Existing law requires the Office of the State Foster Care Ombudsperson to be established in the State Department of Social Services with prescribed powers and duties relating to the management of foster children, including the dissemination of information on the rights of children and youth in foster care. This bill would require the office to take all necessary steps to establish and implement the Virtual Assistant Living and Education (VALE) program, an interactive, secured Internet Web site that would maintain personal information relating to foster youth, as well as other specified contents, to provide the youth and their care providers with centralized access to this information. The bill would require the office to ensure the confidentiality of information on the VALE Web site, as specified.
Sponsored bills
Existing law exempts from the provisions of the State Contract Act and other state bidding requirements the selection and commissioning of artists and the purchase and execution of works of art for state buildings. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that will fund the arts.
(1) Existing law authorizes the Office of Planning and Research (OPR) to furnish information and technical and professional advice on the preparation, adoption, amendment, and implementation of specified plans, including general plans, when requested by a local or regional agency. This bill would require OPR, on or before January 1, 2011, to update its "Fire Hazard Planning" document prepared as part of the General Plan Technical Advice Series and issued in November of 2003. (2) The Planning and Zoning Law requires that a city or county general plan consist of various elements, including, among other things, land use, circulation, housing, open space, conservation, and safety elements, which are required to meet specified requirements. The safety element is for the protection of the community from unreasonable risks associated with, among other things, the effects of seismically induced surface rupture, ground shaking, ground failure, tsunami, seiche, dam failure, and wild land and urban fires. The safety element includes requirements for state responsibility areas and very high fire hazard severity zones. This bill would revise the safety element requirements for state responsibility areas and very high fire hazard severity zones, as specified, and require the safety element, prior to January 1, 2015, and thereafter upon each revision of the housing element, to be reviewed and updated as necessary to address the risk of fire for land classified as state responsibility areas and very high fire hazard severity zones. The bill would require the review to include consideration of the advice contained within the most recent publication of the OPR's "Fire Hazard Planning" document and other specified information. The bill would also require the city or county to establish a set of goals, policies, and objectives based upon specified information regarding fire hazards, and to establish a set of feasible implementation measures designed to carry out those goals, policies, and objectives. By imposing new duties on local officials for the adoption of a general plan, the bill would create a state-mandated local program. (3) The Planning and Zoning Law requires the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection and the local agency to review the draft or existing safety element and to report its written recommendations to the planning agency within 60 days of its receipt of the draft or existing safety element. The State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection and the local agency are authorized to offer written recommendations for changes to the draft or existing safety element regarding uses of land, policies, and methods for wildland fire risk reduction and prevention in state responsibility areas and very high fire hazard severity zones. This bill would instead require the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, and authorize the local agency, to review the draft or existing safety element and recommend changes to the planning agency regarding uses of land, policies, and methods for wildland fire risk reduction and prevention in state responsibility areas and very high fire hazard severity zones within 60 days of the receipt of the draft or existing safety element. (4) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project, as defined, that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment, or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA requires OPR to prepare and develop proposed guidelines for the implementation of CEQA by public agencies. This bill would require OPR, on or after January 1, 2010, at the time of the next update of guidelines implementing CEQA, in cooperation with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to prepare, develop, and transmit to the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency recommended proposed changes or amendments to the initial study for the inclusion of questions related to fire hazard impacts for projects located on lands in state responsibility areas, as defined, and on lands classified as very high fire hazard severity zones, as defined. The Natural Resources Agency would be required to certify and adopt the recommended proposed changes or amendments prepared and developed by the OPR in accordance with these provisions. (5) 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 a specified reason.
Existing law provides for the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, under which qualified aged, blind, and disabled persons receive services enabling them to remain in their own homes and avoid institutionalization. Existing law permits services to be provided under the IHSS program either through the employment of individual providers, a contract between the county and an entity for the provision of services, the creation by the county of a public authority, or a contract between the county and a nonprofit consortium. Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which health care services are provided to qualified low-income persons. Under existing law, IHSS recipients who are eligible for the Medi-Cal program are provided with personal care option services, as defined, in lieu of receiving these services under the IHSS program. Existing law, enacted in 2009, makes various statutory changes with respect to the provision of in-home supportive services, relating to matters, including, but not limited to, provider enrollment procedures, criminal background checks, orientation, and duties, as well as eligibility standards for recipients, unannounced home visits, and program integrity and fraud prevention. This bill would make the operation of the statutory changes described above subject to a stakeholder process, to be conducted, as specified, by the State Department of Social Services, prior to the implementation of those changes. The bill would require implementation of any of the statutory changes described in the bill to occur either on the date specified in an applicable statute, or 60 days after the department notifies the Joint Legislative Budget Committee that the changes may be implemented, whichever is later. This bill would prohibit information notices relating to the implementation of these statutory changes from being sent to recipients or providers until the stakeholder process is completed. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998, requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school districts state funding for the construction and modernization of school facilities, provided that the school districts demonstrate eligibility for this funding by complying with various requirements. The State Department of Education has specified responsibilities in the process of determining whether a project proposed for funding complies with pertinent requirements. Existing federal law generally prohibits any person from being excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination under, any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. This bill, with respect to athletics-related facilities only, as defined, would require the State Department of Education to include, as part of its review of an application for new construction plan approval, a determination of whether the proposed project would provide the opportunity for gender equitable access to athletic facilities or provide equity in the size and quality of areas to be used exclusively by either boys or girls. The bill would authorize the State Department of Education to convene a working group to develop guidelines and procedures for the implementation of the bill, and would require that the activities of the working group be funded from existing department resources. The bill would authorize the department to submit a report, including the guidelines and procedures developed for implementing the bill, and including any additional pertinent recommendations, to the chairpersons of the Assembly and Senate committees on education no later than December 31, 2010.
