BOARD LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE Friday, October 20, 2017 12:30 p.m. EBRPD – Administrative Headquarters 2950 Peralta Oaks Court Oakland, California 94605
The following agenda items are listed for Committee consideration. In accordance with the Board Operating Guidelines, no official action of the Board will be taken at this meeting; rather, the Committee’s purpose shall be to review the listed items and to consider developing recommendations to the Board of Directors.
A copy of the background materials concerning these agenda items, including any material that may have been submitted less than 72 hours before the meeting, is available for inspection on the District’s website (www. ebparks.org), the Headquarters reception desk, and at the meeting.
Public Comment on Agenda Items If you wish to testify on an item on the agenda, please complete a speaker’s form and submit it to the recording secretary. Your name will be called when the item is announced for discussion.
Accommodations and Access District facilities and meetings comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. If special accommodations are needed for you to participate, please contact the Clerk of the Board at 510-544-2020 as soon as possible, but preferably at least three working days prior to the meeting.
AGENDA
TIME ITEM STATUS STAFF 12:30 I. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A
B. OTHER MATTERS I Doyle/Pfuehler 1. State Legislative Session Wrap-Up 2. Cap-and-Trade 3. Other Matters
II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION R Pfuehler 1. H.R. 3768 (Quigley D-IL) – Reducing Waste in National Parks Act
B. OTHER MATTERS 1. Other Matters
III. MEASURE CC UPDATE I Pfuehler/Doyle
IV. ARTICLES
V. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT Individuals wishing to address the Committee on a topic not on the agenda may do so by completing a speaker’s form and submitting it to the recording secretary.
VI. BOARD COMMENTS
(R) Recommendation for Future Board Consideration (I) Information (D) Discussion Legislative Committee Members Future Meetings: Ellen Corbett (Chair); Beverly Lane; Dennis Waespi January 27 July 21 Colin Coffey, Alternate February 24 CANCELLED August 25 Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager March 17 September 22 April 14 RESCHEDULED October 20 May 19 November 17 June 16 December 15
Distribution/Agenda Distribution/Full Packet
District: Public: District: Public: Mimi Waluch Norman LaForce Board Members Pat O’Brien Kristina Kelchner Peter Rauch Robert Doyle Dr. George Manross David Zuckermann Afton Crooks AGMs Doug Houston (via-email) Ira Bletz Stana Hearne Erich Pfuehler Bruce Kern (via-email) Connie Swisher Judi Bank Lisa Baldinger Elissa Robinson (via e-mail) Sharon Clay Michael Kelley Jeff Rasmussen Rick Rickard (via-email) Rachel Sater Bruce Beyaert (via e-mail) Tiffany Margulici Peter Umhofer (via-email) Anne Kassebaum Joshua Hugg Steve Castile Sean Dougan Mona Koh Yolande Barial Knight Mark Pearson – Local 2428 Eri Suzuki – Local 2428 Xiaoning Huang – Local 2428 Tyrone Davis – POA Lobby/Receptionist
TO: Board Legislative Committee (Chair Ellen Corbett, Beverly Lane, Dennis Waespi)
FROM: Robert E. Doyle, General Manager Erich Pfuehler, Government Affairs Manager
SUBJECT: Board Legislative Committee Meeting WHEN: Friday, October 20, 2017 12:30 PM Lunch will be served
WHERE: Board Room, Peralta Oaks ______
Items to be discussed:
I. STATE LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION – N/A
B. OTHER MATTERS 1. State Legislative Session Wrap-Up
2. Cap-and-Trade The most recent cap-and-trade auction took place on August 15, 2017 and generated approximately $640 million in revenue. This revenue compliments the 2018 spending plan of nearly $1.5 billion signed by Governor Jerry Brown in the form of two bills, SB 93 and SB 119. Examples of how this plan will allocate funds: • $225 million for fire prevention and response • $61 million for urban forestry, healthy forests and wetlands restoration • $44 million for programs to promote energy efficiency • $40 million to improve the state’s recycling infrastructure • $11 million for energy research at the University of California • $300 million to help local regulators improve air quality in polluted neighborhoods • $895 for new vehicles including farm and electric car rebates
This past July, Governor Brown signed AB 398 (Garcia D-Coachella), helping to resolve the uncertain future for the cap-and-trade program and extend it through 2030 with the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels.
3. Other Matters
II. FEDERAL LEGISLATION / OTHER MATTERS A. NEW LEGISLATION 1. H.R. 3768 (Quigley D-IL) – Reducing Waste in National Parks Act Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL 5th District) introduced this legislation which calls upon the National Park System’s regional directors to establish a program for the recycling and reduction of disposable plastic bottles in their parks, including sales. Congressman Quigley is the Vice-Chair of the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition (SEEC) and sites a May 2017 report
1
by the National Park District titled, “’Disposable Plastic Water Bottle Recycling and Reduction’ Program Evaluation Report” as proof of need for such a policy. This report found the 2011 policy by the Obama administration which encouraged national parks to end the sale of disposable water bottles within their boundaries saved millions of water bottles annually from pollution park grounds and filling landfills. Additionally, the policy adopted by 23 parks saw a reduction of approximately 111,743 pounds of plastic each year. This policy was rescinded by the Trump administration in August 2017. Congressman Quigley’s bill would make a permanent ban on plastic bottle sales in National Parks and create regional programming to educate visitors on the plastic water bottle sales ban.
Staff Recommendation: SUPPORT
B. OTHER MATTERS
III. MEASURE CC UPDATE
V. ARTICLES
VI. OPEN FORUM PUBLIC COMMENT
VII. BOARD COMMENTS
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Bridge toll boost seen as salve for Bay Area transportation woes
By Michael Cabanatuan October 11, 2017
• Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle IMAGE 1 OF 3 Bay Bridge toll booth on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif. Bay Bridge toll booth on Wednesday, October 11, 2017, in San Francisco, Calif.
Although Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill allowing Bay Area voters to raise bridge tolls, no date for an election has been set nor has the amount of the proposed increase or whether it would rise all at once or over a number of years.
What is clear, however, is that the toll increase would raise about $4.5 billion that would pay for at least three dozen transportation projects. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission will decide early in 2018 on the logistics of Regional Measure 3, which would require an overall majority vote in the nine Bay Area counties to become law. If voters go along with it, the toll increases would cover all of the Bay Area’s state-owned bridges but would exclude the Golden Gate Bridge, which is independently owned and sets its own tolls.
The spending plan established by the Legislature offers something for every part of the Bay Area, with a little extra for the most populated areas, and includes highway projects as well as mass transit improvements.
It does, however, continue the Bay Area’s strategy to emphasize public transportation while focusing highway improvements on traffic choke points. As has been the practice for years, no new highway construction would be funded.
Carl Guardino, head of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which pushed for the bill, said the spending plan’s strategy is to take a regional approach to making it easier to get around the Bay Area.
“In our region especially, we have become very adept at creating and passing countywide measures, yet so many of our traffic tie-ups transcend county borders,” Guardino said. “This allows us to cross county borders and address some of our toughest regional traffic jams.”
The spending plan includes some headline projects, including money to complete the BART extension, now under construction to Berryessa, to downtown San Jose and Santa Clara; a Caltrain extension to the Transbay Terminal; a SMART extension to Windsor and Healdsburg; and funding to complete the widening of the notorious Novato Narrows.
“It has proceeded in fits and starts for years,” said John Goodwin, an MTC spokesman. “This would allow that project to at long last get knocked out.”
The measure would also raise money for both BART and Muni Metro to expand their fleets of new railcars to handle their growing ridership and to expand the San Francisco Bay Ferry fleet and its routes. There’s also money for buses: regional express buses and transbay buses and bus rapid transit in the East Bay. In addition to the Narrows, the plan would fund expansion of the Bay Area express lane project, which converts carpool lanes into shared carpool-toll lanes for solo drivers who want to buy their way in. It also funds upgrades to interchanges at Interstate 680- Highway 4 in Martinez, I-680 and Highway 84 near Sunol, and Highways 101 and 92 in San Mateo.
The plan also calls for funding improvements to the North Bay’s Highway 37, which often floods during heavy rains, and the Dumbarton Bridge corridor.
The bill also requires the measure to include a proposal to create a position for an inspector general whose job it would be to examine BART finances and operations. State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, insisted on its inclusion in the measure despite BART’s opposition.
Michael Cabanatuan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ctuan
Michael Cabanatuan Transportation Reporter
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Put a $6 billion housing bond on California ballot
By Libby Schaaf August 29, 2017
• Photo: Leah Millis, The Chronicle IMAGE 1 OF 2 Tents cluster underneath an overpass on Brush Street in Oakland.
No matter how long I live and govern in this city, I cannot accept that people are sleeping on sidewalks in Oakland or mothers and children are forced to live in cars because they cannot afford rent. The waiting lists for affordable housing are too long. This new “normal” in California is unacceptable. It is clear that California voters no longer accept this inhumane reality either. A recent poll found strong support for a $6 billion to $9 billion statewide affordable-housing bond to make a dent in the affordable-housing construction we need. A housing bond of this size is a responsible investment that allows the state to quickly build affordable homes while working with public and private partners.
State leaders must think big when it comes to solutions for a housing crisis of this magnitude that is crushing the communities in our region, forcing many households to decide between keeping a roof over their heads or putting food on the table. That’s why we need state leaders to seek passage of a housing bond of at least $6 billion — or more. Anything less is grossly insufficient. A housing bond is part of the commitment Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature made just last month to tackle the growing housing gap. Our leaders said their top priority would be a package of housing legislation that includes a permanent source of state investment in affordable homes, a bond measure to provide a significant, short-term jump start to get affordable home-building going, and reforms to speed approval and construction of affordable developments.
I am urging Bay Area residents to contact Gov. Jerry Brown, Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, Senate President pro Tem Kevin de León and their own legislative representatives to remind them that the housing crisis is hurting families, seniors and veterans.
You don’t have to look far to see the human toll. Nonprofit housing organizations are flooded with calls from tearful families, desperate to find a safe, decent place to live. You or someone you know has long ago abandoned the dream of owning a home, and instead now lives in fear that the next rent increase may tip them into homelessness. More homeless people crowd under highway overpasses. Seniors and veterans who have spent a lifetime working to provide for their families can’t keep up with the rising costs of housing and now find themselves one step away from living on the street.
