HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 12201994 - 2.3 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Contra
FROM: Phil Batchelor, County Administrator ►' CoSta
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December 15 1994 �-
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SUBJECT: ADOPTION OF THE COUNTY'S 1995 STATE LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1 . APPROVE the attached draft 1995 State Legislative Program,
with whatever changes the Board wishes to make in it.
2 . AUTHORIZE the County Administrator to work with the County' s
contract lobbyist, Department Heads and other appropriate
parties to seek authors for this legislation, have the
legislation introduced, testify in support of the legislation,
lobby for support of the legislation and seek it' s passage and
approval by the Governor. .
3 . AUTHORIZE the County Administrator to bring to the Board's
attention during the coming year any legislation which, in his
view, the Board of Supervisors should support, oppose, seek
amendments to or otherwise take a position on.
4 . AUTHORIZE the County Administrator to recommend amendments to,
additions to, deletions from or other changes in the adopted
1995 Legislative Program as circumstances warrant during the
year.
BACKGROUND:
Each year, generally in December, the Board of Supervisors adopts
a State Legislative Program which then forms the basis of the work
which the County' s contract lobbyist performs on behalf of the
County in the coming year. This legislative program is generally
formulated from recommendations made by Department Heads, Board
members, previous legislative initiatives which have not yet been
accomplished and developments which occur during the year.
CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE:
RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE
APPROVE OTHER
SIGNATURE(S): C&4h/ (�"Ve-,
ACTION OF BOARD ON 1)P(".PTIIhpr 7 n_.1994 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED XX OTHER
VOTE OF SUPERVISORS
XX _ _ _ I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE
UNANIMOUS(ABSENT ) AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN
AYES: NOES: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD
ABSENT: ABSTAIN: OF SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN.
ATTESTED December 20 , 1994
Contact: PHIL BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THE BOARD OF
cc: County Administrator SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR
Members, Board of Supervisors
All County Department Heads (Via CAO)
Les Spahnn; Heim, Noack and SpahnDEPUTY
Because of the dynamic nature of the legislative process, we must
be flexible in terms of how our time and energy is spent during the
legislative session. A good deal of time is spent keeping up to
date and aware of developments which are initiated by other
parties, including other local governments, members of the
Legislature and the Administration. In addition, County staff and
the County' s lobbyist spend a considerable amount of time pressing
for passage of the various pieces of the Board' s legislative
program. Finally, staff review and circulate to County departments
any legislation which is introduced in Sacramento which appears to
have a possible impact on County operations . Where it is judged
necessary and appropriate we will ask the Board of Supervisors to
take a position on this legislation so that staff and the County' s
lobbyist can actively pursue the Board' s goals in regard to
individual pieces of legislation or broader principles which may be
embodied in one or more pieces of legislation.
This year' s legislative program is fairly simple at this time and
in large measure consists of fairly minor technical changes,
efforts to eliminate various sunset dates to existing legislation
and minor changes to legislation which will benefit this County
and, in some cases, other counties . We anticipate, as has been in
case in every previous year, that substantial changes will occur in
the approved legislative program during the year, as the Governor' s
Budget is released, as the general direction of the legislative
session begins to take shape and as individual pieces of
legislation are introduced. Because of these likely changes, we
try initially to keep our Legislative Program fairly simply,
realizing that major initiatives may require an enormous commitment
of time over a very short period of time within the next few weeks
and months .
It is recommended that the Board review the attached legislative
program, make whatever changes the Board believes are necessary and
then adopt the Legislative Program so that our lobbyist can begin
to seek authors for these measures and begin the process of getting
them drafted and introduced in the form of legislation.
PROPOSED 1995 LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM
1 . Amend Government Code § 70141 .11 to make technical changes to
the duties of a Superior Court Commissioner regarding other duties
which are required by law to eliminate reference to a section of law
which has been repealed.
Current law, which only pertains to Contra Costa County, includes a
reference to a duty of a Superior Court Commission which was
repealed several years ago. This cross-reference need to be
eliminated.
2. Amend Penal Code § 1001.15 to eliminate outdated and confusing
language which is contrary to the "recover full cost" provisions of the
rest of the section having to do with the imposition of an
administrative fee for diversion to cover the actual cost of any
required criminalistics laboratory analysis, the actual cost of
processing a request or application for diversion, and the actual cost
of supervising the divertee. [Recommended by the Municipal Court]
It appears to be the clear intent of the Legislature to allow the
Criminal Laboratory to recover its actual costs of analysis as well as
to allow the court to recover its actual costs for administering the
program. The court is entitled to charge the actual cost for these
programs, not to exceed $500 in the case of a felony or $300 in the
case of a misdemeanor.
