Asm. Richard Bloom

This measure would name the public street, circle, and plaza at 914 and 915 Capitol Mall in the City of Sacramento as the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Circle and Plaza. The measure would request the Department of General Services to determine the cost of erecting the appropriate signage commemorating this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources, to cover that cost to erect that signage.

Existing law establishes the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission and prescribes the duties of the commission relating to the restoration and enhancement of Santa Monica Bay and its watershed. Existing law requires the State Water Resources Control Board to provide administrative services to the commission. Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection, the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, and the Chair of the Bay Watershed Council of the commission to enter into a memorandum of understanding that ensures the coordination of state programs affecting Santa Monica Bay, and that delineates the authority of the commission, and its governance structure with respect to the implementation of those state programs. This bill would instead require the State Coastal Conservancy to provide those administrative services to the commission and to enter into that memorandum of understanding with the Secretary for Environmental Protection, the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, and the commission. Existing law requires the commission to prioritize in its educational, monitoring, and bond proceeds expenditure decisions, proposals, or projects designed to achieve specified bay restoration objectives, as described. This bill would instead specify that the purpose of the commission is to promote, support, and achieve the restoration and enhancement of Santa Monica Bay and its watershed, and would prescribe specified restoration and enhancement goals for the bay and its watershed, as provided.

Existing law prohibits a local authority from enacting or enforcing an ordinance or resolution on matters covered by the Vehicle Code unless expressly authorized by the Vehicle Code. Existing law authorizes local authorities, for highways under their jurisdiction, to adopt rules and regulations by ordinance or resolution regarding specified matters, including, among others, prohibiting entry to, or exit from, or both entry to or exit from, any street by means of certain roadway design features to implement the circulation element of a general plan. Existing law prohibits a local agency from imposing a tax, permit fee, or other charge for the privilege of using its streets or highways, other than a permit fee for extra legal loads, after December 31, 1990, unless the local agency imposed the fee before June 1, 1989. This bill would authorize the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco by ordinance to conduct a reservation and pricing pilot program for vehicles that use the "Crooked Street," which the bill would define to mean the portion of Lombard Street located between Leavenworth Street and Hyde Street in the City and County of San Francisco. Before the board of supervisors adopts an ordinance to conduct the pilot program, the bill would require the board of supervisors to make certain findings and to conduct at least 2 public outreach meetings or hearings. The bill would require the board of supervisors to designate in the ordinance a program administrator and would require the program administrator to consult with specified entities and submit 2 reports to the Legislature. The bill would require the board of supervisors to include certain program requirements in the ordinance, including, among other things, congestion reduction objectives and goals, public involvement and consultation requirements, and performance monitoring requirements. The bill would authorize the board of supervisors to specify the powers and duties of the program administrator in the ordinance, including, among other powers, the authority to impose fees on vehicles for the use of the Crooked Street. The bill would make these provisions inoperative 7 years after the beginning of the pilot program. This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the City and County of San Francisco.

This measure would recognize September 2020 as Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month and encourage the Legislature to appropriate funds for research, treatment, and monitoring of sickle cell disease, and for related education and outreach.