This is no way to be.
Today, 1 in 3 families can’t afford their rent. In Oakland, a person must earn $41.79 an hour to rent a modest two-bedroom home, according to the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, even as the average hourly wage is about half of that at $21.29. Rent takes up more than 50 percent of income for 1.7 million households. Our economy depends on increasing the supply of housing. A huge driver of rent increases in the Bay Area is the supply-and-demand imbalance. Between 2011 and 2015, for every eight jobs that were created, we’ve built only one unit of housing. That’s unsustainable.
Adding jobs without adding significantly more affordable housing threatens our communities and hinders the sustainable economic growth of our region. Alameda County and Oakland are acting to marshal resources and implement strategies, but it’s not going to be enough. We must do more.
In 2016, Oakland’s voters approved $100 million in bonds to fund antidisplacement efforts and preserve affordable housing, while residents of Alameda County approved an additional $580 million in bonds to build affordable rental housing and support moderate-income homeownership programs. We cannot continue to fund ourselves in an attempt to stem the tide of a problem that is overwhelming our region and state.
With a $6 billion housing bond, we can house more than half a million Californians, including many families, seniors and veterans in our region. A housing bond of this size would also help make up for more than a decade of state disinvestment in affordable housing. Since the last housing bond went before voters in 2006, affordable-housing programs have shrunk by more than $6 billion.
Oakland and Alameda County voters have been generous in approving our recent bond measures, and they will be called upon again, if a housing bond is placed on the ballot. But first, Bay Area residents need the governor and Legislature to take bold action and put affordable homes back within reach for our communities. As we continue to be crushed by this housing and affordability crisis, we deserve no less than a $6 billion housing bond.
Libby Schaaf is the mayor of Oakland.
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Schwarzenegger’s bipartisan next political act: Terminating gerrymandering
By Joe Garofoli September 4, 2017 Updated: September 7, 2017 11:39am
• Photo: Ernesto Ruscio, GC Images IMAGE 1 OF 3 ROME, ITALY - JANUARY 25: Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger is seen at Piazza Di Spagna on January 25, 2017 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/GC Images)
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a master at marketing, having scaled to the top of three different professions.
But these days, the former bodybuilder and movie star is taking on perhaps his biggest sales challenge since he made “Last Action Hero”: He’s trying to get people to care about redistricting, the critical but arcane process of drawing political districts. How those boundaries are drawn, block by block, once every decade, can determine which party controls the state legislatures and Congress. In many states, the process is overseen by a few politicians or whichever party dominates the legislature. That often leads to gerrymandering — districts created to favor a single party.
This distortion perpetuates a system in which 98 percent of House membersare regularly re-elected in politically safe districts and is a big reason gridlock continues in Washington: The same players return year after year with no real fear of competition at home.
That lack of competition, Schwarzenegger said, has made voters think the system is rigged. And that frustration, he said, led many to vote for President Trump.
“People elected an outsider because of frustration,” Schwarzenegger said. “That’s one way of reaction. The other way is to fix the system.”
The 70-year-old is at the forefront of a push to change that system.
Challenges to existing redistricting systems are moving through courts in several states, with a pivotal case scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Court next month. Former President Barack Obama said overhauling redistricting will be one of his post- presidency priorities. This month, the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, fronted by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder and others, will ramp up its operations, focusing on changing redistricting procedures in several states, either through the ballot box or court challenges.
But Schwarzenegger could be the movement’s most influential voice.
“Nobody is probably going to change their opinion about redistricting because President Obama and Eric Holder talk about it,” said Eric Rauchway, a professor of history at UC Davis. “They might if Schwarzenegger does. He has his own platform. He’s a celebrity. And he’s a moderate Republican.”
Plus, Schwarzenegger has redistricting street cred. In 2008, he led the passage of Proposition 11 that set up a nonpartisan citizens commission to draw the boundaries for California’s legislative seats. Two years later, voters approved a measure that enabled the commission to draw the lines for California’s congressional districts as well.
The key to talking about redistricting and gerrymandering, Schwarzenegger said, is to keep it simple.
“The mistake that a lot of people make is to talk about the details,” Schwarzenegger said during a recent phone interview. “Don’t start with the details, because then people see the pine needles but not the forest.”
The twist: If the Republican Schwarzenegger and his allies across the political spectrum, including Obama, Holder and Common Cause, are successful in taking the redistricting out of the hands of partisan officials, “there’s every reason to believe that Democrats would benefit from a more neutral” way of drawing the lines, Rauchway said.
But Schwarzenegger, who has tried to cultivate a “post-partisan” image since leaving office in 2011, disagreed that improving redistricting is designed to create a partisan outcome.
“It’s an issue where there should be no advantage or disadvantage to any party,” Schwarzenegger said. “It is meant to be an advantage for the people.”
And that’s why he’s directing his pitch at the mass market.
He’s been crafting his antigerrymandering campaign just as he would one of his action movies. He’s created a villain (Congress, entrenched politicians in general). He’s come up with a couple of memorable one-liners about his enemy — “(Congress) couldn’t even beat herpes in the polls.” And he explains the path to a happy ending: “Gerrymandering must be destroyed. You must demand gerrymandering reform in all 50 states.”
Instead of dropping in on late-night talk shows to promote his new project, Schwarzenegger is drawing a mass audience to the issue by starring in a series of short, funny videos, heavily salted with quotations from his movies, that have gone viral. Each explains the issue in simple, easy-to-understand terms. “Gerrymandering has created an absurd reality,” Schwarzenegger says looking straight into the camera in one video, “where politicians now pick their voters instead of the voters picking their politicians.”
Through San Francisco’s CrowdPac, an online fundraising platform, he’s raising money online ($98,217 as of Friday) to help fund a legal challenge to Wisconsin gerrymandering that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 3. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the case “perhaps the most important” that the court will hear all year. Schwarzenegger will match what is raised online and likely kick in more support, as legal bills could approach $1 million.
He has spent much of the last week on the phone trying to arm-twist Republican members of Congress into signing onto an amicus brief in the Wisconsin case. It’s been a tough recruiting effort. While politicians tell him privately that they support him, they’re hesitant to publicly sign something that party leaders think could be their political death warrant.
Republica-12 ns have mastered the redistricting process thanks to a concerted effort in 2010 to win state-level races that enabled them to draw the political maps to their advantage. The result is a strong majority in the House of Representatives that Democrats are unlikely to break unless they can redraw the maps into more competitive districts after the next census in 2020, analysts said.
The GOP’s mastery of redistricting has helped them to dominate several levels of government. Since 2008, Democrats have lost more than 1,000 legislative seats across the country. Democrats hold 39 fewer seats in the House, three fewer in the Senate, and can claim 13 fewer Democratic governors than they did in 2007. The GOP controls 34 governor’s seats and dominates all branches of government in 26 states. Democrats control all three branches in only 15 states.
Schwarzenegger thinks that there will be more competitive races if the lines are drawn by non-politicians.
“Competition creates better performances,” Schwarzenegger said. “If someone is worried about competition, they will go out and perform better.” Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Interior Secretary Zinke is coming, raising fear of public land loss
By Gavin Newsom September 13, 2017 Updated: September 13, 2017 5:55pm
Photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
Our state is home to some of the nation’s most significant natural spaces. The Giant Sequoia National Monument at the foot of the Sierra Nevada is home to the world’s largest trees. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument towers above the Sacramento Valley.
Californians from all walks of life derive personal benefit from access to national monuments, parks and other outdoor places. National monuments also help drive the Golden State’s thriving outdoor economy. In parts of the state where logging and mining were once the economic mainstays, today outdoor recreation is generating approximately $85 billion in annual consumer spending, supporting 730,000 jobs and providing an estimated $6.7 billion in state and local tax revenue. Beyond that, these public spaces pay homage to our shared history and raise the overall quality of life in surrounding communities.
But these natural wonders in California — along with others across the state and nation — are under threat.
President Trump has launched an assault on public lands with an executive order that calls for a “review” of all national monuments larger than 100,000 acres created since 1996, or where the secretary of the interior arbitrarily determined the designation was made with insufficient input.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke advised last month changing boundaries of a “handful” of national monuments, which the White House has refused to name but press reports indicate include the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which protects 86,774 acres of forest and grasslands in southwestern Oregon and northwestern California.
We also know that the “superbloom” Carrizo Plain, Mojave Trails and San Gabriel Mountain national monuments are in the Trump administration’s crosshairs, in addition to the Berryessa Snow Mountain and Giant Sequoia national monuments.
Zinke’s report summary (which was released to the public) acknowledges that 99 percent of the 2.8 million Americans who commented on his plan supported the monuments being left intact. But Zinke disputes that shrinking monuments will facilitate sales of public lands for mining or logging — when that is exactly what the impact will be. The threat posed to these lands’ future represents an affront to diverse communities throughout our state and nation. The Trump administration’s actions have the potential to completely upend decades of work and engagement that communities have made in protecting these natural treasures for future generations.
Fortunately, many elected officials and community leaders throughout the Golden State have stood in defense of public lands. California’s U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, have repeatedly called on the Trump administration to preserve the monument designations and the current boundaries of California’s national monuments. California’s governor, Jerry Brown, and attorney general, Xavier Becerra, have pledged to take any legal action necessary to protect those monuments.
I stand behind California’s efforts to protect our public lands. We can’t allow President Trump to dismantle protections for national monuments, one of our nation’s proudest, enduring conservation legacies.
Gavin Newsom is the lieutenant governor of California.
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Competition looks at redesign for S.F. Bay as sea levels rises
By John King September 14, 2017 Updated: September 14, 2017 2:46pm
• Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle Grasslands cover an edge of Alameda Point, former site of the Naval Air Station Alameda, on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2017, in Alameda, Calif. Resilient by Design Bay Area Challenge participants are examining the ... more
Bay Area residents know how hard it is to get a full sense of the large and constantly shifting shoreline that frames the body of water at the center of this region.
