On reconsideration, bill moves out of Senate.

by Brian Leubitz

When the bill failed on its first time up, Mark Leno said he would bring his SB1439 back for reconsideration. And this time the Senate Leadership, much to their credit, rallied around the bill and pushed it forward. Senators Darrell Steinberg and Kevin de León really got behind it, and pushed previous ‘No’ votes to yes.

The vote went from 18-19 to 21-14, with Sens. Hill, Hernandez and Hueso switching their votes. However, there were a lot of caveats to get those votes, and they probably wouldn’t have switched their votes had this been the final vote. There were a couple key compromises that have been discussed, but there are a lot of details to be hashed out.

The yet-to-be-written amendments would exempt one or two small properties owned by “mom-and-pop” landlords from new Ellis Act restrictions and may also include a sunset date for the bill. (SF Gate / Melody Gutierrez)

The third amendment adds on to the first, namely restrictions on what a “mom-and-pop” landlord really is. Just because an LLC owns only one building, does not a small landlord make. Whether the amended bill will be worth supporting is still very dependent on how that small landlord exception is defined and how long it will be until the bill sunsets.

Kudos to Sen. Leno and his colleagues for moving the ball forward on a measure that nearly the entire San Francisco elected leadership supports.

Close votes push reform down the road

by Brian Leubitz

Today is the last day to get bills out of their house of origin, and so we have a bit of controversy as a few bills got the big red X. First up, in an 18-19 vote, the Senate voted down Sen. Mark Leno’s SF-specific Ellis Act reform.

Legislative efforts to give San Francisco the ability to curtail the number of Ellis Act evictions in the city failed Wednesday night as the state Senate rejected a bill by Sen. Mark Leno after an 18-19 vote. …

SB1439 would have required a San Francisco landlord to own a building for at least five years before they could evict tenants using the Ellis Act. The 1986 state law allows property owners to evict tenants in order to get out of the rental business, but it has been used by speculators as a way to buy affordable properties, evict tenants and flip the rental for profit. (SF Gate)

This bill has caused a lot of Senators to say a lot of uninformed nothings. I shouldn’t say uninformed, as they are actually quite informed by the California Apartment Association. Exhibit A pointed out by reporter Melody Gutierrez:

“Over and over and time and time again I heard from cities and counties asking to be exempt from having to build affordable housing,” said Sen. Norma Torres, D-Pomona. “San Francisco has not done their fair share and now they are coming to us and saying because we have not provided affordable housing, we want you to pass along the cost to the small landlords.”

Not only is this factually incorrect, and it is, but it continues on from the garbage data to talking points from the CAA. You would think that the Senator would trust the information from her colleague, Senator Mark Leno. But nope, SF has built a lot of affordable housing. It is a simple matter of supply and demand. San Francisco is at “full employment” and is becoming something of a bedroom city with the tech shuttles taking SF residents to Silicon Valley.

Meanwhile from the Dept. of Short Term Thinking, the Assembly rejected Asm. Tom Ammiano’s AB1894 on medical marijuana. The bill would have created a state body to regulate medical marijuana, instead of the baffling patchwork of regulations that are in place now.

No lawmakers rose to explicitly denounce Assembly Bill 1894, by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco. Some with concerns about preserving local control said they had been persuaded that cities and counties could still pass and enforce their own rules around medicinal cannabis.

But a large bloc of lawmakers from both parties withheld votes, ensuring that the measure would go no further. The final vote was 27-30, with 22 not voting.(SacBee CapAlert)

In a perfect world this wouldn’t be necessary either. It would simply be folded into regulatory bodies that already monitor alcohol at the local,state, and federal levels. But, this is not that world, and who knows when the federal government will learn the lesson that they should have learned from the 1920s. (If not, perhaps they should watch Boardwalk Empire for a few hours.) Here in the world we live in, the state needs a more consistent regulatory regime, and Ammiano’s bill would have started that process.

Bills can be reconsidered, and Leno’s Ellis Act bill is scheduled for that process today. Expect to see a slew of stories tomorrow about bills that moved on and those that failed.

