintaining one or more high schools to adopt instructional materials for use in the high schools under its control, consistent with specified conditions. Existing law requires the adopted course of study for grades 1 to 6, inclusive, and for grades 7 to 12, inclusive, to offer instruction in specified areas of study, including social sciences. Existing law establishes the Instructional Quality Commission and requires the commission to, among other things, recommend curriculum frameworks to the state board. Existing law requires the state board, concurrently with, but not before, the next revision of textbooks or curriculum frameworks in the social sciences, health, and mathematics curricula, to ensure that these academic areas integrate components of, among other things, financial literacy. Notwithstanding that requirement on the state board, existing law requires the commission, when the history-social science curriculum framework is revised after January 1, 2017, to consider including age-appropriate information for kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, regarding certain topics on financial literacy. This bill would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction, subject to an appropriation of one-time funds for this purpose in the annual Budget Act or another statute, to allocate funding for the purchase of standards-aligned instructional materials in financial literacy for kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, and for professional development in that content, as provided. The bill would require the Superintendent to allocate these funds to school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and the state special schools on the basis of an equal amount per unit of average daily attendance, as those numbers were reported at the time of the first principal apportionment for the 2019–20 fiscal year. The bill would require a school district, county office of education, charter school, or state special school to expend allocated funds for professional development or instructional materials in financial literacy that is aligned to the history-social science curriculum framework adopted by the state board and the financial literacy subject matter recommended considered by the commission, as provided.

Existing law, the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, prohibits a business from selling the personal information of a consumer if the business has actual knowledge that the consumer is less than 16 years of age, unless the consumer, in the case of a consumer at least 13 years of age and less than 16 years of age, or the consumer's parent or guardian, in the case of a consumer who is less than 13 years of age, has affirmatively authorized the sale of the consumer's personal information. Existing law, the Unfair Practices Act, makes certain business practices unlawful and regulates various businesses to, among other things, preserve and regulate competition, prohibit unfair trade practices, and regulate advertising. This bill, the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act, would prohibit a social media platform, as defined, from using a design, feature, or affordance that the platform knew, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have known, causes a child user, as defined, to become addicted to the platform. The act would authorize the Attorney General or a district attorney, county counsel, or city attorney to bring an action to recover or obtain certain relief, including a civil penalty of up to $250,000 for a knowing and willful violation, and an award of litigation costs and attorneys' fees. The bill would provide that a social media platform is not subject to a civil penalty if it demonstrates that it met certain requirements, and would exempt a social media platform that is controlled by a business entity that generated less than $100,000,000 in gross revenue during the preceding calendar year or whose primary function is to allow users to play video games.

Existing law establishes, among other housing programs, the Multifamily Housing Program, pursuant to which the Department of Housing and Community Development provides financial assistance in the form of deferred payment loans to pay for the eligible costs of development for specified types of housing projects. Existing law, the Mitigation Fee Act, establishes procedures and limitations with respect to the establishment, increase, or imposition of fees, as defined, as a condition of approval of a development project by a local agency, including requiring the local agency to determine the reasonable relationship between the fee's use and the type of development project on which the fee is imposed. This bill would establish the Housing Cost Reduction Incentive Program, to be administered by the department, for the purpose of reimbursing cities, counties, and cities and counties for development impact fee reductions provided to qualified housing developments, as defined, and for the reasonable interest costs associated with impact fee deferrals. Upon appropriation, the bill would require the department to provide grants to applicants in an amount equal to 50% of the amount of development impact fee reduced for a qualified housing development and grants to applicants in an amount equal to the accrued interest on a deferred development impact fee, as provided. This bill would require the department to administer these grants by issuing a Notice of Funding Availability before December 31 of the year that the program receives funding, as specified, and accepting grant applications after the subsequent year. The bill would require a public entity that receives grant funds under the program to use those funds solely for those purposes for which the development impact fee that was reduced or deferred would have been used. The bill would require the department to adopt guidelines to implement the program and exempt those guidelines from the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would require the department to solicit and consider stakeholder comments in the design and implementation of the program, as specified, and to provide responses in writing to substantive written comments.

