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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 12051995 - D.1 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS Contra FROM: PHIL BATCHELOR, COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR ~ '' Costa := County DATE: November 28, 1995 p._ •'CT SUBJECT: STATUS REPORT ON 1995 LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM SPECIFIC REQUEST(S)OR RECOMMENDATION(S)&BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION RECOMMENDATION: ACCEPT the following report from the County Administrator on the status of the Board's 1995 Legislative Program. BACKGROUND: On December 20, 1994, the Board of Supervisors adopted its 1995 Legislative Program and directed staff to actively pursue enactment of the Board's legislative program. We are pleased to provide the following status report on the extent to which the Board's Program was achieved. On December 12, 1995, we will propose a 1996 Legislative Program for the Board. 1. Proposal: 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. Status: Enacted by SB 756 (Petris, Campbell and Rainey), Chapter 502, Statutes of 1995. Increases revenue to the County in the 1995-96 fiscal year by $589,195, in the 1996- 97 fiscal year by $1,178,390, and in the 1997-98 and all subsequent fiscal years by $1,767,586. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: YES SIGNATURE: RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE (S): Z/do ACTION OF BOARD ON nece, 995 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS 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 D I�L� h I a 15— Contact: PHIL BATCHELOR,CLERK OF THBOARD OF CC: County Administrator SUPERVISORS AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR BY DEPUTY r 2. Proposal: Amend Vehicle Code Section 9250.7 and Section 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. Status: While we were unable to get the sunset date removed entirely, we were successful in moving the sunset date out by an additional five years. Enacted by AB 135 (Rainey), Chapter 819, Statutes of 1995. Maintains approximately $600,000 annually in revenue for this program. 3. Proposal: Amend Vehicle Code Section 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. Status: While we were unable to get the sunset date removed entirely, we were successful in moving the sunset date to January 1, 2000. Enacted by AB 135 (Rainey), Chapter 819, Statutes of 1995. Maintains approximately $600,000 annually in revenue for this program. 4. Proposal: Amend Penal Code Section 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. Status: Enacted by AB 129 (Rainey), Chapter 9, Statutes of 1995. Annual savings to the County of approximately $100,000. 5. Proposal: Amend Penal Code Section 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. Status: Enacted by SB 133 (Boatwright), Chapter 67, Statutes of 1995. No financial impact on the County. Purely a technical clean-up. -2- 6. Proposal: Support the efforts of other groups to enact legislation which would overturn the "Breedlove" decision which interprets Penal Code Section 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. Status: Enacted by AB 130 (Rainey), Chapter 86, Statutes of 1995. 7. Proposal: 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. Status: SB 901 (Costa) was enacted as Chapter 881, Statutes of 1995. The Board of Supervisors took a WATCH position on the bill June 20, 1995, which, as enacted, does the following: ❑ Requires that coordination between a city or county and a water agency include the discussion and evaluation of any water supply and demand information, if that information has been submitted by the water agency to the city or county. ❑ Requires a city or county, upon the adoption or revision of its general plan to reference as a source document any urban water management plan submitted to the city or county by a water agency. ❑ Requires a city or county that determines that an EIR is required for specified projects to identify water systems that provide water supplies for the proposed project. ❑ Requires the city or county to request the public water system to make an assessment regarding water supplies and requires the public water system to approve and submit its assessment to the city or county not later than 30 days after the date on which the request was received. -3- 8. Proposal: Co-sponsor with Alameda County legislation to change the boundary between Alameda County and Contra Costa County as approved by the Board of Supervisors for the Vasco Road realignment. Status: Enacted by SB 614 (Committee on Local Government), Chapter 529, Statutes of 1995. No financial impact on the County. 9. Proposal: 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. Status: Enacted by AB 737 (Hauser), Chapter 954, Statutes of 1995. 10. Proposal: Amend Government Code Section 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. Status: Included in the Legislature's omnibus "maintenance of the codes" legislation, SB 975 (Committee on Judiciary) and enacted as Chapter 91, Statutes of 1995. No financial impact on the County. Purely a technical clean-up. 11. Proposal: Work with the various interest groups 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. Status: This issue has been at the top of the Board's legislative program for several years. While we were unsuccessful in 1995 in bringing closure to this issue, we have made substantial progress through the introduction of AB 122 (Rainey) and ACA 12 (Rainey). We have increased the awareness of the Governor's Office to the problems with the funding from the Harbors and Watercraft Revolving Fund. We fully expect that additional progress will be made in 1996, leading to an increased allocation of funds to this County. We will again include this issue in the Board's 1996 Legislative Program. 12. Proposal: Work with the California State Association of Counties (CSAC) to amend Penal Code Section 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. -4- Status: 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 past downturn in the economy which makes it harder to collect fine revenue due the county nor 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, while still maintaining the requirement that the county continue its collection efforts. The county had to pay the State $52,509 for the 1993-94 fiscal year and $91,184 for the 1994-95 fiscal year because of this requirement. We were unable to make any progress with this issue in 1995. This will probably have to be handled as a part of any overall changes to the organization, administration and funding of the Trial Courts. We will, however, include this issue in the Board's 1996 Legislative Program because it is a significant problem for the County and is one over which we have little if any control. 13. Proposal: 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. Status: Discussions were held with the Clerk-Recorder's Records Manager. He is continuing to work with his statewide association to refine exactly what they believe they need in the way of legislation. It may be that these proposals will be sufficiently well developed to pursue in 1996. In addition, the Municipal Court has indicated a need for legislation in this area in response to the fires they had this fall which revealed some significant gaps in legislation in terms of records retention requirements after disasters. This will be included as an element in the Board's 1996 Legislative Program. 14. Proposal: 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 beforesubmitting it to the County's lobbyist for consideration. Status: While some preliminary work was done on a possible pilot project, the County never sponsored any legislation in this area. -5-