Existing law provides that a person is liable for constructive invasion of privacy when he or she attempts to capture, in a manner that is offensive to a reasonable person, any type of visual image, sound recording, or other physical impression of another person engaging in a personal or familial activity under circumstances in which that other person had a reasonable expectation of privacy, through the use of a visual or auditory enhancing device, regardless of whether there is a physical trespass, if this image, sound recording, or other physical impression could not have been achieved without a trespass unless the visual or auditory enhancing device was used. This bill would require a social networking Internet Web site to provide a specified disclosure to a user, as defined, of the site stating that an image which is uploaded onto the social networking Internet Web site is capable of being copied by persons who view the image without the consent of the user who initially uploads the image, or copied in violation of the privacy policy, terms of use, or other policy of the site.
Existing law requires the written consent of the Labor Commissioner for the employment of a minor, as specified, in entertainment productions or as an advertising or photographic model or as a participant or player in a sport. Under existing law, a minor is required to obtain an entertainment work permit from the Labor Commissioner in order to be employed in those capacities. This bill would require that a fee be submitted at the time the minor applies for the work permit. The bill would specify that the fee be deposited into the Entertainment Work Permit Fund, which would be created by the bill, and would make this fee revenue available to the Labor Commissioner, upon appropriation, for the costs of issuing the permit, enforcing the provisions regulating a minor's employment in fields requiring issuance of an entertainment work permit, and administering the entertainment work permit program. The bill would provide that the fee to be submitted to the Labor Commissioner pursuant to these provisions would be $50 until January 1, 2012, and, on and after January 1, 2012, the fee would be set by the Labor Commissioner in an amount, not to exceed $50, sufficient to pay for the costs set forth above.
(1) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment, as defined, or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect, unless the project is exempt from the act. CEQA provides for various exemptions from its requirements. Existing law requires cities and counties to prepare, adopt, and amend general plans containing specified elements. This bill would exempt from CEQA any activity or approval, necessary or incidental to, the development, planning, design, site acquisition, subdivision, financing, leasing, construction, operation, or maintenance of a stadium complex and associated development included in the same project or approval together with any accessory roadway, utility, or other infrastructure improvement to that stadium complex and associated development, for which an application for the project or approval was submitted on or before January 31, 2009, to the City of Industry, if specified requirements are met. The bill would require the city to require the stadium complex and associated development to comply with those mitigation measures that are contained in a mitigation monitoring and reporting program that is adopted by the City of Industry in connection with the stadium complex and associated development. Because a lead agency would be required to determine the applicability of the exemption, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill also would exempt from any legal requirement concerning the content of a general plan or consistency with a general plan, and prohibit those requirements from resulting in the invalidation of, the city's approval of, and decisions regarding, specified actions taken with respect to the stadium complex and associated development included in the same project or approval and any accessory improvements to that stadium complex and associated development. The bill additionally would provide that a consistency determination is not required by the city for any decision with respect to those actions. (2) The bill would have retroactive application. (3) 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 a specified reason. (4) The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and to call the Legislature into special session for that purpose. The Governor issued a proclamation declaring a fiscal emergency, and calling a special session for this purpose, on December 19, 2008. This bill would state that it addresses the fiscal emergency declared by the Governor by proclamation issued on December 19, 2008, pursuant to the California Constitution.
Existing law regulates the licensing and operation of talent services within the entertainment industry. These provisions govern the making and canceling of contracts, fees to be charged for services, records to be maintained by talent services, bonding requirements, and remedies for violations of these provisions, a violation of which constitutes a crime. This bill would prohibit a person from engaging, as specified, in an advance-fee talent representation service, as defined. This bill would also impose additional disclosure and contract requirements for a talent service, as defined. The bill would make a willful violation of its provisions a misdemeanor and subject to a civil action. Because the bill would create new crimes, it 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 a specified reason.
Existing law establishes the Multifamily Housing Program under the administration of the Department of Housing and Community Development to provide a standardized set of program rules and features applicable to all housing types based on the department's California Housing Rehabilitation Program. Existing law authorizes a sponsor of a supportive housing development, as defined, to restrict occupancy to persons with veteran status if, among other things, the development is located on property that is owned or leased by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or the California Department of Veterans Affairs and is leased to the sponsor for not less than 55 years. This bill would delete the requirement that the development be located on property owned or leased by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs or the California Department of Veterans Affairs for the specified term. The bill would also define a certain phrase for purposes of authorizing a sponsor of a supportive housing development to restrict occupancy in the development.