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Meeting Information



2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 

 

 

STATE LEGISLATION COMMITTEE

 

Monday, March 23, 2009

3PM

City Hall, Room 288

 

MEMBERS:

 

Mayor’s Office (Chair) – Nancy Kirshner-Rodriguez

Supervisor Chiu – David Noyola

Supervisor Alioto-Pier – Catherine Stefani

City Attorney’s Office – MaryJane Winslow

Treasurer’s Office – Pauline Marx

Assessor’s Office – Alissa Pines

Controller’s Office – Peg Stevenson

 

AGENDA 

I . ROLL CALL 

II. APPROVAL OF MEETING MINUTES

Action Item: the Committee will vote to approve the minutes of the February 26, 2009 meeting of the State Legislation Committee.

 

III. 2009 STATE AGENDA

Discussion item: the Committee will review and discuss the draft 2009 State Agenda for the City andCounty of San Francisco (See Supporting Documents)

 

IV. REVIEW OF DEPARTMENT STATE LEGISLATIVE PLANS

Discussion item: the Committee will review and discuss the draft State Legislative Plans for Departments of the City and County of San Francisco

a. Office of the City Attorney

b. Department of Public Health

c. Human Services Agency

d. Department of the Environment

 

V. PROPOSED LEGISLATION

Action Items: vote to support, not support, or take no position on the following state legislation affecting the City and County of San Francisco 

 

Office of the City Attorney

MaryJane Winslow

 

AB 10 (Hagman)

Public financing: actions.  This bill would bar cities and counties from challenging voter-passed measures, no matter how legitimate the basis for doing so.  This prohibition would apply to local initiatives as well as to statewide initiative statutes and constitutional amendments.  Removing the right of local governmental officials to challenge illegal initiative measures would permit voter-enacted measures to stand even when the measures violate fundamental constitutional principles or conflict with other provisions of law.

Recommended action: Oppose

 

SB 54 (Leno)

Health care coverage: pricing. This bill eliminates gender discrimination in the pricing of individual health insurance policies purchased by millions of Californians each year.  Current California law expressly permits insurance companies to charge women more for health insurance based solely on their sex.  As a result, women in California who purchase individual health insurance pay monthly premiums up to 39% higher than those paid by similarly situated men.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 119 (Jones) 

Health care coverage: pricing.  This bill is basically the same bill as SB 54 (Leno) but introduced in the Assembly.

Recommended action: Support

 

Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector

Pauline Marx

 

AB 1342 (Evans)

Existing law authorizes various local governmental entities to impose local taxes for various purposes.  This bill would authorize the board of supervisors of any county, by ordinance, to impose either a personal income tax or a vehicle license fee, or both, in accordance with specified requirements.

Recommended action: Support

 

Office of the Assessor-Recorder

Alissa Pines

 

AB 103 (de León)

This bill would allow two co-owners of real property to be excluded from a change in ownership – and subsequent reassessment – when one of the co-owners dies. This exclusion from reassessment is a benefit that married couples, domestic partners registered with the state, and other groups enjoy under current California law. This benefit does not exist, however, for others may own property together for years, such as siblings and unregistered domestic partners. The intention of this legislation is to prevent financial hardship for the surviving co-owner.

In Asm Committee on Revenue & Taxation - hearing on 4/13/09

Recommended action: Support

 

Department of Public Health

Jim Soos

 

AB 217 (Beall)

This bill would provide alcohol and drug screening and brief intervention services (SBIS) as a voluntary benefit for Medi-Cal beneficiaries.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 221 (Portantino)

This bill would allow that HIV counselors be allowed to perform skin punctures for the purpose of withdrawing blood to perform HIV test if they are trained on finger-stick procedures in accordance with California DPH training requirements and are working under the direction of a licensed physician.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 359 (Nava)

This bill would require that digital mammography screening be covered under the CDP:EWC program when analog mammography services are not available from the provider.

Recommended action: Support

 

SBX3 24 (Alquist)

This bill would repeal last year's change from annual to semi-annual Medi-Cal eligibility determinations for children in order to comply with federal requirements to draw down the enhanced FMAP rate.