Now imagine you’re an architect or landscape architect from outside the United States, embarking on an eight-month effort to conceive how different parts of the overall waterfront might function generations from now — not just ecologically, but also in terms of the people and cultures along it. “I’m still overwhelmed by the scale,” confessed David Tickle, a principal at Hassell, an Australian design firm. “The different waterfronts, the communities, the infrastructures and potential disasters.”
Tickle’s firm leads one of the 10 teams that will be awarded $250,000 each to come up with design responses to the challenges posed by sea level rise in the Bay Area. The competition was organized by Resilient by Design, a local nonprofit that has support from several Bay Area government agencies and is funded in large part by a
It’s an unusual challenge — a response not to a natural disaster but the scientific consensus that sea level rise will accelerate sharply in coming decades. Tides could climb between 18 and 66 inches within the bay by 2100, according to a 2012 study by the National Research Council.
The format is unusual as well, which is why Tickle and his peers are spending this week immersed in the region’s landscapes and politics.
In a typical competition, participants would know exactly what location they were to tackle. That’s not the case with what’s called “Bay Area Challenge.” Each team will be assigned a specific location in December, with their design responses to be unveiled in May.
Leaders of all 10 teams were on the Richmond waterfront Sunday for the festive launch of the endeavor. Monday was for scientific presentations in Berkeley as well as the teams introducing themselves to each other. The past two days consisted largely of visits to sites along the East Bay waterfront.
There’s a lot to learn.
The first stop Tuesday was the Bridge Yard, a gaunt but airy structure of steel and glass from 1938 near the Bay Bridge toll booths in Oakland. Built as a maintenance facility for streetcars, it now sits within an area dubbed Gateway Park.
The eastern approach to the Bay Bridge is extremely susceptible to sea level rise and storm surges, which makes it one of the potential areas to be tackled. The point of the two-hour visit was to see it firsthand — and to hear park boosters explain why a former construction staging area, noisy and stark, deserved the attention of one of the teams.
“This would be a park for things too loud, too raucous, too dirty for more pristine parks,” said landscape architect Sarah Kuehl, who has worked since 2010 on visions for the unusual strip between the bridge and the Port of Oakland. She was the last of a half- dozen or so Gateway advocates to speak. “I hope someone will pick this as their site. It needs the spotlight that a competition like this would bring.”
Then it was back to the buses for the various architects, hydraulic engineers, urban designers, community liaisons and environmental planners. There was a presentation over lunch and a bus tour of shoreline candidates, including the former naval air station in Alameda. Also, an evening seminar at the Exploratorium held by the San Francisco Estuary Institute.
Wednesday there were stops in such localized destinations as Arrowhead Marsh, where San Leandro Creek enters the bay. Thursday, the itinerary will include Martinez and Pittsburg, followed by a “community conversation around poverty and climate resilience” hosted by the Greenbelt Alliance.
If the multiday tour sounds daunting, get this: Three more are scheduled before sites are assigned.
To prepare the East Bay itinerary, “We spent an afternoon with maps and lists and figured out where we wanted to go,” said Amy Chester, who is working with Resilient by Design. She is managing director for Rebuild by Design — the competition held after Hurricane Sandy ravaged New York in 2012 and the model for the Bay Area effort.
For teams with firms based well beyond the region, travel expenses alone can eat into the $250,000 awards pretty fast. Yet far-flung participants on Monday said there’s value in the extended preparation before “real” design begins.
“There’s a DNA for us to discover in the different areas and complexities,” said Matthijs Bouw of the Dutch firm One Architecture, which shares leadership of a team that includes Denmark’s Bjarke Ingels Group and Sherwood Design Engineers of San Francisco. “It’s critical to look at everything.” There’s a similar sentiment from architect Claire Weisz of New York’s WXY, which is part of a team led by Bionic, a San Francisco landscape architecture firm.
“Any urban designer or architect wants to be here, figuring out some new tools,” said Weisz, whose firm also took part in Rebuild by Design. “That’s really the issue here. There’s no immediate crisis — so can we tweak our systems with an eye to the future?”
John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @johnkingsfchron
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Legislature wraps up busy, productive session in early morning hours
By Melody Gutierrez September 16, 2017 Updated: September 16, 2017 5:40pm
• Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, Associated Press State Senate President Pro tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, center, huddles with Democratic Senators Mike McGuire, of Healdsburg, left, and Scott Wiener of San Francisco, Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2017, in ... more
SACRAMENTO — State Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León sat in a black leather tufted chair in his ornate Capitol office, exhausted but determined to set the story line for the legislative session that closed just before 2:30 Saturday morning. “This will go down as one of the most accomplished, storied legislative years in the history of the California state Legislature,” de León said, summarizing a year in which the Democratic-led body opened with an aggressive tone toward President Trump, a resistance theme that continued until the session’s final day, nine months later.
But while Democrats responded at length to every perceived presidential misstep, much to the annoyance of their state Republican counterparts, lawmakers also passed sweeping and often controversial measures throughout the year, concluding Saturday by sending Gov. Jerry Brown bills that would dedicate billions toward building affordable housing, create a statewide sanctuary policy, end lifetime registration for some sex offenders and waive class fees for first-year community college students.
In April, lawmakers passed a $52 billion plan to pay for roads and bridges by raising gas taxes and creating a new vehicle registration fee.
Meeting its June deadline, the Legislature approved a $125 billion general fund budget — the largest in state history — that increased tax credits for the poor, put billions more toward education and increased payments for doctors and dentists who see patients on Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program for the poor.
“Cumulatively, I think there has been a lot of significant accomplishments this year, and it’s only the first year of a two-year session,” said state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda.
The Republican minority, though, said Democrats spent too much time placating their anti-Trump base and too often asked taxpayers for more money.
Under a package of 15 housing bills sent to Brown on Friday, for example, the two main sources of funding are new fees on real estate documents and property transactions, and a proposed $4 billion bond measure that will go before voters.
The Legislature also agreed to ask voters to approve a $4 billion bond measure for water, flood and parks projects.
“Rarely has so much damage been inflicted on California’s middle class during a legislative session,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. “While legislators of both parties worked overtime to protect special interests, working Californians are now burdened by high taxes, new fees and regulations that will make life more difficult for them and their families.”
Democrats introduced two dozen resolutions and bills opposing Trump in some way, including one calling on the president “to resign for the good of the country” in a resolution by Assemblyman Evan Low, D-San Jose, that was never put up for a vote. Another resolution, by Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, that supported a congressional censure of Trump passed the Assembly Friday.
That resolution prompted Assemblyman Matthew Harper, R-Huntington Beach (Orange County), to ask just how many nonbinding resolutions regarding Trump would pass this year.
“For the 12th time, I get it, the Democrats in this body don’t like Trump,” Harper said.
While Democrats often attacked the president in long and damning floor speeches, they also passed several bills that advocates say offer hope and protection for immigrants worried about Trump’s proposed crackdown.
Among the most extensive was SB54, by de León, which would bar local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on deportations, except in cases in which immigrants had been convicted of certain crimes. The sanctuary state bill passed the Assembly 49-25, and 27-11 in the Senate, on the final day of the session.
“Resistance means different things, but as the leader of the Senate, we will move forward with business as usual to improve the quality of life for Californians, but at the same time if (the Trump administration) continues to be hostile to our state, threatening to withhold dollars, violating our values as a state, we will resist and we will defend and protect the people of California,” de León said.
Lawmakers and Brown agreed last week to set aside $30 million to help immigrants affected by Trump’s decision to rescind a program that shields thousands from deportation, with that money going to provide legal help and college financial aid for participants in the curtailed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. “There are so many things we’ve done to defend ourselves from what Donald Trump wants to do to our country,” said Assembyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco.
Among them: SB450 by Chiu, which would prohibit employers from allowing federal immigration agents to conduct raids in the workplace unless there is a warrant, and AB699 by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, and Chiu, which would limit citizenship information collected by schools to ensure a person’s immigration status is not compromised.
State Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County), said he will push for a bill that bans federal immigration agents from schools and state-owned buildings without a warrant when the Legislature returns in January to begin the second half of its two-year session.
Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
Bills headed to Gov. Brown SB595 by state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, will ask voters to decide whether to raise bridge tolls to pay for more than 30 road projects that would reduce traffic on the Bay Area’s heavily traveled roads, including extending and improving BART and widening freeways. Voters in the nine-county Bay Area would be asked to increase bridge tolls by up to $3. The bill also would allow Bay Area voters to decide whether BART should have an independent inspector general to review spending, investigate waste and propose changes for better service. That provision was pushed by state Sen. Steve Glazer, D- Orinda, a longtime critic of BART. The inspector general applicants would be narrowed to three finalists nominated by the BART board, with the final selection made by the governor.
SB568 by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (Los Angeles County), would move California’s presidential primary up to make the state more relevant in elections. Under the bill, the primary in presidential election years would move from June to March. SB149 by state Sens. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, would require candidates for president to release five years of tax returns before being placed on the California ballot. SB5 by state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, would ask voters next year to approve a $4 billion bond for water, flood and parks projects. AB19 by Assemblymen Miguel Santiago, D-Los Angeles; David Chiu, D-San Francisco; and Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, would waive the $46-per-unit fee for full-time students in California entering their first year of community college. SB386 by Wiener would allow many low-level sex offenders to petition to be removed from the registry 10 to 20 years after they are released from prison, as long as they have not committed another serious or violent felony or sex crime. Brown is expected to sign the bill. SB63 by state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, would allow new mothers and fathers working for businesses with at least 20 employees to receive 12 weeks of job-protected parental leave. Companies with 50 or more employees are already required to provide 12 weeks of leave. Bills that failed this year AB186 by Assemblywoman Susan Eggman, D-Stockton, would have allowed some counties — including Alameda and San Francisco — to create safe injection sites to reduce opioid overdoses. SB328 by state Sen. Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge (Los Angeles County), would have required middle and high schools to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. SB100 by de León would have required California to receive all of its power from renewable sources by 2045. De León said new transparency rules that require bills to be online at least 72 hours before a vote made it difficult to pull the bill across the finish line. “Three days, 72 hours, are like dog years in the last week,” he said. “It complicates things, no doubt.”
