The League of California Cities is currently reviewing hundreds of bills that were introduced by the Legislature last month and investigating their potential implications for local government agencies. The following is an initial list of the bills of interest to cities that the League is tracking. Please note that it is still very early in the legislative calendar and the likelihood of these bills being amended is very high.

The League routinely takes positions on bills throughout the legislative session. Typically, bill positions are taken early in the year on bills for which the League has standing policy. These policy positions can be found in the League Summary of Existing Policy and Guiding Principles.

For bills that have been identified but for which we have no policy, League staff will take the bills to one or more of its eight policy committees for a policy recommendation and to the League's board of directors for a full position. Once a position (support, oppose, etc.) has been identified, state legislative protocol requires that the League first contact the author's office to let the member know of our concerns and position. The Legue will then then send a letter to the author to formalize our position.

As the bill progresses through the legislative process and is amended, League staff may need to take the bill back to policy committee or to the League Board of Directors for further clarification on the League's position or to change the position according to the League's policy on the subject matter. In the coming weeks, please watch for further updates on League positions on these and other and legislative developments in City Advocate Weekly.

(All League position letters can be found under the bill number in our bill search function.)

Administrative Services

AB 1668 (Knight) Local government: city councils. Extends the appointment period to fill a city council vacancy from 30 to 120 days. The League has sent a Support letter to the author on this bill.

AB 1717 (De Leon) Ballot materials: electronic access. Authorizes city and county officials to establish procedures that will allow voters to receive election materials electronically through e-mail or the city or county Web site in lieu of receiving them by mail.

AB 2003 (Mendoza) Legislative bodies. Contracts and appointments. Establishes that any contract entered into or appointment made during the period after a legislative body's election results are certified, but before a new member of the legislative body is sworn into office, cannot take effect until the legislative body, with the newly elected members, has reviewed and approved the contract or appointment.

SB 1324 (Negrete McLeod) Public records. fees. commercial use. Authorizes public agencies, in the case of a request for records for commercial use, to impose a fee for actual cost of staff "search and review" time in addition to the fee the agency can currently charge for duplication costs. This bill defines both "commercial use" and "search and review time."

Employee Relations

AB 1743 (Hernandez) Political Reform Act of 1974. placement agents. Requires placement agents that do business with CalPERS or CalSTRS to be subject to the same reporting and ethics rules that govern lobbyists under the California Political Reform Act.

AB 1987 (Hernandez) & SB 1425 (Simitian) Public retirement. final compensation. computation. retirees. Establishes specific guidelines for determining final compensation and sets parameters for retired annuitants.

Specifically this bill:

• Prohibits using cash conversions of accrued employee benefits and settlement or termination pay or similar payments in final compensation calculations.
• Prohibits compensation, credited to or earnable by an employee that exceeds the average increase in compensation for all employees in the same or similar classifications. This prohibition only applies in the final three years prior to retirement. For example, if a class of employees gets an across the board increase of 5 percent, but another individual in the same or similar class receives a 20 percent increase, this increase could potentially trigger a review and require the agency to justify the increase.
• Requires that retirees have a bona fide separation in service that is at least six months in length prior to performing services for any employer covered by state or local retirement systems.

AB 2253 (Coto) Workers' compensation: cancer presumption. Current law extends the cancer presumption for police and firefighters for a period of three months for every year of service up to five years. This bill extends the presumption for a period of one-year for every year of service up to 15 years.

AB 2340 (Monning) Employee's right to bereavement leave. Establishes that an employer can not discharge, discipline, or discriminate against an employee for inquiring about, requesting, or taking up to three days of unpaid bereavement leave off upon the death of a spouse, child, parent, sibling, grandparent, grandchild, or domestic partner.

SB 1211 (Romero) Unemployment insurance: benefits: eligibility: elected official. Prohibits a state or local government elected official from receiving unemployment compensation benefits based on his or her income, which was derived from employment as an elected official.

Environmental Quality

AB 1998 (Brownley). Single-Use Plastic Bag Ban. Prohibits supermarkets from providing single-use plastic carryout bags. States that a supermarket shall make reusable bags available for purchase or provide a paper carryout bag. A 25 cent fee would be assessed on a paper carryout bag. The revenues from this fee would go into a fund to be distributed to cities and counties for grants to mitigate the pollution effects of paper bags.

AB 2138 (Chesbro). Food Service Packaging & Single Use Carryout Bags. Prohibits food providers from distributing food service packaging or a single-use carryout bag unless those items meet the criteria for either compostable or recyclable packaging. The bill imposes fines of up to $1,000 per year with the revenue being appropriated to assist local governments in the effort to reduce plastic waste and marine debris.

AB 2139 (Chesbro). Extended Producer Responsibility. This legislation enacts the California Product Stewardship Act and seeks to test the applicability of extended producer responsibility. The bill requires all producers of medical sharps, residential pesticide containers, small personal propane tanks, personal butane lights and single-use food packaging products to have a plan in place with the Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery that maximizes the collection rate of each product and minimizes its impact on the environment.

AB 2256 (Huffman). Flushable Wipes. Prohibits companies from labeling products as "flushable" products unless they meet a certain clearance and dispersing standards as double-ply toilet paper in an effort to remove non-flushable products from the sewer and wastewater system, where they can cause costly damages to equipment and contribute to sewer overflows that carry heavy fines to local agencies and endanger public health. The bill also imposes a $2,500 fine for any violation.