However, left in the sections when they were amended last year is
language which provided that, of the fee collected, 1/3 is to go to the
Crime Lab and 2/3 is to go to cover the administrative costs of
processing the request or application for diversion. This language
appears to be contrary and actually to conflict with the earlier and
more recent language which talks about "actual costs". We are
simply seeking to repeal the language which require the 1/3 - 2/3
distribution so that we can split the fee according to what the actual
respective costs of the Crime Lab and the courts are.
3. Amend Penal Code § 1463.14 to remove the special provision for
Contra Costa County regarding the imposition of a $50 penalty
assessment for driving under the influence since with the new split
of fines and forfeitures the County is only able to retain a portion of
this money. Repealing this special provision will leave the County
with the same authority to impose a $50 penalty assessment which
goes into a special laboratory testing fund which is not subject to
being split with the State. [Recommended by the Sheriff-Coroner]
In 1987, we were successful in obtaining language which allowed
Contra Costa County to impose an additional penalty assessment in
order to replace the $50 per conviction of driving under the influence
which is removed from the fine and forfeiture pot and dedicated to
the Criminalistics Laboratory. At that time, the County retained all of
its share of the fines and forfeitures and thereby we were able to
reimburse ourselves for the funds which were transferred to the
Crime Lab. Since that time, the State has moved to take the major
share of our fine and forfeiture revenue, thereby rendering this
special provisions of little use to the County. All other counties are
allowed to impose an additional penalty which is not shared with the
State. We are seeking to eliminate the special provision we had for
ourselves so that we can now share in the provision which applies
to all other counties.
4. Sponsor legislation to incorporate in State statutes changes to the
pay and staffing of Municipal Court employees which have already
been approved by the Board of Supervisors. [Recommended by the
Municipal Court]
The State Constitution requires that the Legislature determine the
pay and staffing of the Municipal Courts. The Legislature has
devised a system whereby individual county boards of supervisors
can implement changes in municipal court pay and staffing, but the
changes are generally valid for only two years after they are enacted
unless they are placed in State statutes in that period of time. As a
result, each year the Board sponsors a Municipal Court Pay &
Staffing bill which places in State statutes all changes in Municipal
Court pay and staffing which have been enacted by the Board but
not yet reflected in State law.
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5. Work with the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) to
amend Penal Code § 1463.001 (b) to modify the maintenance of
effort for the deposit of court fines, fees and penalty assessments
with the State to reflect changes in the number of citations which are
issued. [Recommended by the Municipal Court]
Current law requires each county to forward to the State at least the
amount of fine and forfeiture revenue which the county collected in
the 1992-93 fiscal year. This somewhat arbitrary "maintenance of
effort" requirement is intended to insure that counties continue their
collection efforts, even though the county does not benefit much from
the collection of the fine and forfeiture revenue. However, valid as
this part of the requirement may be, it does not take into account the
downturn in the economy which makes it harder to collect fine
revenue due the county not the fact that law enforcement
jurisdictions happen to be issuing fewer citations. The county is,
therefore, punished for the fact that city police departments may
have issued fewer citations than in previous years. We are seeking
to have the formula amended to provide an adjustment for a
reduction in the number of citations which are issued, which still
maintaining the requirement that the county continue its collection
efforts.
6. Co-sponsor with Alameda County legislation to change the boundary
between Alameda and Contra Costa Counties as approved by the
Board of Supervisors for the Vasco Road realignment.
[Recommended by the Community Development Director]
State law specifies the boundaries of each county in the State. The
Board of Supervisors has initiated a change in the boundary of
Contra Costa County due to the Vasco Road realignment, as
requested by the Contra Costa Water District. Assuming the
Alameda County Board of Supervisors also approved this boundary
change, it will be necessary to have the Legislature enact a change
to State law to reflect this change.
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7. Amend Vehicle Code § 9250.14 to remove the sunset date for the
imposition of the $1 surcharge on vehicle registrations to fund
programs which enhance the capacity of local police and prosecutors
to deter, investigate, and prosecute vehicle theft crimes.
[Recommended by the Sheriff-Coroner]
Current law provides a $1 surcharge on each vehicle registration to
fund a vehicle theft prevention program. This authority expires
January 1, 1996. We would like to be able to continue this program
and need the funding which results from the vehicle registration
surcharge in order to do so.