Recommended action: Support

 

Human Services Agency

Noelle Simmons

 

AB 12 (Bass, Beall)

This bill ensures that CA opts into essential federal funding opportunities. AB 12 would: 1) re-enact the state’s existing Kin-GAP program to align it with new federal requirements effective 01/01/10 and 2) provide transitional support to qualifying foster youth until age 21 beginning 10/01/10.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 47 (Ma)

This bill enhances the adoptions tax credit cap from $2500 to $5000 for families that adopt children age 12 or over and children out of group homes.

Recommended action: Support

 

 

 

AB 295 (Ammiano) and AB 1324 (Bass)

AB 295 (Ammiano). Would (1) make the Child Welfare Wrap pilot program permanent and (2) extend by 6 months the date by which funds appropriated under the Older Youth Adoptions pilot program must be spent and the date by which a report to the Legislature must be made. 

AB 1324 (Bass) mirrors the language in AB 295 as relates to the Wrap program, but does not include the OYA provisions.

Recommended action: No position

 

AB 631 (Tran) and AB 1193 (Strickland)

Both bills would require that a district attorney investigator visit the home of every CalWORKs applicant and conduct a home walk-through and applicant interview and report the findings of the home visit to the county welfare agency before CalWORKs assistance could be approved. Local DA’s offices would be given 10 days to complete the home visit.

Recommended action: Oppose

 

AB 654 (Leno)

This bill would enable foster youth placed with non-related legal guardians to receive ILP services.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 719 (Lowenthal)

This bill would create a Transitional Food Stamps for Foster Youth Program effective July 1, 2010. Under this program, upon emancipation from foster care, young people would be automatically eligible for Food Stamps without regard to income or assets for a 12-month period.

Recommended action: Support

 

SB 114 (Liu, Pavley)

This bill would make independent foster care adolescents categorically eligible for Medi-Cal without submitting a new application, and would exempt them from having to submit annual redetermination paperwork unless their information had changed. These clarifications to existing law are intended to prevent interruptions in coverage for emancipated foster youth.

Recommended action: Support

 

SB 179 (Runner)

This bill would:

1.             Reduce the time period for birth parents to file a notice of appeal from 60 days to 30 days when the Juvenile Court orders the termination of parental rights (TPR); and

2.             Modify the current process of serving notice to birth parents when the court terminates parental rights by allowing notice to be served in person when the parties are present in court; and

3.             Add statutory language allowing a TPR order to automatically finalize after 180 days have elapsed from the date of the Court order.

Recommended action: Support

 

SB 384 (Benoit)

This bill would require random drug testing of CalWORKs recipients as a condition of retaining eligibility. Recipients who fail the test would have to successfully complete a one year treatment program or be discontinued from aid.

Recommended action: Oppose

 

Department of Aging and Adult Services

Sybil L. Boutilier

 

AB 324 (Beall)

Elder Economic Security Standard Index. Existing law, the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act, creates the California Department of Aging, with prescribed duties.

This bill would require the department, beginning in 2010, to annually update the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index), as defined, for each county. Requires the department to use the Index to make calculations and analyses relating to elders living below the Index's poverty threshold. Requires that an area agency on aging plan utilize the Elder Index, specify the cost of meeting basic needs for elders in each service area, and identify which elders are living at or below the Index. Pilot projects are occurring in eight other states—Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Michigan.

Recommended action: Support

 

AB 392 (Feuer)

Long Term Health Care Facilities, proposes to provide funding outside of the General Fund by amending section 1417.2 of the Health and Safety Code to allocate at least  50% of the State managed funds accumulated in the Federal & State Health Facilities Citation Penalties Accounts to fund the Local Ombudsman Programs. (Currently $5-6 million, expected to drop to $4 ml by end of 2010)

Recommended action: Sponsor/Support

 

Department of the Environment

Mark Westlund

 

SB 518 (Lowenthal) AB 1336 (Eng)       

This bill would require that state funds not be used, directly or indirectly, to subsidize parking services, except as specified, for students, employees, or other persons on district-owned or district-leased property on and after January 1, 2011.

Recommended action: Support

 

Municipal Transportation Agency

Kate Breen

 

AB 1336 (Eng)

Existing law authorizes the City and County of San Francisco, until January 1, 2012, to enforce parking violations in specified transit-only traffic lanes through the use of video image evidence.  This bill would extend that authorization until January 1, 2013.  The bill would make a related change with respect to a notice of a delinquent parking violation.