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Desire for tax cuts takes precedence over spending reductions
By Andrew Taylor September 16, 2017 Updated: September 16, 2017 4:30pm
Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, Associated Press House Speaker Paul Ryan wants “pro-growth” reform.
WASHINGTON — Republicans spooked world markets in their ardor to cut spending when Democrat Barack Obama was in the White House. Now, with Republican President Trump pressing for politically popular tax cuts and billions more for the military, few in the GOP are complaining about the nation’s soaring debt.
The Tea Partyers and other conservatives who seized control of the House in 2010 have morphed into Ronald Reagan-style supply-siders while the GOP’s numerous Pentagon pals run roughshod over the few holdouts. Tax cuts in the works could add hundreds of billions of dollars to the debt while bipartisan pressure for more money for defense, infrastructure and domestic agencies could mean almost $100 billion in additional spending next year alone.
The bottom line: The $20 trillion national debt promises to spiral ever higher with Republicans controlling both Congress and the White House.
“Republicans gave up on caring about deficits long ago,” bemoaned Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who was elected in the 2010 Tea Party class.
It’s a far cry from the Newt Gingrich-led GOP revolution that stormed Washington two decades ago with a mandate to balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time. Or even from Republicans of 2001, who enthusiastically cut taxes under President George W. Bush, but only at a moment when the government was flush with money.
Now, deficits are back with a vengeance. Medicare and Social Security are drawing closer to insolvency. Fiscal hawks and watchdogs like the Congressional Budget Office warn that the debt is eventually going to drag the economy down.
But like Obama and Bush before him, Trump isn’t talking about deficits. Neither much are voters.
“Voters, frankly, after these huge deficits, are saying, ‘Well, how much do deficits really matter?’” said former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., a two-time presidential candidate. “We’re not Greece yet, right?”
Topping the immediate agenda, however, is a debt-financed drive to overhaul the tax system.
Top Capitol Hill Republicans such as House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky had promised for months that a tax overhaul would not add to the deficit, with rate cuts financed by closing loopholes and other steps.
Instead, Republicans are talking about tax cuts whose costs to the debt — still under negotiation — would be justified by assumptions of greater economic growth.
“We want pro-growth tax reform that will get the economy going, that will get people back to work, that will give middle-income taxpayers a tax cut and that will put American businesses in a better competitive playing field so that we keep American businesses in America,” Ryan said this past week. “That’s more important than anything else.”
He backed off months of promises that the Republicans’ tax plan won’t add to the nation’s ballooning deficit.
The GOP moves could justify $800 billion or so in tax cuts over 10 years, but the administration is pressing behind the scenes to push the envelope well beyond that range.
“They’re starting to talk about tax cuts instead of tax reform,” said former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.
Among the few deficit hawk holdouts is Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a key vote on the Senate Budget Committee, who’s been pumping the brakes on taxes, a stand that’s earned him face-to-face meetings with both Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Trump himself. Corker says he believes in some adjustments but doesn’t want to “let this just be party time that just takes us no place but massive deficits down the road.”
Trump’s election has GOP military hawks pressing to shovel enormous amounts of money into the Pentagon — about $90 billion over the stringent spending limits set by the hard-won 2011 deficit control effort. Republican demands for spending cuts as the price of lifting the government’s debt limit and averting a market-rattling default on U.S. obligations pushed negotiations perilously close to a market crisis that summer.
The unpopular leftover from the 2011 agreement are those spending limits, which if violated would be enforced by across-the-board spending cuts. Republicans want to scrap them, at least for military money. “There’s so much pressure on our side for additional defense spending,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla. “Believe me there’s more defense hawks than budget hawks in the Republican conference right now.”
But it takes Democratic help to lift the limits and their price, unsurprisingly, is more money for domestic programs.
That leaves GOP deficit hawks frustrated. They’ve won, for now, a $200 billion package of spending cuts as part of the House budget resolution, which has stalled after committee approval this summer.
Conservatives demanding that spending cuts accompany any extension of the government’s borrowing ability were undercut by Trump, who agreed last week to add temporary borrowing approval to a must-pass Harvey relief bill.
Andrew Taylor is an Associated Press writer.
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Little joy in Oakland City Hall for new A’s ballpark plan
By Matier & Ross September 17, 2017
Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle Buildings line the Peralta Community College District offices, one of the sites under consideration for a new Oakland Athletics stadium, on Sunday, May 28, 2017, in Oakland, Calif.
The Oakland A’s plan for a new “walkable” downtown ballpark adjacent to Laney College may be a hit with the public — but it was not met with hugs or high-fives in City Hall. “Traffic is going to be a nightmare,” said longtime sports booster and Councilman Larry Reid, whose East Oakland district includes the team’s current home at the Coliseum. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf wasn’t turning cartwheels either, having preferred that the ballpark go to Howard Terminal at the Port of Oakland. But “I respect that they are privately financing their ballpark — and this is the site that they feel is most finance-able,” Schaaf said.
Councilman Abel Guillén, whose district includes the A’s chosen site, was reserved as well, saying that his first step will be to work with the city attorney to put the brakes on real estate speculation “that we are already seeing in anticipation of this decision.”
“It’s very important that we see no net loss in affordable housing,” Guillén said Friday.
City Hall is also waiting to see whether the A’s ballpark plan includes nearby Victory Court at Embarcadero and Oak Street, site of the city’s fire training facility. Word is the team is eyeing it for possible parking.
And while the A’s stadium is the newsmaker, it is just one of several developments, including the huge Brooklyn Basin project on the other side of Interstate 880 — 3,100 units of housing are being built there — that will impact the area.
Team president Dave Kaval says he’s ready for the task of making it work, and already is in negotiations to win support from the unions representing the Coliseum’s workforce — including the Teamsters, Service Employees Union and the hotel and restaurant workers. Kaval is also meeting with neighborhood groups.
Plus, unlike the Raiders — who always carried a ticking clock — the A’s are playing the long game, saying it could take a year or more before a final agreement is reached with the Peralta Community College District, which owns the property and has its headquarters there.
The A’s slow-pitch approach could help both Schaaf and Guillén as well, because they both face re-election next year. The A’s also have a strong following citywide. According to a poll of 800 Oakland voters commissioned by the team, 72 percent support a ballpark near downtown. And though no specific location was given, the FM3 poll found 74 percent support among those living within a three-quarter-mile radius of the proposed ballpark site.
And those are good numbers by any score.
For whom the bridge tolls: Bay Area voters will be asked next year to raise tolls by as much as $3 on all bay bridges, except for the Golden Gate, under a measure the Legislature just approved. And more increases could follow, with no cap, based on a cost of living index.
Regional Measure 3 was put together by Bay Area lawmakers with the goal of helping to finance 30 transportation projects throughout the region. It was approved by both the state Senate and Assembly after weeks of behind-the-scenes wrangling over who would get what.
The measure will go before voters in the nine Bay Area counties either in June or November next year, and will need a simple majority to pass.
“Our residents already spend an average of 82 hours stuck in traffic, and our transit systems are struggling to keep overcrowded buses and trains moving,” said Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco. The projects include everything from improved bridge approaches and increased ferry service across the bay to bringing BART to San Jose and Santa Clara. The wish list even includes money to start building an underground tunnel for Caltrain to come directly into downtown San Francisco.
One of the biggest recipients will be BART, which is on track for just over $1 billion.
Getting the package through the Legislature, however, took a lot of back-room dealing, including an extra $200 million apiece for Alameda and Contra Costa counties, where most of the people who would pay the higher tolls live.
State Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, would vote for the deal only if it included the creation of an inspector general to monitor BART spending. Even with the sweeteners, there was opposition from Contra Costa County, with Assembly members Jim Frazier, D-Brentwood, Tim Grayson, D-Concord, and Catharine Baker, R-San Ramon, all voting no. Frazier, who chairs the Assembly Transportation Committee, said that though there is a need for transportation improvements, “adding another tax on commuters is not the answer.” He likened an $8 toll to “highway robbery.”
Once in place, Baker said, the tolls could keep going up without additional voter approval.
“And that takes away all accountability on how these dollars are spent,” she said.
The measure’s author, state Sen. Jim Beall, D-San Jose, praised the outcome, saying the measure will give the Bay Area “the bold plan it needs for the future” and that with the “expansion of tech firms, such as Google and Apple” traffic will only get worse. Which may explain why tech companies are big supporters of the measure.
San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email [email protected]. Twitter: @matierandross
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Democrats trying to turn Orange County blue, one house at a time
By Joe Garofoli September 17, 2017 Updated: September 18, 2017 3:53pm
Photo: Dania Maxwell, Special To The Chronicle IMAGE 1 OF 5 Orange County Democratic canvassers Ruth Richardson (left) and Betina Pavri take to the streets of Brea in an effort to unseat Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton.
ANAHEIM — For this brief moment in the nation’s history, Orange County is the center of the political universe. Saying that out loud draws incredulous smiles from some people and nods of agreement from others in the place where Richard Nixon was born, Ronald Reagan conservatism grew up and Democrats have long been comatose.
Until lately.
There’s a progressive voter revolt percolating among the 3.2 million people spread across Orange County’s 948 square miles, which stretch from the ritzy Newport Beach to the grittier side of Anaheim and the suburbia of Fullerton.
Just how that evolves remains uncertain — and turning the OC even just a little blue is going to be a heavy lift — but there’s no question the street energy is there.
“Ha, can you believe it?” said Kate Hardesty, a community college teacher involved with several progressive groups around Newport Beach. “Before, everyone was asleep — it’s Orange County. People want to have fun all the time and be happy. They’re pretty good at ignoring things, but that’s changing.”
The reason for the change? Democrats think they can flip the four U.S. House seats held by Republicans that touch Orange County and where Hillary Clinton won a majority of votes. Winning those four seats would help the Democratic Party reach its goal of flipping the 24 seats it needs to retake control of the House.
Longtime Orange County Democrats are excited about seeing strong, well-funded Democrats lining up to challenge the Republican incumbents. Several are different kinds of candidates — first-time politicians from the biotech, medical and high-tech worlds, the kind of people who rarely run for office.