Federal government decreases recoverable Monterey Shale oil estimates by 96%

by Brian Leubitz

Many in government were expecting there to be something of a North Dakota style oil boom in California. Perhaps we best not rely on that for all of our future revenues:

Federal energy authorities have slashed by 96% the estimated amount of recoverable oil buried in California’s vast Monterey Shale deposits, deflating its potential as a national “black gold mine” of petroleum.

Just 600 million barrels of oil can be extracted with existing technology, far below the 13.7 billion barrels once thought recoverable from the jumbled layers of subterranean rock spread across much of Central California, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. The new estimate, expected to be released publicly next month, is a blow to the nation’s oil future and to projections that an oil boom would bring as many as 2.8 million new jobs to California and boost tax revenue by $24.6 billion annually. (LA Times)

Now, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t billions of barrels of oil under California, but it is simply too difficult to access, even using the latest technologies. Some will certainly continue to explore here, and maybe with future technologies more will be unlocked. However, for the time being, the boom won’t be coming.

I suppose my headline is a bit provocative, because there will still be fracking in the state to access some of that 600 million barrels. And we still need to learn more about the fracking process before we go gung-ho on our shale with a bunch of questionable chemicals and our increasingly precious water. But the incentive for large scale fracking operations has just been drastically diminished.

Additional Revenue will be steered to education under Prop 98

by Brian Leubitz

The Proposition 30 funds will sunset in a few years, but the surplus revenue is nice while it lasts. With the economy picking up speed, and an additional few billion in unexpected revenue, Gov. Brown has some flexibility that wasn’t there a few years ago. So, he’s gone through his laundry list:

For the budget year (2014-15), the May Revision sets aside $1.6 billion to make the final payment on the Economic Recovery Bonds and another $1.6 billion for the Rainy Day Fund.

The May Revision reflects more than $2 billion in added costs over and above the January budget. This includes higher spending to provide health care coverage under Medi-Cal for a million more people, emergency drought assistance, added funding to meet the Proposition 98 guarantee for K-14 schools, caseload increases in the In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS) program, additional contributions to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and added staffing to administer California’s unemployment insurance program.

When Governor Brown took office, the state faced a massive $26.6 billion budget deficit and estimated annual shortfalls of roughly $20 billion. These deficits, built up over a decade, have now been eliminated by a combination of budget cuts, temporary taxes and the recovering economy.

Could he have done more to restore some of the massive cuts of the 2007-2012 era? Probably, but Gov. Brown was never going to wipe all that away in one cycle. That has just not been his style since his Oakland mayoral days. But the May revise moves the state forward and is a solid foundational document for the future.

Parts of this will clearly change as the Speaker and Senate leader get a hold of it, and there are certainly improvements to be made. However, with the rainy day deal already done, half the battle is behind us and the politicians are looking to the upcoming elections.

By Steve Smith

Over 200,000 California veterans live in poverty. More than a quarter of the nation’s homeless veterans are right here in our state. We see them on the street. Their injuries – both physical and emotional – are evident. Yet, far too little is being done to help the heroes who fought for our country find a roof over their heads at night. That’s simply shameful.

We can do better. We must do better.

Prop 41 directs $600 million of existing Proposition 12 (Veterans Bond Act of 2008) to housing options for veterans. On June 3, California voters have an opportunity to infuse much-needed funds into transitional housing for veterans, which would go a long way to providing a warm place to sleep at night for those who have sacrificed so much to defend the very freedoms many of us take for granted.

We proudly endorsed Prop 41 because it’s exactly the kind of thing we need to see more of here in California. The measure doesn’t ask voters for new money. It won’t cost taxpayers a dime. But what it will do is get veterans off the street. No one who has served our nation in uniform should live in poverty or be without a place to live.

So on June 3, cast a vote to curb homelessness among our state’s veterans. Cast a vote to give our heroes in uniform a chance to build a better life. Cast a vote for Prop. 41.

Learn more about Prop 41

Learn more about Veterans and Labor – Partners in Service