Recommended action: Support

 

Arts Commission

Luis Cancel

 

AB 700 (Krekorian)

This bill would establish the Creative Industries and Community Economic Revitalization Act of 2010, which would create, in the State Treasury, the Creative Industries and Community Economic Revitalization Fund.

The bill would require that 20% of all revenues derived from the payment of sales and use taxes that are remitted to the State Board of Equalization by the taxpayers engaged in specified lines of business, as provided, be deposited in the fund. The council would be authorized to expend the moneys in the fund, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to issue grants pursuant to the act.

The bill would authorize a city, county, district, including, but not limited to, a regional park district, a joint powers authority, or a nonprofit arts organization deemed eligible by the council, to apply to the council for a local assistance program grant for organizational support. The council would be required, when issuing a grant, to encourage joint partnerships between applicants, and to submit an annual report to the Legislature that includes the status of each grant made pursuant to the act.

Recommended action: Support

 

 

VI. SET REGULAR SCHEDULE FOR FUTURE COMMITTEE MEETINGS

 

VIII. GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT

Discussion item:  members of the public may address the Committee on items of interest that are within the Committee’s subject matter jurisdiction.

 

IX. ADJOURNMENT

 
Disability Access

 

Room 288 of City Hall is located at 1 Dr. Carton B. Goodlett Place, and is wheelchair accessible.  The closest accessible BART Station is Civic Center, three blocks from City Hall. Accessible Muni lines serving this location are:  #47 Van Ness, and the #71 Haight/Noriega and the F Line to Market and Van Ness, as will as Muni Metro stations at Van Ness and Civic Center.  For more information about Muni accessible services, call 923-6142. There is accessible parking at the Civic Center Plaza garage. 

 

 

Know Your Rights Under the Sunshine Ordinance

 

Government’s duty is to serve the public, reaching its decisions in full view of the public.  Commissions, boards, councils, and other agencies of the City and County exist to conduct the people’s business.  This ordinance assures that deliberations are conducted before the people and that City operations are open to the people’s review.  For information on your rights under the Sunshine Ordinance (Chapter 67 of the San Francisco Administrative Code) or to report a violation of the ordinance, contact the Donna Hall at Sunshine Ordinance Task Force, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244, San Francisco, CA  94102, by phone at 415-554-7724, by fax at 415-554-7854, or email the Sunshine Ordinance Taskforce Administrator at sotf@sfgov.org.  Citizens may obtain a free copy of the Sunshine Ordinance by contacting the Task Force, or by printing Chapter 67 of the San Francisco Administrative Code on the Internet, at www.sfgov.org/sunshine.htm.

 

 

Lobbyist Registration and Reporting Requirements

 

Individuals and entities that influence or attempt to influence local legislative or administrative action may be required by the San Francisco Lobbyist Ordinance (San Francisco Campaign and Governmental Conduct Code Sec. 2.100 –2.160) to register and report lobbying activity.  For more information about the Lobbyist Ordinance, please contact the San Francisco Ethics Commission at 30 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 3900, San Francisco, CA  94102; telephone 415-581-2300, fax 415-581-2317, Internet website: www.sfgov.org/ethics.

 

 

Cell Phones and Pagers

 

The ringing and use of cell phones, pagers, and similar sound-producing electronic devises are prohibited at this meeting.  Please be advised that the Chair may order the removal from the meeting room of any person(s) responsible for the ringing or use of a cell phone, pager, or other similar sound-producing electronic devices.

 

 

Public Comment

 

Public Comment will be taken on each item.

 

Document Review

 

Documents that may have been provided to members of the State Legislation Committee in connection with the items on the agenda include proposed state legislation, consultant reports, correspondence and reports from City departments, and public correspondence.  These may be inspected by contacting Nancy Kirshner-Rodriguez, Director of Government Affairs, Mayor’s Office at: (415) 554-4846.

 

Health Considerations

 

In order to assist the City’s efforts to accommodate persons with severe allergies, environmental illnesses, multiple chemical sensitivity or related disabilities, attendees at public meetings are reminded that other attendees may be sensitive to various chemical-based products.  Please help the City accommodate these individuals.