“Many of my patients are immigrants, and I’m worried that with all of this noise going on around us about health care that their voices will not be heard,” said Mai-Khanh Tran, a Vietnam War refugee, two-time breast cancer survivor and Yorba Linda pediatrician who is one of five Democrats running against Rep. Ed Royce, R-Fullerton, who has been in Congress since 1993.
Brian Forde, a Lake Forest technologist and former Republican who worked in the Obama administration, is one of six Democrats running against Rep. Mimi Walters, R- Irvine, in part because, “What I saw working in government is if you don’t have a technologist at the table, some of our most important policy challenges won’t be achieved.”
There’s action on the other side, too. Republicans believe they can end the Democrats’ choke-hold on the Legislature in Sacramento by recalling first-term Democratic state Sen. Josh Newman of Fullerton, who won a long-held GOP seat.
And there’s likely to be a statewide ballot measure next year to rescind the gasoline tax that is paying for the $50 billion in transportation improvements the Legislature passed in June. Scott Baugh, the former GOP Assembly leader from Newport Beach, predicts 30 percent of the money for an anti-gas-tax campaign would come from Orange County. GOP operatives believe an opportunity to vote down the gas tax will get their supporters to the polls.
All of this political action is being fueled by something that Bay Area residents take for granted but rarely happens in Orange County: grassroots political organizing. There is an unprecedented amount of knocking on doors, protesting outside of congressional offices, and rounding up of neighbors for political grunt work. There are regular demonstrations outside the offices of Royce and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Vista (San Diego County), that draw hundreds of demonstrators.
Indivisible and other new progressive groups are not just exploding around Orange County, they’re connecting with each other and the Democratic Party.
That’s never really happened before.
“There was a lot of complacency. The (local Democratic) clubs were mainly social clubs. They were not activist clubs. They’d meet at Marie Callender’s,” said Mary Navarro, who has seen the South Orange County Democratic Club she leads grow from 30 to 300 since the election. “We were busy having our little social clubs and not paying attention — until the election. And then we woke up and realized we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The national and state Democratic Party does, too. The Democratic Campaign Congressional Committee sent organizers to Orange County for the first time to join state party staffers in trying to connect with the new grassroots groups. On Saturday, Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman Keith Ellison will headline a $1,000-a- plate fundraiser in Costa Mesa with the theme “Orange Is the New Blue.” Yorba Linda resident Karen Lawson is thrilled for the help, as she’s been trying to get rid of Royce since 1995. On a good day, she said, five people would show up at a weekend door-to-door Democratic Party canvass — “and the flake rate was about 40 percent,” she said.
Standing in a shady spot in Tamarack Park in Brea, Lawson looked around at the 17 people ready to canvass on a 92-degree Saturday morning recently and smiled. “I’ve never seen this before,” she said.
When the canvassers hit the road, they found people answering the doors in the predominantly Republican city had no love for President Trump. “Impeach him!” was heard more than a few times, even from Republicans.
But Brea residents were less certain about Royce, even though he’s been in Congress for two decades. Most were indifferent.
“I don’t know much about Ed Royce,” Ryan Valencia, 41, said as he polished his car in front of his home. He drives for Lyft and works at Costco. He lost his job as a loan officer because of the 2008-09 economic crash. “But I know I’m sick of hearing about Trump’s personal life. And Congress doesn’t get anything done.”
Still, Valencia isn’t racing to vote for a Democrat just yet. “There’s not really a side for people like me,” he said. He wants a candidate who would help people get affordable housing or health care.
While some Democrats are running traditional canvasses, there’s some experimental organizing going on in Issa’s district, where Terra Lawson-Remer, a former Obama Treasury Department adviser and attorney, returned home two years ago because she missed West Coast life.
The 39-year-old channeled her outrage at the 2016 election results by writing a 35-page “49th Congressional District Strategy Analysis” and raising $150,000 toward creating a network of progressive neighborhood activists in a district where there were few. She is also working with Bay Area programmers on technology that could help canvassers better connect with unregistered voters. What Lawson-Remer is doing is unusual because she isn’t focused solely on the next election. Her goal is to knit together a community of organizers — she’s recruited 180 in just the past few months — to go into blocks to talk with to their neighbors about issues.
“What I hope comes out of this is that we beat Darrell Issa,” Lawson-Remer said. “What I hope we leave behind is a progressive infrastructure that can work on other important issues.”
One of those neighborhood leaders, Amy Lindsay, a medical writer who hasn’t been politically active in the past, was going door to door in a Capistrano Beach neighborhood just to hear what was on people’s minds. Most of them didn’t want to talk about Trump or Issa, but they did want to talk about a halfway house down the street. Lindsay dutifully listened, took notes and promised to get back to them.
Playing the long game in politics is hard, Lindsay acknowledged, but “that’s how you start to build trust. When you talk about community, you find agreement, you find similar values.”
Yet all this energy, money, innovation and crop of new candidates might not be enough. Turning Orange County blue will be a lot harder than it may seem to a Washington campaign consultant.
Photo: Bill Clark, CQ-Roll Call,Inc. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R- Costa Mesa, won re-election by a sizable margin last year. While the county is much more racially diverse and far less Republican than it was in Reagan’s heyday, it remains more conservative than other parts of coastal California. The vast majority of local elected officials are Republican, and voters are skeptical of ideas that would seem mainstream in the Bay Area. In November, Californians approved a statewide ballot measure banning single-use plastic bags; 57 percent of Orange County voters opposed it.
No matter how unpopular Trump becomes, it will be difficult to defeat incumbent GOP members of Congress. Last year, 98 percent of House incumbents were re-elected across the country, including all four whose districts touch Orange County. Three of those — Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, Walters and Royce — won by more than 10 percentage points. Issa won by less than one percentage point.
Democrats believe Rohrabacher, Reagan’s 70-year-old former White House speechwriter, may be vulnerable. But he’s won 13 of his 15 races by more than 20 percentage points.
“Voters here know him, they know what he’s about. If you’re 55 and older in the district, you grew up with Ronald Reagan and Dana Rohrabacher,” said Baugh, who has raised $546,914 for this race in case Rohrabacher decides to retire. “You’re not going to easily change minds.”
Baugh conceded that “the Democrats are behaving differently for the first time in Orange County. They’re raising money, they’re canvassing, they’re organizing, they have an infrastructure. I just don’t think at the end of the day it will produce a different outcome.”
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
White House to seek $29 billion disaster aid package
By Andrew Taylor October 4, 2017 Updated: October 4, 2017 3:41pm
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday asked Congress for $29 billion in disaster aid to cover ongoing hurricane relief and recovery efforts and to pay federal flood insurance claims.
The request comes as the government is spending almost $200 million a day for emergency hurricane response and faces a surge in flood claims for federally insured homes and businesses slammed by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told lawmakers in officially submitting the request that the federal flood insurance program “is not designed to handle catastrophic losses like those caused by Harvey, Irma and Maria. The NFIP is simply not fiscally sustainable in its current form.”
Mulvaney proposed a package of changes to the flood insurance program that would protect low-income policyholders from big rate hikes and allow the government to drop from the program properties that have been repeatedly flooded.
In the meantime, Wednesday’s request proposal would provide $16 billion to pay those flood claims, along with $13 billion for Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief efforts. Federal firefighting accounts would receive $577 million as well to replenish them after a disastrous season of Western wildfires.
Congress last month approved a $15.3 billion aid package that combined community development block grant rebuilding funds with emergency money for cleanup, repair and housing. The federal flood insurance program is on track to run out of money to pay claims during the week of Oct. 23. Mulvaney said more than 20,000 federal workers have been deployed by various agencies to help in the hurricane recovery effort. The “burn rate” of almost $200 million a day is requiring an infusion of cash into FEMA coffers.
The year-end package would rebuild infrastructure, help people without insurance restore their homes and, perhaps, help Puerto Rico reconstitute its shattered electrical grid.
President Trump raised eyebrows in a Tuesday interview when he said the Puerto Rican government’s debt would have to be “wiped out.”
But Mulvaney told reporters that “we are not going to be offering a bailout for Puerto Rico.”
Andrew Taylor is an Associated Press writer
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Democrats learning they can’t persuade Republicans to be Democrats
By Joe Garofoli October 5, 2017 Updated: October 5, 2017 6:00am
Photo: TOM BRENNER /NYT President Donald Trump speaks during a rally for Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), in Huntsville, Ala., Sept. 22. His criticism of NFL players who kneel during the national anthem sparked widespread NFL protest.
Here’s some bad news for Democrats ready to spend millions of dollars to persuade working-class white voters to ditch President Trump and vote for them: You’re wasting your money.
Turns out that it’s really hard persuading voters to go your way in a partisan race if they weren’t already leaning in your direction, so concludes a new study from researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford. Or as David Broockman, an assistant professor of political economy at Stanford, and Joshua Kalla, a doctoral candidate in political science at UC Berkeley, wrote after studying 49 different campaigns where a Republican faced a Democrat:
“Our best estimate of the direct effects of campaign contact on Americans’ candidate choices in general elections is essentially zero.”
That’s ze-to-the-ro.
One hopes their research tosses another shovelful of dirt on the cynical, old-style school of campaigning that relies on blitzing voters with TV commercials they don’t watch and carpet-bombing their mailboxes with truth-stretching flyers they don’t read in the last two months of a campaign.
The only people who still prefer campaigns like those is that sliver of the American population known as “political consultants” — those people building new back decks on their homes with the cut of money they get from buying expensive TV spots for their clients.
The study’s authors offer another suggestion: Try something different. Like spending time actually talking to voters.
“If Democrats want to win back working-class voters or if Republicans want to defend vulnerable incumbents through persuasion,” they write, “they would do well to heed this example: Don’t give up on persuasion; look for new ideas, be they about new modes, messages or messengers.”
The good news for Democrats is that some candidates and campaigns are already getting that message. Like Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor of Georgia.
