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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 02121991 - 2.4 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS / Contra FROM: HARVEY E. BRAGDON Count - " Costa DIRECTOR OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT / DATE: February 11, 1991 SUBJECT: Bay Vision 2020 Review Draft Report SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Endorse the concept of merging the Association of Bay Area Governments, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District as a logical first step in creating a regional government. This could occur without being a part of the larger regional governance issue. 2 . Concur that a further dialogue on how regional policies are set is desirable and declare the County's intent to become actively involved in this discussion. 3 . Support dialogue on how tax revenues are distributed among local and state agencies and insist that financial issues must be dealt with as part of this State legislation and that increased costs are fully State. funded. 4 . Endorse the alternative that locally elected officials or their alternates would initially serve on a Regional Commission, if one is established. .After the initial four year period, the issue of elected representation should be reconsidered. 5. Give cautious endorsement to the concept of a regional commission, . but withhold full endorsement until the details of . the program have been put in place. The final report should consider inclusion of financial incentives to' obtain cooperation and compliance with regional planning. 6. Refer the issue of Regional Governance to the Internal Operations Committee and direct the Community Development Department to carefully monitor this program and to take action as guided by that committee and coordinate a response with other affected County Departments. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNATUR RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION WV BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S) : ACTION OF BOARD ON February 12, 1991 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A X UNANIMOUS (ABSENT — TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF AN AYES: NOES: ACTION TAKEN AND ENTERED ON THE ABSENT: ABSTAIN: MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN. Orig: Community Development Department ATTESTED�IIItc /a 1191 cc: County Public Works . PHIL BAT LOR, CLERK OF CAO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS County Counsel AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR. Val Alexeeff BY ,`'�c.L/ , DEPUTY R HB/JC/rw. Igen/2020.bod FISCAL IMPACT Unknown, but it could be substantial. At a minimum there will be major costs of staff and Board time involved in resolving issues in consideration of a regional agency - much more effort would be involved in developing the regional plan. BACKGROUND ISSUES The Bay Vision 2020 Review. Draft Report is a product of an ad hoc group created by. two special interest groups, the Greenbelt Alliance and the Bay Area Council. Both groups have long been advocates of strong. regional government. This report is successful in pointing out many of the challenges facing the Bay Area and revitalizing the dialogue on improved decision making on regional issues. The County is fortunate in that we have just completed the new countywide general plan which integrates land use transportation and air quality issues. It may serve as a model for this type of process at a regional level. Some main points in the report are discussed below: I. MERGER OF REGIONAL AGENCIES The Bay Area, .as well as other areas of the state, currently have regional governance that affects our way of life. The issue is should a consolidation and reorganization of functions take place. Often overlooked in this dialogue is that cities, counties, MTC, BAAQMD, BCDC and most other agencies are in fact subdivisions of the state. When thought of in this way, the dialogue can be recast to think of more efficient ways to provide state or state mandated services to residents of the Bay Area. The BAAQMD, and MTC are state agencies whereas ABAG is a voluntary association of local governments. The overlap of functions of these 3 agencies is substantial. The approved Air. Quality Management Plan for the Bay Area 'had to be approved by all 3 agencies. The bringing together of these 3 functions into one agency would create a strong centralized operation which would greatly affect the quality of life in the region. Even if no other parts of the proposal were enacted, this could lead to, improved efficiencies. In most of the rest of the Country, the Federal Government caused such mergers to occur in the nineteen-sixties due to Federal funding allocation decisions. For some reason the west coast wasn't affected. Staff sees merit in this change even if separated from the rest of the proposal. 2 . DIALOGUE -ON REGIONAL CHANGE The Bay 2020 report is important because it is causing us to rethink past decisions on the delivery services, the Findings and Conclusions sections is a fairly complete overview of problems affecting the region. Few can disagree with this listing. The same may be said for the Values and Goals section. The section entitled "Our General Vision of the Bay Area By the year 2020" provides one future for the Bay Area. This section is written in the language of ideals. It is easy to overlook that the region has evolved to its current situation due to exceptionally complex sets of factors. - The desires of the populace is one such factor they may not concur in this view of the future. Most of us enjoy the quality of life of the Bay Area, a product of environment, luck and the current systems of governance. It can .be by no means assured that forming a new regional governmental structure, will benefit the quality of life. It could be just another layer of government and yield more costs for those wishing to build something. A major failure , of the report is that it does not indicate what constitutes a regional issue, nor does it indicate what type issue could be appealed to the regional body. State laws, CEQA rules among others have already, created a difficult development approval process. Before more procedures are added, the benefits should be specified. . .It is possible and probable that such oversight could become . a negative process - not a positive one. The use of financial incentives for local government to implement regional planning should be considered. Nonetheless, these issues are worth debating, the County should declare its intent to be a strong actor in this .debate, but reserve judgement on most aspects of the proposal until the details are specified. 3 . SUPPORT A REVIEW OF TAX REVENUES The County is repeatedly impacted by new state mandates and programs without compensation. Our resources are already stretched beyond any limits. The creation of a regional government should not be allowed to occur without adequately addressing the costs of both it's programs and their costs on local government resources. Section 6a would require participation of local governments. Section 6c would require cities, counties and LAFCO's (which Counties mostly fund) to bring their plans into conformance with the regional plan. . Section 6c would allow for "appeals" of your decisions - at some one's expense. Failure to conform "could include financial penalties (e.g. withholding tax revenues resulting from new deve,lopment. . . ") . The preparation of a regional plan will no doubt be costly because the regional agency will want access to local government data. The financial aspects of this program, including local government costs must be addressed in consideration of this program. If not addressed we could end up with more non subsidized costs with little benefit. 4. LOCALLY ELECTED OFFICIALS TO SERVE The report suggests alternatives to service on this governing body. Direct election of some members, appointed representatives. or directly elected representatives. Initially, it may be desirable to have locally elected officials serve , similar to the ABAG formula. The issues or pressures facing the region won't change simply by' creating a new governing agency. Locally elected officials already deal with such issues and are trained to handle them. They have developed some expertise to deal with growth issues. Direct election could ultimately be appropriate but could also lead to special interest financing of elections. 5. CAUTIOUS SUPPORT OF CONCEPT Clearly, the merger of regional agencies such as ABAG and MTC is very logical. Adding BAAQMD is less clearcut but workable. Provisions beyond that require considerably more thought. It is possible that change of governmental structure may have little impact on the growth issues facing the region due to limited supply of available land, costs of infrastructure, citizen pressure, etc. These need much more dialogue from a much larger group than the ad hoc group which produced this report. Cautious support of the concept is indicated. 6. REFERRAL TO IO AND STAFF It would be desirable to assign responsibility to keep involved in this dialogue to a Board committee. I recommend the Internal Operations Committee as the most logical one. Further, our Department should be directed to monitor this program and work with other County . Departments, the IO, and other' local governments on monitoring actions on this issue. HB/JC/rw lgen/2020.bod