Existing law establishes the Department of Housing and Community Development in the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and makes the department responsible for administering various housing programs throughout the state, including, among others, the Multifamily Housing Program, the Housing for a Healthy California Program, and the California Emergency Solutions Grants Program. This bill would require the department to create an online database of affordable housing listings, information, and applications, as provided. The bill would authorize the department to contract with one or more vendors to carry out this requirement. The bill would also require the department to cooperate and coordinate with relevant stakeholders, including specified public and private parties, and local, state, and federal governmental entities. The bill would make these provisions operable only upon appropriation by the Legislature, and would require the department to make the database accessible no later than 24 months after the appropriation. By expanding the duties of local governments this 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

Existing law generally authorizes a county tax collector to sell tax-defaulted property 5 or more years after the real property has become tax defaulted. Existing law authorizes a nonprofit organization to purchase residential or vacant property, with the approval of the board of supervisors of the county in which it is located, that has been tax defaulted for 5 years or more, or 3 years or more after the property has become tax defaulted and is subject to a nuisance abatement lien, as long as the property is used for low-income housing or public use, as specified. This bill would require every tax collector to include specified information on their internet website, including, among other things, information on how to obtain a list of tax-defaulted properties subject to the power sell from the tax collector, a brief description of the format or formats in which the list can be provided, and information on the typical length of time that elapses between a tax collector receiving a complete request for the list and the requestor receiving the list. The bill would specify that these provisions do not apply to a tax collector that maintains a list of all tax-defaulted properties subject to the power to sell on their internet website or internet portal that is freely accessible to public agencies and qualified nonprofit organizations. This bill would require the State Controller's office to post a report on its internet website that includes specified information, including the total number of tax sale agreements completed in the prior 12 months and the total number of tax sale agreements where the intended use for the property is affordable housing for low- or moderate-income households. 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.

The California Constitution provides that the University of California constitutes a public trust, and requires the university to be administered by the Regents of the University of California, a corporation in the form of a board, with full powers of organization and government, subject to legislative control only for specified purposes. The California Constitution requires the board to consist of 7 ex officio members and 18 appointive members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate. The California Constitution authorizes the members of the board to appoint either a member of the faculty at a campus of the university or of another institution of higher education, or a person enrolled as a student at a campus of the university, or both, as members of the board serving for no less than one year with all rights of participation. This measure would require, rather than authorize, the members of the board to appoint 2 students enrolled at a campus of the university for each regular academic term during their service as members of the board, as provided.

Existing law creates the Metropolitan Transportation Commission as a local area planning agency for the 9-county San Francisco Bay area with comprehensive regional transportation planning and other related responsibilities. Existing law creates the Bay Area Toll Authority as a separate entity governed by the same governing board as the commission and makes the authority responsible for the administration of toll revenues from the state-owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay area. Existing law requires the Department of Transportation to collect tolls, operate, maintain, and provide rehabilitation of all state-owned toll bridges in the San Francisco Bay area, and makes the department responsible for the design and construction of improvements on those bridges in accordance with programming and scheduling requirements adopted by the authority. This bill would require the department, in consultation with the commission, the authority, relevant transit operators, and relevant local transportation agencies, to establish speed and reliability performance targets no later than July 1, 2024, for buses traveling in the eastbound and westbound directions through the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge corridor. The bill would require the department to establish an online reporting process, in consultation with relevant transit operators, to publicly share bus speed and reliability performance results relative to the performance targets on no less than a quarterly basis. The bill would require the department, in consultation with the commission, the authority, relevant transit operators, and relevant local transportation agencies, to submit a report to the Legislature no later than December 1, 2024, that identifies a strategy for achieving bus speed and reliability performance targets in the Bay Bridge corridor. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

Existing law establishes the California Emergency Solutions and Housing Program, under the administration of the Department of Housing and Community Development and requires the department to, among other things, provide rental assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services to ensure housing affordability to people who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of homelessness. This bill would require the department, subject to an appropriation in the annual Budget Act, to develop and administer a program to award grants to qualified homeless shelters and qualified domestic violence shelters, as described, for the provision of shelter, food, and basic veterinary services for pets owned by people experiencing homelessness or escaping domestic violence. The bill would authorize the department to use up to 5% of the funds appropriated in the annual Budget Act for those purposes for its costs in administering the program.