Abrams, who was the Democratic minority leader in the Georgia Legislature before resigning in August to focus on her campaign, would be the first African American woman to be governor of any state in the nation’s 241-year history. People are “shocked but not surprised” that it has taken this long, Abrams told me on The Chronicle’s “It’s All Political” video podcast last week when she was in San Francisco for fundraisers. She doesn’t plan to win by chasing working-class white voters in a Georgia that “is not the Georgia of ‘Gone With the Wind’ or even the Georgia of the (1996 Summer) Olympics,” Abrams said. Georgia is 53 percent white and 47 percent people of color. “In the Deep South, particularly in Georgia,” she said, “race is one of the strongest predictors of your political leanings.”
With that in mind, she’s going to try to form a coalition that includes the 23 percent of progressive whites who vote for Democrats and the state’s communities of color, who overwhelmingly back Democrats. She’s united that coalition before, in a smaller size. Since she became leader in 2011, Georgia has flipped six Republican legislative seats and held them. One reason for that success: The New Georgia Project that Abrams founded registered more than 200,000 voters of color between 2014 and 2016.
She spent more time turning out votes than trying to convince voters with different views.
“We have held (those seats in the Legislature) because we don’t pretend to be Republicans,” she said. On the trail, Abrams is fond of saying that Democrats lose, both in Georgia and nationally, because they keep trying to persuade “Republicans to be Democrats instead of getting Democrats to be Democrats.”
That’s because persuasion is hard — especially if done at the last minute. Abrams said that while Democrats often talk about turning out their base voters, they also often ignore African American, Latino and Asian American voters until a couple of months before election day.
“The challenge Democrats have had is that we talk a great game about the need to actually do that outreach, but we relegate that outreach until the last few weeks of the campaign to a very narrow sliver of voters,” she said. “And we repeatedly ignore those infrequent voters because they don’t vote. Well, they don’t vote because we don’t talk to them.
“So we create this unvirtuous cycle where they don’t vote, we don’t talk, and then we talk about why they don’t vote,” Abrams said.
California progressives may be getting the message, too. This week, billionaire San Francisco Democrat and environmentalist Tom Steyer announced that his NextGen America advocacy group will work with the California Labor Federation to try to reach 500,000 voters in seven GOP-held congressional districts that Hillary Clinton won in last year’s presidential election.
The labor organization typically does big outreach campaigns, but this is different in a couple of ways: Its members are starting early and are going to try to have in-depth conversations with voters, not just drop a flyer on the doorstep. Doing that, said California Labor Federation Executive Secretary-Treasurer Art Pulaski, “brings us to something that is much more in-depth and long-term than we’ve ever done before.”
Typically, when progressives quantify how great their grassroots campaigns are, they will brag that they “knocked on 10,000 doors.” What goes unsaid: Maybe only 300 people answered the door when they heard that knock. And maybe only 20 changed their mind if they answered the door and had a conversation with the canvasser.
But NextGen leaders promise to focus on having deeper conversations with voters. “It won’t be cookie-cutter,” Steyer said. And they’re going to spend less time pleading with people who don’t like them to change their mind.
“A lot of our focus will be on turnout rather than persuasion,” Jamison Foser, a senior adviser at NextGen told me Wednesday. “We’ve learned that you can’t just direct some advertising at people late and expect them to turn out.”
NextGen will see how the program goes in California as they roll it out to swing states across the country. If they want to retake the House, progressives had better hope that others are learning that lesson, too.
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli Online extra A video chat with Stacey Abrams, at The Chronicle’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/pg/SFChronicle/videos
Joe Garofoli Senior Political Writer
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Investors take note — climate suits are already here
By Carroll Muffett October 5, 2017
Photo: Noah Berger, Associated Press Catastrophic blazes like the Loma Fire that destroyed these vintage cars in Morgan Hill in 2016 are likely to become more prevalent because of climate change and result in more lawsuits.
With the announcement last week that San Francisco and Oakland have sued big oil companies for the impacts of climate change, climate litigation is not just on the horizon: it is at the door, in the courts, and rising into boardrooms. They join three other California jurisdictions that have already filed suit against thirty-seven companies for climate impacts. After a summer of catastrophic fires, floods and extreme storms made worse by climate change, additional climate litigation is not a question of if but of when.
Investors—particularly those with fiduciary duties to others—should take note. Failing to account for the rising tide of climate litigation puts assets at risk.
On September 12, the New York Supreme Court denied efforts by ExxonMobil to shield its auditor’s records from an ongoing state investigation into potential climate-related fraud. The following day, a federal judge in Massachusetts denied Exxon’s motion to dismiss a complaint by the Conservation Law Foundation alleging that the company failed to plan for climate impacts at its facilities, potentially endangering nearby residents. Shell faces a similar suit filed in August. These claims are especially prescient in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which caused petrochemical facilities in low-lying areas of the Gulf to release massive amounts of toxic contaminants.
Shell and Exxon are not the only companies under pressure. Chevron has acknowledged climate litigation as a material financial risk in its securities filings. Saudi Aramco sees potential US litigation risk as a relevant factor in deciding whether to hold its initial public offering in New York.
Unfortunately for major carbon producers, the legal elements of successful complaints are increasingly in place. Rapid advances in climate science have made it possible not only to attribute globally significant greenhouse emissions to a discrete group of corporate defendants, but to link those emissions to quantifiable increases in temperatures, sea level rise, and extreme weather events.
This is bad news not only for fossil fuel companies, but for investors that fail to consider litigation risks in evaluating investments in fossil fuel assets and companies.
Climate litigation is unfolding far faster than the tobacco suits that preceded it. It took 30 years of litigation for the first judge to find evidence of corporate malfeasance by a tobacco company. Climate plaintiffs are going into court with compelling evidence of malfeasance already in hand.
In Texas, for example, Exxon faces a class action securities lawsuit claiming the company misled investors about climate risks. The lead plaintiff in the case, a Pennsylvania pension fund, recently amended its complaint to incorporate new evidence from the New York investigation indicating the misrepresentations were approved at the highest levels of the company.
Pensions and other institutions that must invest over long time horizons will be particularly vulnerable to these risks.
San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors has urged the city’s pension fund to pull fund assets from fossil fuels now, rather than face continued losses. To date, fund managers have failed to act, leaving the fund exposed to more than $500 million in fossil fuel assets.
Meanwhile, evidence of what fossil fuel producers knew about climate change, and how they responded, continues to mount. Recently, Harvard University researchers quantitatively proved Exxon’s decades-long pattern of misrepresenting climate risks to consumers and investors.
Massachusetts courts, upholding the Massachusetts AG’s ongoing investigation of Exxon, have held that such conduct, if proven, could violate that state’s consumer protection statute. More than a dozen states have nearly identical laws on the books.
As the world confronts the reality—and costs—of a destabilized climate, a growing universe of plaintiffs will seek redress for its resulting harms. The science has long been on their side. The law is catching up. Climate litigation is no longer a question of if or when, but of how fast. As costs mount and plaintiffs multiply, fossil fuel companies will find themselves defendants over and over again.
Pension funds and other investors should be equipping themselves to shoulder the financial burden of those vast liabilities, preparing to explain the losses to stakeholders and beneficiaries, or exiting these increasingly toxic assets before the rest of the market does.
Carroll Muffett is the president of the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington, D.C.
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Call for Pelosi to ‘pass the torch’ — from fellow Democratic congresswoman
By Joe Garofoli October 5, 2017 Updated: October 5, 2017 4:12pm
Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., seen here in 2016, has called for a change of Democratic leadership in Congress — that includes Rep. Nancy Pelosi stepping down.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, is again being called on to step down, but this time the request came from a fellow female Californian in a top congressional leadership position. Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Whittier (Los Angeles County), the fifth-most-senior House Democrat, told C-SPAN Thursday: “I do think it’s time to pass a torch to a new generation of leaders, and I want to be a part of that transition. I think we have too many great members here that don’t always get the opportunities that they should.”
Sánchez, 49, was elected last year to be vice chairwoman of the House Democratic Caucus, edging out Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, by two votes. She is the first woman of color to serve in a senior position.
While she singled out Pelosi, Sánchez’s comments were directed at the party’s entire House leadership team, which has been together for a decade. Other members are Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., and Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn, D- S.C. Pelosi, 77, has been in Congress for 30 years and in the House Democratic leadership for 14 years, including as the first female speaker of the House (2007-11).
The remarks reflect a growing frustration among Democrats, who have been hemorrhaging seats at all levels of government nearly everywhere except California for nearly a decade, that the party doesn’t have a coherent, appealing message. Pelosi is stuck in the middle, seen as too progressive by heartland Democrats in swing districts and too much of a corporatist by progressive Democrats, where much of the party’s current energy lies.
Thus the calls for new leadership.
“They are all of the same generation, and again, their contributions to the Congress and the caucus are substantial,” Sánchez said. “But I think there comes a time when you need to pass that torch. And I think it’s time.”
Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, responded Thursday that she “enjoys wide support in the caucus and has always said she is not in Congress on a shift but on a mission. Leader Pelosi is focused on winning back the House, and anything else is a distraction from our path to the majority.”
Sánchez’s statement is the latest public grumbling about Pelosi’s leadership. Last year, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, challenged Pelosi for the top job, losing 134-63. In June, Ryan told MSNBC that “it’ll be very hard” for Democrats to win back the House with Pelosi in charge because she remains polarizing in swing districts. But Sánchez’s remarks are “significant, as this is coming from a Democratic woman in the California delegation,” said Jennifer Duffy, senior editor of the Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan analyst publication about Congress. “Usually they have each other’s backs.”
However, Duffy said, “it begs the question: Who? Who would replace her?” While Duffy found it unlikely that Pelosi would be replaced before next year’s midterms, “Who knows what will happen in 2018?”
Sánchez’s comments were ”a pretty bold step, and it reflects pressure within the party that they can’t continue to do things the same way,” said Lisa García Bedolla, director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley.
However, Pelosi remains one of the party’s most powerful fundraisers, raising $567.9 million through the end of last year since entering House leadership. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Democratic Party-controlled committees raised millions more than Republicans in the past election cycle. It didn’t help: Democrats are still in the minority.
While Pelosi has a reputation as a San Francisco liberal, progressives feel she isn’t liberal enough. Even though she said she is a longtime supporter of single-payer health care, they want her to back Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All proposal and embrace the party’s progressive wing more boldly.
