Existing law establishes the Tri-Valley-San Joaquin Valley Regional Rail Authority for purposes of planning, developing, and delivering cost-effective and responsive transit connectivity, between the Bay Area Rapid Transit District's rapid transit system and the Altamont Corridor Express commuter rail service in the Tri-Valley, as defined, region of California. Existing law gives the authority all of the powers necessary for planning, acquiring, leasing, developing, jointly developing, owning, controlling, using, jointly using, disposing of, designing, procuring, and constructing facilities to achieve transit connectivity, including, among other powers, the power to enter into cooperative or joint development agreements with local governments or private entities necessary to achieve transit connectivity. This bill would require the authority to be considered a rail transit district, thereby exempting the authority from specified provisions related to regulation by counties and cities regarding building, zoning, and related matters.
Sponsored bills
(1) Existing law, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act, which is administered by the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, regulates the application, issuance, and suspension of alcoholic beverage licenses. Existing law defines a licensed branch office with reference to certain winegrower and brandy manufacturer facilities for which a duplicate license has been issued. Existing law prohibits a winegrower or brandy manufacturer from selling wine or brandy to consumers, or engaging in winetasting activities, at more than one licensed branch premise. Existing law limits the effect of this prohibition in connection with other premises, as specified. Existing law generally provides that a violation of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act is a misdemeanor. This bill would revise the prohibition described above to allow a winegrower or brandy manufacturer to sell wine or brandy to consumers, or to engage in winetasting activities, at up to 2 licensed branch premises. By broadening the definition of a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would also make technical, clarifying changes. The Alcoholic Beverage Control Act also provides for application fees for a new license, not including a duplicate license, and for various annual renewal fees, depending on the type of license, including an annual fee for the renewal of a duplicate winegrower's license. The bill would provide for an application fee of $440 for a duplicate winegrower's license application. (2) 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, the California Emergency Services Act, authorizes the Governor to declare a state of emergency during conditions of disaster or extreme peril to persons or property. Existing law authorizes the Governor, during a state of emergency, to suspend any regulatory statute, or statute prescribing the procedure for conduct of state business, or the orders, rules, or regulations of any state agency, including provisions relating to eligibility to receive unemployment compensation benefits, if the Governor determines and declares that strict compliance with any statute, order, rule, or regulation would in any way prevent, hinder, or delay the mitigation of the effects of the emergency. Existing law requires each department, division, bureau, board, commission, officer, and employee of this state to render all possible assistance to the Governor and to the Director of Emergency Services in carrying out the act. This bill would authorize a nonprofit entity that provides services pursuant to a contract with the state, during a state of war emergency or a state of emergency, to adjust the method in which it provides those services so long as the purpose of the contract is served. The bill would require the nonprofit entity to notify all departments from which it receives funding of a closure or of an impacted program, including whether a closure is location specific or due to executive order, and why the service level may be impacted. The bill would require a nonprofit entity to identify and thoroughly document all expenditures associated with the closed program, and to retain documentation to justify expenses and to support claiming continued state funding, as specified. The bill would require state departments that receive notice from a nonprofit entity that provides services, as described above, to ensure that funding is available to pay for canceled services, closed programs, or reduced service levels, as specified. This bill would apply these provisions only until the contracting agency determines what substitute performance in furtherance of the purpose of the contract is permissible. The bill would not apply to any contract that is void or voidable on the basis of force majeure or frustration of purpose.
This measure would proclaim the month of July 2021 as California Parks and Recreation Professionals Month to celebrate the accomplishments and resilience of parks and recreation professionals throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Existing law, the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Act of 2003, states it is the intent of the Legislature that the Department of Parks and Recreation should support both motorized recreation and motorized off-highway access to nonmotorized recreation. Existing law establishes the Off-Highway Vehicle Trust Fund and requires the revenues in the fund to be available, upon appropriation, for specified purposes, including the planning, acquisition, development, mitigation, construction, maintenance, administration, operation, restoration, and conservation of lands in state vehicular recreation areas and certain other areas. This bill would require the department to preserve, in perpetuity, land known as the "Alameda-Tesla Expansion Area," which is currently part of the Carnegie State Vehicular Recreation Area, for conservation purposes, including for nonmotorized public recreation, as provided. The bill would require the department to work with other entities to have $9,000,000 appropriated, transferred, or donated to the Off-Highway Vehicle Trust Fund by January 1, 2025.
Existing law requires political advertisements to include specified disclosure statements that identify the name of the campaign committee paying for the advertisement and the top contributors, as defined, to that committee. Existing law requires a campaign committee that pays for the circulation of a state or local initiative, referendum, or recall petition to disclose its top contributors, as prescribed. Existing law establishes other requirements regarding the form, content, and presentation of initiative, referendum, and recall petitions. This bill would require an initiative, referendum, or recall petition to instruct voters to sign the petition only after viewing certain disclosures regarding the top contributors to the initiative, referendum, or recall, as specified. This bill would make additional changes to requirements regarding the form, content, and presentation of initiative, referendum, and recall petitions. This bill would revise the minimum contribution thresholds above which a contributor to a committee may be considered a top contributor, and would require certain political advertisements to identify the top contributors to the campaign committee paying for the advertisement without regard to any minimum contribution threshold. This bill would make additional changes to the disclosure requirements for political advertisements, including changes to the required form, content, and presentation of the disclosures depending on the medium in which the advertisement appears. Because political advertisements are regulated under the Political Reform Act of 1974, and a violation of the act is punishable as a misdemeanor, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding the definition of a crime. 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. The Political Reform Act of 1974, an initiative measure, provides that the Legislature may amend the act to further the act's purposes upon a 23 vote of each house of the Legislature and compliance with specified procedural requirements. This bill would declare that it furthers the purposes of the act.
Existing law establishes the State Department of Public Health and sets forth its powers and duties, including the administration of provisions relating to the prevention and control of communicable diseases. Existing regulations require certain communicable diseases to be reported to local health officers by health providers, using a uniform Confidential Morbidity Report (CMR) . Existing law, the Information Practices Act of 1977, regulates the collection and disclosure of personal information regarding individuals by state agencies, except as specified. Under existing law, a person who willfully requests or obtains a record containing personal information from an agency under false pretenses or a person who intentionally discloses medical, psychiatric, or psychological information held by an agency is guilty of a misdemeanor. This bill would require the department to create a program to provide expedited release, during a declared public health emergency, of specified health care data to researchers at a bona fide research institution of higher education, as defined. The bill would require the department to make the specified data available promptly, and on an ongoing basis, only to qualified researchers who sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the department agreeing to use the data only for public health research purposes, to not disclose it to any other party, and to keep all personal information confidential. The bill would require each individual researcher who accesses or obtains nonpublic personal data through the program to sign an MOU, and would make a violation of the MOU a misdemeanor under the Information Practices Act of 1977. Because a willful violation of an MOU would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the department, within one business day of agreeing to an MOU, to publish the MOU in full and make it available, along with specified information, to the general public on its internet website. The bill would require the program to create a special Institutional Review Board to review requests submitted under the program and would require the program to approve or reject the requests within 15 days of receiving a completed application. This bill would also require that any report of a communicable respiratory disease by a health care provider to a local health officer and any electronic tool used by a local health officer for the purposes of reporting cases of a communicable respiratory disease include information on the type of housing where the patient resides, the number of people in the patient's household, the occupation and workplace of the patient, and a relevant travel history based on the disease course. The bill would make implementation of its provisions subject to an appropriation by the Legislature. To the extent that this bill would increase the duties of local health officers, 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 with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.