8. Amend Vehicle Code § 9250.7 and § 22710 to remove the sunset
date for the imposition of the $1 surcharge on vehicle registration
fees to fund the abandoned vehicle abatement program, thereby
allowing the fee to continue to be collected indefinitely.
[Recommended by the County Administrator's Office]
Current law provides for a$1 surcharge on each vehicle registration
to fund our abandoned vehicle abatement program. This authority
expires for this County in early 1996. We would like to be able to
continue what has proven to be a very successful program and need
the funding from this vehicle registration surcharge in order to
continue the program.
9. Work with the various interest groups involved in the funding of the
Sheriff's Marine Patrol to arrive at a mutually acceptable method of
providing funding for Marine Patrol services in the five Delta
counties. [Recommended by the Sheriff-Coroner]
We have attempted in the past to enact a modest increase in the
vessel registration fee to fund the Sheriffs Marine Patrol Program.
Thus far we have been unsuccessful in this effort. We are
committed to working with the boat owners organizations and other
interested parties in an effort to arrive at a solution which can be
supported by all affected parties.
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10. Co-sponsor legislation with Alameda County to exempt County
Service Areas which provide police services from the property tax
transfer, as was done with fire districts. [Recommended by the
Sheriff-Coroner]
We were almost successful in 1993 and again in 1994 in getting the
County Police Patrol County Service Area (P-6) exempted from the
property tax transfer to the schools, as was done for the fire districts.
We would like to join with Alameda County in 1995 in another effort
in this direction. Alameda County made a similar unsuccessful effort
in 1994.
11. Continue to participate in negotiations over the issue of planning for
water availability and, if appropriate, co-sponsor legislation which
includes the following principal features:
✓ Water planning needs to be integrated with the land use
planning process.
✓ Establishing the assumptions used by a water utility to
determine the availability of water must be identified and
subjected to public scrutiny and an open process which allows
for input from all affected parties.
✓ The analysis of water availability has to be done at a
reasonable point in the development process - not so early as
to put the developer to great expense before he or she knows
whether any development rights will be granted - but not so
late in the process that commitments have been made without
adequate thought being given to the availability of water.
✓ The water utility has to agree to be cooperative with other
elements of local government which have the land use
decision-making process within their purview.
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The County engaged in a lengthy struggle with the East Bay
Municipal Utility District in 1994 in an effort to retain the discretion of
the Board of Supervisors to make land use decisions. However, we
recognize that land use planning must be done in conjunction with
water availability planning and vice versa. We have been
cooperating in a series of meetings this summer with all interested
parties and would like to continue to cooperate in this regard.
Legislation may or may not result from this effort.
12. Authorize the County Administrator and Director, GMEDA to prepare
proposed amendments to CEQA which would provide for a pilot
project in this County to test some element of streamlining to CEQA
and return the details of the proposal to the Board of Supervisors for
approval before submitting it to the County's lobbyist for
consideration.
We believe that we may have an opportunity in 1995 to initiate a pilot
project designed to demonstrate the value of streamlining the CEQA
review and approval process without endangering the goals of
CEQA. We will draft up a specific proposal and submit it to the
Board for approval before seeking introduction of legislation.
13. Authorize the County Administrator and the County Clerk-Recorder's
Records Manager to prepare proposed legislation to streamline the
records management requirements in State law and return the details
of the proposal to the Board of Supervisors for approval before
submitting it to the County's lobbyist for consideration.
Our Office has been working with the Records Manager in the
County Clerk-Recorder's Office to draft legislation which would
reduce the records retention requirements and streamline the
process of retaining, cataloguing, and storing the huge variety of
records which the County must retain. We do not yet have a specific
proposal and are, therefore, asking simply for authority to prepare a
specific proposal to submit to the Board of Supervisors for approval
before considering placing it in legislative format.
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14. Support the efforts of other groups to enact legislation which would
overturn the "Breedlove" decision which interprets Penal Code §
1204.5 in such a way as to prevent a judge from reading the pre
plea reports or receiving any information about a case for the
purpose of pre trial conferences.
A recent decision by an appellate court has prohibited judges from
reading preplea records or otherwise receiving any information about
a case for the purpose of pre trial conferences. The Superior Court
and District Attorney both are recommending legislation to overturn
this judicial decision and we believe that the Board of Supervisors
should support this effort.
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