“The significance (of Sánchez’s comments) is that there is a hunger from the rank-and- file for fresh leadership, for someone who is truly going to represent the zeitgeist of where the party is,” said Murshed Zaheed, political director at Credo Action, the progressive organization based in San Francisco. “That’s where the energy of the party is now.”
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @joegarofoli
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Brown vetoes smoking ban at state beaches and parks
By J.K. Dineen October 6, 2017 Updated: October 6, 2017 7:58pm
Photo: DENIS POROY, AP Cigarette butts sit with other debris on the bluff above Fletcher Cove in Solana Beach (San Diego County).
Smokers will continue to be able to light up at state beaches and parks after Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill Friday that would have banned smoking in both those places.
In his veto message, Brown suggested that the ban — which would have applied to cigarettes, cigars, marijuana and e-cigarettes — was overkill. “If people can’t even smoke on a deserted beach, where can they?” Brown wrote. “There must be some limits to the coercive power of government.”
Brown also objected to the $485 penalty that violators would have been slapped with, calling it excessive.
The governor noted that he vetoed a similar bill last year. He called that one a “far- reaching prohibition in every state park and every state beach (that) was too broad.”
Advocates of the latest bill, SB386 by state Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Orinda, argued that the ban would prevent wildfires, curb pollution and protect animals that gobble up cigarette butts, mistaking them for food.
In June, Glazer called cigarette butts “a major polluter on our beaches and oceans.” He could not immediately be reached for comment about Brown’s veto.
J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @sfjkdineen
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Facebook workers helped Trump campaign, aide tells ‘60 Minutes’
By Sarah Frier and Bill Allison October 6, 2017
Facebook was crucial to get Donald Trump’s message to people he wanted to reach during the 2016 campaign, according to Trump’s digital director, who told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he handpicked pro-Trump employees there to help him take advantage of the social network’s advertising tools.
“Twitter is how (Trump) talked to the people, Facebook was going to be how he won,” Brad Parscale told “60 Minutes,” according to an excerpt of an interview that the program intends to air Sunday. The social network was particularly valuable because it allows precise placement of messages, Parscale said, according to the excerpt.
Facebook’s employees showed up for work at his office several days a week to provide guidance on how to best use the company’s services, Parscale said in the interview excerpt. “I wanted people who supported Donald Trump,” he said, adding that he questioned the workers about their political views.
Parscale didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. A Facebook spokesman said the company provided the Trump campaign with the same guidance and services it offers any major advertiser.
Facebook has found itself at the center of inquiries into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election. The Menlo Park company said it has so far found $100,000 in advertising spending by accounts linked to the Kremlin. The company turned over details on the ads to Congress and to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is leading the criminal investigation into Russia’s campaign meddling and possible ties to Trump’s associates. A person familiar with the company’s work for Trump’s campaign took issue with Parscale’s use of the word “embeds” to describe its employees, because it implies that the campaign work was their sole focus. The workers had tasks for other clients as well, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
The company offered Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton the same opportunity, the person said.
Although federal election law generally bars corporations from aiding political campaigns, there’s nothing wrong with a company providing training and services to a campaign if it offers the same services to every client spending similar amounts, said Larry Noble, former general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.
“If you’d do it for any customer, it’s OK,” Noble said, adding that the services have to be offered to all customers. “It can’t be just for political campaigns.”
Facebook was especially useful in reaching rural voters, Parscale told “60 Minutes,” according to the published excerpt. “So now Facebook lets you get to ... 15 people in the Florida Panhandle that I would never buy a TV commercial for,” he said.
Sarah Frier and Bill Allison are Bloomberg writers. Email: [email protected], [email protected]
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
California could ban gasoline cars — if automakers don’t beat state to it
By Kate Galbraith October 8, 2017
• Photo: Associated Press General Motors’ Chevy Bolt is one of several recently introduced all-electric vehicles.
In January, when the California Legislature reconvenes, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D- San Francisco, plans to introduce a bill that would ban new vehicles that run on gasoline or diesel after 2040.
Automakers may not be too far behind. Last week, Ford said it would reduce spending on internal combustion engines by a third, as it introduces 13 new electric and hybrid models in the next five years. General Motors promised at least 20 new electric models by 2023; Executive Vice President Mark Reuss said GM “believes in an all-electric future.”
Other manufacturers, from BMW to Volkswagen, also have announced substantial electric vehicle initiatives. Volvo has said it will end production of cars with internal combustion engines starting in 2019. Jaguar Land Rover cars will be available in electric or hybrid versions by 2020. And Palo Alto’s Tesla continues to pump out emissions-free vehicles, with its $35,000 Model 3 — the most affordable car in its lineup — just starting to reach customers.
“There has been a paradigm shift,” said Daniel Sperling, a transportation expert at UC Davis.
The spate of announcements, he said, has been driven by the plunging cost of batteries, Europe’s discontent with diesel pollution, and China’s eagerness for electric cars.
Yet even as electric vehicles begin to move into the mainstream, experts believe incentives will be needed to make sure Californians buy them, particularly in the near term. Since transportation accounts for 37 percent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, cars running on clean fuels will be essential to California’s long-term goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
To get to there, “we need to transition the vast majority of our cars to electric,” with the electricity coming from renewable sources, said Don Anair, a clean vehicles specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
So far this year, all-electric vehicles make up 2.5 percent of new vehicle registrations in the state, according to the California New Car Dealers Association. Plug-in hybrids make up another 2.1 percent.
California is pushing for electric vehicles with a combination of rebates, carpool-lane privileges, charging-station investments and auto industry quotas. Sperling, who also serves on the board overseeing the state’s Air Resources Board, which regulates pollution, said the resources board was not actively discussing a ban on new gasoline cars.
“Ban is not a good concept for such a major economic activity,” he said.
Still, bans of various types are under discussion in a range of countries, from China to France.
Bloomberg reported last month that Gov. Jerry Brown had asked the air board’s chief, Mary Nichols, about the possibility of a ban. Air board spokesman Dave Clegern did not confirm or deny the report, saying only in a statement that the agency is looking at various options “including additional action on electric vehicles” to accelerate California’s clean-economy transition.
California could accomplish the ban from another angle by requiring emissions-free vehicles. The state already has a goal of having 1.5 million emissions-free vehicles on the road by 2025. Sperling said there’s a “good chance” that the mandate could be extended to 2030, but that could be the end of that particular policy if enough people are buying electric vehicles.
Asked whether the state would reach its 2025 zero-emissions vehicle goal, Sperling said, “Probably not but maybe. Hopefully, yes.”
The automaker announcements are impressive, given that there were no electric vehicles for sale in California eight years ago, said Anair. But he said that while automakers “deserve applause for embracing electric vehicles,” they are at the same time “fighting (at the federal level) to relax standards that would actually require them to do that.”
Scott Hall, director of communications for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, said in a statement that manufacturers “remain committed to more reductions in fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions, and that’s one reason why automakers are investing billions of dollars in advanced technologies, including electric vehicles.” Still, he added, “policy must ultimately align with marketplace realities like low fuel prices.” The alliance has not taken a position on Ting’s planned legislation, as it has not yet been introduced. The legislation would ban the registration of new gasoline or diesel- powered vehicles after 2040, said Ting, who commutes to Sacramento with an all- electric Chevy Bolt. (California cannot ban the sale of vehicles but can regulate their registration.)
Ting hailed the automakers’ electric commitments. Asked whether the manufacturers might even end production of fossil fuel-powered cars before a potential ban took effect, he said he welcomed a “race to the finish line.”
“I think it would be great to get there sooner than 2040,” he said.
Kate Galbraith is the assistant business editor at The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kategalbraith
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
State’s GOP, left out in the cold by ‘top-2’ primary system, fights back
By John Wildermuth October 9, 2017
• Photo: Chris Carlson, Associated Press Democrat Kamala Harris was elected U.S. senator from California after facing fellow Demo crat Loretta Sanchez in the Novem ber general election. The “top-two” system means Repub licans aren’t likely to ... more
California’s “top-two” primaries are increasingly Democrat-only affairs, and many of the state’s Republicans say changes have to be made — quickly.
“Something has to be done, or we won’t have a Republican Party,” said Tom Palzer of Rancho Cucamonga (San Bernardino County), an unsuccessful 2016 candidate for U.S. Senate who is pushing an initiative to repeal 2010’s Proposition 14, which created the system.
Before Prop. 14, each political party held its own primary, with the winner going on to the general-election ballot. But in the top-two system, the candidates in every race except the one for president all run on a single primary ballot, with only the two leading vote-getters, regardless of party, advancing to November.
In a strongly Democratic state like California, that can be bad news for Republicans. Last November, for example, Attorney General Kamala Harris and Orange County Rep. Loretta Sanchez, both Democrats, finished on top in the June primary and faced each other in the high-profile race to replace retiring Sen. Barbara Boxer, which Harris won.
With some big-name Democrats already lined up against some virtually unknown Republicans in next year’s contest for governor, there’s growing concern that the GOP is setting itself up for a disastrous rerun of the 2016 Senate race.
If there’s no Republican in the top-of-the-ticket governor’s race, “it could have a tremendous impact on Republican turnout, because a lot of their voters will ask themselves, ‘Why should we show up?’” said Tony Quinn, a former GOP consultant who is now senior editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes state elections.
A dismal GOP turnout could have repercussions down the ballot, making it harder to re-elect Republican legislators and members of Congress.
“The top of the ticket is what drives turnout in any election,” said Ron Nehring, former chairman of the California Republican Party. “We need to go back to the system where people have a choice of one candidate from every party, voted in by members of that party.”
That system came with its own set of problems, which Prop. 14 was designed to overcome.
In the heavily Democratic Bay Area, for example, often the only real contest was the primary. Whatever Democrat finished first then coasted to victory over a token Republican candidate in November. It was a similar situation in reverse in GOP- friendly parts of the state.
But under Prop. 14, which was put on the ballot by moderate Republicans like former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and onetime Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, that changed. That Bay Area Democrat finishing on top in the primary now might face another Democrat in November, with the Republican voters in the district holding the key to victory.