(1) Existing law provides that the Department of Transportation has full possession and control over the highways of the state and is responsible for preparing the State Highway Operation and Protection Program for the expenditure of transportation funds for major capital improvements that are necessary to preserve and protect the state highway system. Existing law also creates the California Transportation Commission, with specified powers and duties relative to the programming of transportation capital improvement projects and the allocation of state transportation funds for state transportation improvement projects. Existing law requires the department, in consultation with the commission, to prepare an asset management plan to guide selection of projects for the State Highway Operation and Protection Program consistent with any applicable state and federal requirements. Existing law requires the commission, in connection with the asset management plan, to adopt targets and performance measures reflecting state transportation goals and objectives. This bill would require the asset management plan to prioritize the implementation of safe and connected facilities for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users on all State Highway Operation and Protection Program projects, as specified. The bill would require the department to include complete streets elements in the asset management plan, as specified. The bill would require the commission, in connection with the asset management plan, to adopt performance measures that include conditions of bicycle and pedestrian facilities, accessibility and safety for pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users on the state highway system. The bill would require that the plain language performance report developed by the department, in consultation with the commission, include a description of pedestrian and bicycle facilities on each project, including the number, extent, and type of elements. The bill would require the department, commencing with the 2022 State Highway Operation and Protection Program, when undertaking a specified capital improvement project on a state highway or on a local street crossing a state highway that is funded through the State Highway Operation and Protection Program, to include new pedestrian and bicycle facilities, or improve existing facilities, as part of the project, consistent with specified requirements. For each project development team that the department establishes for a project, the bill would require the department to include specified representatives on the team. (2) Existing law requires funds in the State Highway Account to be programmed, budgeted, and expended to maximize the use of federal funds and to be based on a specified sequence of priorities, including, among others, safety improvements where physical changes, other than adding additional lanes, would reduce fatalities and the number and severity of injuries. This bill would require those safety improvements to prioritize reducing fatalities and severe injuries, including fatalities and injuries of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users on the state highway system.

This measure would urge specified state departments and the Attorney General to use their authority to ensure that health care service plans and health insurers subject to their authority comply with the federal Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