SB 1284 (Ducheny). Minimum Mandatory Penalties Reform. This bill would clarify the violations for which a minimum mandatory penalty (MMP) must be assessed by the state or a regional water board. Specifically, SB 1284 states that minor and ministerial violations are not subject to MMPs. The bill also allows a discharger ten years rather than five years to bring waste water discharge facility into compliance with effluent limits. This legislation also increases the population threshold for a "public owned treatment works serving a small community" from 10,000 to 20,000.

SB 1401 (Simitian). Beverage Container Recycling Program Reform. This measure currently pertains to redemption payments paid to distributors from the Beverage Container Recycling Fund. This bill could be the vehicle by which larger, more substantive changes to the Bottle Bill program are made.

Housing, Community, and Economic Development

AB 1805 (Calderon)/SB 1010 (Correa). CEQA Litigation Protection Program. These measures would streamline the California Environmental Quality Act review process for approximately 125 projects over the next five years by exempting from judicial review a lead agency's decision to certify an environmental impact report or to adopt a mitigated negative declaration. The language authorizes the Governor's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency to select projects based on the number of jobs the projects will create.

AB 2439 (Nestande). Mobile Home Space Subletting. This legislation allows a mobile home park owner to sublet his/her home or space and exempts any sublet space from any rent control ordinance.

AB 2313 (Buchanan). Significant Effects Threshold for Greenhouse Gas Emissions

While this measure is currently in "spot" form, the bill will be amended to establish a significance threshold for climate change analysis under the California Environmental Quality Act.

AB 2472 (Huffman). Experimental Building Standards Program. The bill authorizes a city or county to adopt an experimental permit program that exempts an unspecified number of buildings from the California Building Standards Code in order to facilitate innovation of environmentally sustainable building materials, methods and designs.

SB 1174 (Wolk) Land Use: Disadvantaged Unincorporated Communities. This measure requires cities and counties to amend their general plans to take into consideration island, fringe or legacy unincorporated communities. SB 1174 would also require cities to determine goals and a program of action related to these communities.

SB 1445 (DeSaulnier). Planning: Revenue Source for SB 375. This bill would reform the membership of the Planning Advisory and Assistance Council to include individuals from specified regional planning organizations. The bill would also increase the motor vehicle registration fee by $1. The revenues generated would be distributed to the Council and to regional transportation planning agencies for development and implementation of a sustainable communities' strategy or a regional blueprint plan in relation to SB 375.

Enterprise Zones and Redevelopment Agencies

League staff is monitoring a number of "spot" bills that propose changes to enterprise zones and redevelopment agencies. At this time, these bills do not have any substantive language. Further updates on these measures will be provided if and when they are amended.

Public Safety

AB 1858 (Blumenfield). Possession of sterile syringes and needles. Increases the number of syringes a person may obtain without a prescription from 10 to 30 in an effort to reduce the spread of blood-borne illnesses including HIV and Hepatitis C. It also repeals local authority to authorize possession of up to 10 syringes, which is set to expire in December 2010. This is one of several bills addressing similar syringe provisions.

AB 2631 (Logue). Law enforcement reports on immigration status. Declares that any ordinance or policy of a city and county, or law enforcement agency that prevents or limits a law enforcement agency from notifying federal authorities that a person may be within the country illegally is void and not of any force or effect. The measure would also allow a resident of the local jurisdiction to apply for a writ of mandate to compel the local agency to comply with these provisions.

SB 949 (Oropeza). Local authority to assess Vehicle Code penalties. Prohibits a city or county from assessing certain moving Vehicle Code violations and collecting those fines if that same penalty is in place at the state level. League staff anticipates amendments in the near future, as the author's staff has indicated that the current language of SB 949 does not reflect the actual intent of the author.

SB 1258 (Kehoe) Emergency Response Initiative. Creates a 4.8 percent surcharge on property insurance policies to fund state and local emergency response services, 31.3 percent of which would be designated for cities and counties that are part of the Master Mutual Aide Agreement. The League has registered a "support if amended" position with the author.

Revenue and Taxation

Transient Occupancy Tax Legislation: The League is aware of draft amendments sponsored by Online travel Companies (OTC's) to SB 625 (Wright) that would prohibit the collection of at least a portion of local transient occupancy taxes (TOT) when hotel accommodations are booked over the Internet. This is a major issue for all cities and counties that receive TOT revenue and is currently the subject of widespread litigation involving public agencies and OTC's. While legislation has not yet been amended into print, cities should be talking to their legislators now about the importance of TOT revenue to their communities and urging them to oppose any legislation that would undermine this vital local revenue source.

Transportation, Communication & Public Works

AB 1953 (Salas). Public Contracting: Preference for In-State Jobs. Requires a city or county to contract with persons or companies that provide all of the work on the contract in California whenever there is a choice and to the extent it is economically feasible to do so.

AB 2124 (Villines). State damage to local roads. Holds Caltrans responsible for damages to any highway under local jurisdiction that result from actions by Caltrans or their contractors during maintenance or construction projects.

AB 2294 (Block). Pedicab licensing. Allows cities to adopt ordinances regulating the operation of pedicabs within their jurisdiction, including the requirement that operators have a valid California state drivers license. The measure would also define the term "pedicab" in statute.

AB 2256 (Huffman). Flushable Wipes. Prohibits companies from labeling products as "flushable" products unless they meet a certain clearance and dispersing standards as double-ply toilet paper in an effort to remove non-flushable products from the sewer and wastewater system, where they can cause costly damages to equipment and contribute to sewer overflows that carry heavy fines to local agencies and endanger public health.