Politicians quickly found out what that could mean. In 2012, 20-term Democratic Rep. Pete Stark of Fremont won his usual solid victory in the primary. But instead of romping past an overmatched GOP challenger in November, he was beaten by fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell, a young Dublin councilman who had finished second in the primary.
Suddenly, veteran politicians faced a new set of election dangers. And party leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, didn’t much like it.
“The right wing of the Republican Party has always hated (top two) because it limited their ability to choose candidates,” Quinn said. And neither party liked “the possibility of someone crossing the aisle and appealing to the other party for votes.”
Republican and Democratic party leaders joined the state’s minor parties in 2010 to oppose Prop. 14, which still passed with 54 percent of the vote.
Despite the apparent advantages the new primary system has given Democrats, the party still has concerns. Eric Bauman was elected head of the California Democratic Party last May after running on a promise to repeal the top-two system.
Last year, for example, there were 20 Democrat-versus-Democrat legislative and congressional races, compared with only four all-Republican contests. Those often- costly internecine battles, all in districts where Democrats already were guaranteed winners, are seen by the party as unnecessary expenses.
The top-two primaries “have cost the Democrats tens of millions of dollars in Democrat-versus-Democrat races,” Bauman said. “How much of that money has been flushed down the toilet?” The new primary system also has slowly been changing the Democratic Party in ways many of its more progressive members haven’t been happy with.
“The business lobby is becoming smart and supporting pro-business Democrats (rather than Republicans) in heavily Democratic districts,” said Quinn, the former GOP consultant. Those candidates may lose a low-turnout primary, but attract enough independent and Republican votes to win in November.
In the East Bay last year, for example, Concord Councilman Tim Grayson lost the primary for an open Assembly seat by about 800 votes to Mae Torlakson. But the more moderate Grayson trounced Torlakson in November, taking nearly 62 percent of the vote.
“It’s a real phenomenon, and one not to be ignored,” Bauman said. “If we’re going to change the top two, we need to really look at it carefully and not just jump right in.”
But for many Republicans, the issue is much simpler. With the top-two system keeping Republicans off the general election ballot and focusing more voter attention — and campaign cash — on Democrats, they say it’s past time to dump it.
At the state party convention later this month in Anaheim, Republican delegates will have a chance to support an effort to repeal Prop. 14. Though that resolution doesn’t commit the party to spending any money on a repeal, it’s a start, said Palzer, whose repeal initiative is awaiting approval from the attorney general before he can begin collecting signatures.
“We want more representative government,” said Palzer. “Well, more candidates are more representative than two.”
So far, Palzer has raised nowhere near the $2 million to $3 million it typically takes to qualify a measure for the ballot, but he’s confident he’ll get support not only from Republicans, but also from others eager to return California’s primaries to the way they were for so many years.
“A system that for many Californians gives them a choice of two people from the same party is more like North Korea than the United States,” said Nehring, the former state GOP chair. “A choice between vanilla and French vanilla really isn’t a choice.” John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @jfwildermuth
John Wildermuth Political Reporter
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Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
A Tale of Two Buzzwords: Trying to Sustain Our Resilience by Brendan Buhler on September 25, 2017
It was the most sustainable of times, it was the most resilient of times. At least, those words were on everyone’s lips, so we can be sure it was an age of neither, since what do we speak of but what we desire? And what do we desire but what we lack?
Sustainability and resiliency: The last two decades have seen these once little- regarded words spread like an algal bloom. But there was a sense sustainability had run its course when it appeared 14 times in a 2016 New York Times article headlined “The Greening of Superyachts.” The conservation world needed a better buzzword.
Enter resilience, which pops up often in regard to climate change and disasters, but has lately been applied to such topics as drug addiction, body fat, the Oscars, midlife crises, and American political institutions in the Age of Trump, including a Los Angeles Times editorial that worries, in part, about the resiliency of the rule of law and tentatively concludes, “Most likely, it will survive again.”
The word’s been a kind of Leatherman, an everything for everyone, in ecology, too. In 2000, Emory University environmental scientist Lance Gunderson noted in the journal Annual Review of Ecological Systematicsthat “ecological resilience” was largely in the eye of the beholder. Multiple meanings, Gunderson wrote, would lead “to very different sets of policies and actions.”
The search for a definition for ecological resilience leads you to something like, well, “most likely it will survive again.” A recent Yale E360piece about the San Francisco Bay argues “resilience, in a nutshell, means preserving options.” The “Resilient Silicon Valley” project created a seven-part definitional “resilience framework” emphasizing the power of place and time. A Google profile in Fast Company identifies “resilience science” as “the new study of how wildlife can adapt to a changing climate”; Google itself calls it “data-driven strategies to promote diverse and enduring habitats.” The May 2017 Open Space Council featured a panel discussion in which participants, all Bay Area ecological experts, were asked their own definition; POST Conservation Science Director Nicole Heller said, “My definition of resiliency relates to the capacity of the system—whether it is the built environment, a natural area, or the two considered together—to absorb changes and reorganize to persist in core functions and attributes.”
Unlike its partner “sustainable,” “resilient” isn’t yet used to sell much except parenting manuals and vinyl flooring. But it fits with the spirit of the times. Sustainable was the word for the optimistic late ‘90s, when we might have kept things the same. Resilient is a word for when you know it’s too late. Resilient is a word that says disaster is coming and asks if you are ready.
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
Local Government Officials’ Perceptions of Parks and Recreation
Parks and recreation is predominantly a service provided by local governments and therefore is reliant on financial support from local governments’ general tax funds. However, local governments fund and manage a variety of different public services, including, but not limited to, police protection, fire protection, transportation, education, public welfare and parks and recreation. Typically, these public services must vie for funding from the same limited pool of tax revenues. In the face of this competitive environment, many park and recreation agencies throughout the United States suffer from stagnant or declining budget allocations, despite the solid support for their offerings and services from Americans. Due to the crucial role elected and appointed officials play in determining public expenditures, it is important for the park and recreation profession to understand how local government officials view and prioritize these services. To this end, NRPA partnered with Penn State researchers Dr. Andrew Mowen, Dr. Austin Barrett and Dr. Alan Graefe to conduct a nationwide study of local government elected and appointed officials. A total of 810 officials, from all 50 states, responded to the survey conducted during the spring of 2017. Their responses are the basis of this report. Link to the report:http://www.nrpa.org/contentassets/7761bd47adb142aaa62b19d00500fea3/local- officials-report.pdf Key Findings Local government officials are heavy park users and are firmer believers in the great benefits that parks and recreation brings to their community. This includes:
• Nearly all local government officials (99 percent) agree that their local communities benefit from local parks areas.
• Local government officials nearly unanimously (98 percent) agree that recreation services provide benefit to their communities.
Public officials also see park and recreation as a critical solution provider for many of their top concerns, including preventing youth crime and enhancing quality of life. But they do not perceive agencies as an important contributor to their biggest day-to-day concern: economic development. Thus while most local government officials agree that park and recreation is well worth the dollars spent on it, they admit that no other local government provided service would have to bare the largest funding cut when the local government must cut back on spending This study highlights both a widespread appreciation and support of park and recreation services. But, the findings also underscore a sober reminder of the significant challenge that park and recreation agencies face in competing for needed budget dollars.
Board Legislative Committee Attachment V October 20, 2017
SF scores victory over telecom firms as Brown vetoes antenna-placement bill
By Dominic Fracassa October 16, 2017 Updated: October 16, 2017 4:52pm
Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle
An antenna enclosure for a small cell is seen on top of a light pole on Wednesday, February 2, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.
San Francisco and dozens of other California cities won a victory when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have shifted the power to regulate placement of wireless communications equipment from municipalities to the state.
The cities were strongly opposed to the legislation, saying they needed to keep control over their own rights of way and infrastructure. But experts who had been tracking the bill since its inception in February said they expect state lawmakers to resurrect it, perhaps as soon as next year, and pointed to a similar measure that’s gaining traction at the Federal Communications Commission.
The bill that Brown vetoed Sunday, SB649 by Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, sought to standardize the rules that cities must abide by when considering a telecommunication company’s request to install small-cell devices — antennas typically mounted on streetlights or telephone poles.
Companies such as AT&T and Verizon say they must install more small-cell antennas to meet the demand for mobile bandwidth, especially in urban centers located far from large cellular towers. Small-cell devices are also critical to deploying new wireless technologies, including the pending rollout of 5G networks.
Hueso said the bill would simplify the permitting process for companies. Creating a single, statewide framework for handling small-cell permits would be more efficient than forcing telecommunications firms to conform to laws that vary from city to city, he said.
“California needs to enact laws that streamline the permitting process and grant greater access to public rights of way, or its residents will be left behind,” said Jonathan Adelstein, president and CEO of the Wireless Infrastructure Association, a trade group that advocates for telecommunications companies. He said his group was “disappointed that Gov. Brown decided to veto this important piece of legislation.”
In a veto statement, Brown said, “There is something of real value in having a process that results in extending this innovative technology rapidly and efficiently. Nevertheless, I believe that the interest which localities have in managing rights of way requires a more balanced solution than the one achieved in this bill.”
In addition to worries about losing control over where small-cell antennas can be placed, San Francisco and other cities feared the bill would cost them millions in lost revenue. The measure would have capped the annual amount that cities could charge telecommunications companies at $250 per antenna. San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission said the city would lose out on $33 million over 10 years if the bill was signed into law. “I’m thankful that Gov. Brown vetoed this legislation,” said San Francisco Supervisor Mark Farrell, who sponsored a board-passed resolution opposing the bill. “This was a power play by lobbyists up in Sacramento to take away local control.”
David Witkowski, executive director of the wireless communications initiative at Joint Venture Silicon Valley, a nonprofit policy think tank, said Brown’s expressed desire to find a “more balanced” way of streamlining placement regulations was a strong signal that the bill could resurface next year.
He also pointed to a similar initiative unfolding at the Federal Communications Commission to regulate small-cell permitting at the national level. The agency is taking public comment on a measure to “promote the rapid deployment of advanced wireless broadband service to all Americans.”
“By early 2018, it’s an open question right now as to whether we’ll get another SB649 in California,” Witkowski said, “or if we’ll have to live within the federal paradigm that comes down from Washington.”
Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @dominicfracassa