(1) Existing federal law governing immigration authorizes the importation of an alien as a nonimmigrant agricultural worker, known as an H-2A worker, if specified requirements are met, including that the employer furnish housing, as provided. Existing state law establishes various housing programs administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development, including the Joe Serna, Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant Program, pursuant to which the department provides, subject to availability of funds, grants and loans to specified entities for the construction or rehabilitation of housing for agricultural employees and their families or for the acquisition of manufactured housing, as provided. Existing state law, the California Community Services Block Grant Program, requires the Department of Community Services and Development to administer the federal Community Services Block Grant funds to provide financial assistance for activities designed to have a measurable and potentially major impact on causes of poverty in a community or areas of a community where poverty is a particularly acute problem. Existing law authorizes this funding to assist programs that, among other things, meet the needs of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families, such as improved housing and sanitation, including the provision and maintenance of emergency and temporary housing and sanitation facilities. This bill would prohibit the provision of state funding, as defined, for the purposes of funding predevelopment of, developing, or operating any housing used to comply with the federal law requirement to furnish housing to H-2A workers and would require an employer, as defined, or other recipient of state funding who utilizes state funding for these purposes to reimburse the state or state agency that provided the funding in an amount equal to the amount of that state funding expended for those purposes. The bill would exempt from these provisions any contract or other enforceable agreement pursuant to which the state or a state agency provides funding that was entered into prior to January 1, 2020. The bill would also make various conforming changes to other laws. (2) The Planning and Zoning Law requires that the housing element of a city's or county's general plan include, among other things, that the housing element of a city's or county's general plan include, among other things, an analysis of any special housing needs, including the needs of, among others, farmworkers. Existing law exempts certain housing developments from conditional use permits and requires those developments to be subject to certain streamlined approval processes, as specified. Existing law, the Employee Housing Act, requires a person operating employee housing, as defined, to obtain a permit to operate that housing from the agency that enforces the act, which may either be the Department of Housing and Community Development or a city, county, or city and county that assumes responsibility for enforcing the act. The act generally reserves local use zone requirements to local governments except as provided, including requiring a specified streamlined approval process for certain improvements related to employee housing for agricultural employees. A violation of the act is a misdemeanor. This bill would provide that a tenant residing in agricultural employee housing, as defined, has all rights applicable to a person residing in employee housing under existing provisions, including the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and specified provisions relating to tenant rights. The bill would require the department to establish and administer, as specified, an application and review process for certifying that a person is an affordable housing organization qualified to operate specified agricultural employee housing. The bill also would require the department to establish and maintain a roster of all certified affordable housing organizations. The bill would, as an exception to the provision reserving local use zone requirements to local governments, authorize a development proponent to submit an application for an agricultural employee housing development that is subject to a streamlined, ministerial approval process, as specified, and that is not subject to a conditional use permit if certain requirements are met, including that the agricultural employee housing will be maintained and operated by a qualified affordable housing organization that has been certified by the department, as specified. The bill would require a local government to notify the development proponent in writing if the local government determines that the development does not meet those requirements by a specified time; otherwise, the development would be deemed to comply with the requirement that the development not be located on certain types of hazardous or conservation sites, as specified. The bill would authorize a specified local government entity to conduct a development review or public oversight of the development, as provided. The bill would provide that agricultural employee housing approved pursuant to the provision providing for a streamlined, ministerial approval process is not subject to the density limitations otherwise required to be considered an agricultural land use and exempt from local approval, taxes, and fees, as described above. The bill would also require, as a condition of that approval process, the qualified affordable housing organization and the landowner to obligate themselves and any successors in interest to maintain the affordability of the proposed agricultural employee housing, as specified, for not less than 35 years. If that organization does not continue to operate and maintain the housing for the time period agreed to satisfy that condition, the bill would require the landowner who obtained approval of the housing to select an alternative certified person within 90 days, and would subject the landowner to an unspecified administrative penalty if the landowner fails to do so. By increasing the duties of local officials with respect to the Employee Housing Act, and by expanding the scope of an existing crime with respect to violations of the Employee Housing Act, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would make related findings and declarations, and would include findings that the changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. The bill would make various conforming changes. The Employee Housing Act deems employee housing consisting of no more than 36 beds in a group quarters or 12 units or spaces designed for use by a single family or household to be an agricultural land use for purposes of specified provisions of the act. The act provides that, for the purpose of all local ordinances, employee housing is prohibited from being deemed a use that implies that the employee housing is an activity that differs in any other way from an agricultural use. The act prohibits a local government from requiring a conditional use permit, zoning variance, or other zoning clearance for the employee housing, or from subjecting the employee housing to certain taxes or fees that are not required for other agricultural activities in that zone. The act, for the purposes of any contract, deed, or covenant for the transfer of real property, requires employee housing consisting of no more than 36 beds in a group quarters or 12 units or spaces designed for use by a single family or household to be considered an agricultural use of property. This bill, for purposes of the above-described provisions of the act, would deem employee housing that is approved pursuant to the above-described provisions of the bill providing for a streamlined, ministerial approval process, an agricultural land use. The bill would modify the prohibition on a local government requiring a zoning clearance for the employee housing to, instead, prohibit a local government from requiring a zoning clearance that is discretionary for the employee housing. The bill, as an exception to the requirement that employee housing be deemed an agricultural use for purposes of all local ordinances, would authorize a local government to subject an agricultural employee housing development, approved pursuant to the above-described provisions of the bill providing for a streamlined, ministerial approval process, to specified written objective development standards. The bill, as an exemption to the prohibition on a local government subjecting employee housing to certain taxes or fees that are not required for other agricultural activity in that zone, would authorize a local government to impose fees and other exactions otherwise authorized by law that are essential to provide necessary public services and facilities to an agricultural employee housing development. The bill, for the purposes of any contract, deed, or covenant for the transfer of real property, would require employee housing, approved pursuant to the provisions of the bill providing for a streamlined, ministerial approval process, to be considered an agricultural use of property. The bill would provide that if any owner, who invokes the above-described provisions or the provisions of the bill providing for a streamlined, ministerial approval process, fails to maintain a permit to operate throughout the first 10 consecutive years following the issuance of the original certificate of occupancy, the public agency that has waived any taxes, fees, assessments, or charges, as specified, is authorized to recover certain amounts of those taxes, fees, assessments, or charges. 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 or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA does not apply to the approval of ministerial projects. Because the approval process established by the bill is streamlined and ministerial in nature, the approval of projects subject to this process are exempt from CEQA. The bill, additionally, would prohibit the approval of a development and the application of development standards pursuant to specified provisions of the bill from being deemed a discretionary act within the meaning of CEQA. 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.