Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Joint Meeting with Monday Morning Group
7:30 a.m.-8:30 a.m. – Galleria Room
Mission Inn, Riverside, CA
Summary
Present: Patti Arlt, Deborah Barmack, Peter Barmack, Carole Beswick, Tom Brickley, Ken Coate, Sandra Cuellar, Sandra Espadas, Louis Goodwin, P.T. McEwen, John Mirau, Dan Murphy, Roman Nava, Kevin Porter, Thomas Rice, Daniel Roberts, Elizabeth Romero, Kristine Scott, David VanVoorhis, Hassan Webb and Kim Wilcox.
Matt Webb, President, Monday Moring Group called the meeting to order, welcomed all attending and thanked Inland Action for joining the meeting. Self-introductions were made. The Monday Morning Group made their advocacy trip to Sacramento January 28-30, 2018. They shared their experiences and their issues include the following:
Education
Accelerate the distribution of proposition 51 school facilities funds
The Monday Morning Group urges Governor Brown and the state agencies responsible for the distribution of school facilities funds to honor the will of the voters by authorizing a much larger bond sale in the spring of 2018 – one that enables California to fund approved projects and allows the state to be a constructive and effective partner in meeting school construction needs. Specific to Community Colleges, the Governor needs to fund the projects from the Community College Chancellor’s Office list of 2018-19 recommended projects. These projects have been vetted through a rigorous process to address the priorities of the system. Locally these projects address growth and access issues, as well as health and safety for an area that has a large underserved population that has traditionally had a low college going and participation rate.
Pathways for access and success to meet workforce needs of an underserved region, nursing adn to bsn – pilot program
Support development and advancement of a Concurrent Enrollment Pilot Program Partnership for an ADN to BSN between Riverside City College and the California State University campuses of Fullerton and San Bernardino to address the critical and underserved healthcare needs of the region to provide nurses with baccalaureate level degrees.
Equalize special education funding
The Brown Administration and California Legislature must address these inequities and lessen the burden on school districts by equalizing funding for special education.
Incentivize prospective teachers to enter the classroom
The state must make investments in evidence-based teacher recruitment and retention strategies (including but not limited to teacher residencies, loan forgiveness programs and service scholarships) to increase the overall supply of qualified teachers in California, particularly in subjects and schools with persistent shortages.
Complete a state of the art RUSD STEM High school at UCR
The Monday Morning Group requests $20 million in funding to complete construction and properly outfit a state of the art STEM High School located on the University of California, Riverside campus.
Economic Development
Addressing California’s challenges with the homeless population
The State of California recently enacted a package of housing legislation that offers real potential in the fight against homelessness. California has also recently launched an effort to adopt a housing first model for delivery of homeless services. We applaud those efforts but acknowledge that there is still a long road ahead in order to see their effect. The Monday Morning Group urges state legislators to consider a comprehensive and collaborative approach between “Housing First” homeless services, affordable housing, neighborhood wellness and household income.
California’s affordable housing crisis
The Monday Morning Group urges state legislators to restore housing affordability to the state by introducing land regulation reforms that help create certainty in a project’s timelines and expectations, development fee reductions where the costs are counted and considered and relevant to the project, and for the most vulnerable in our communities continue to work on at least restoring the $1 billion a year loss of redevelopment funds that went toward helping meet the housing needs of targeted populations. For Riverside County in particular, regulatory changes to the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program, and changes to how Housing Trust Funds are allocated to local jurisdictions are needed.
- The state’s recent housing legislation is a good start, but only a start, in addressing the needs in a statistically significant manner. State legislators need to work for solutions such as the reform of the California Environmental Quality Act and others to remedy the housing shortage and solve California’s affordable housing crisis.
Health
Improve access to health care in riverside county
The Monday Morning Group urges leaders in the Legislature and Administration to look for opportunities to resolve the disparities. The current formula for reimbursing counties for health and mental health services must be updated to reflect Riverside County’s great population growth and Emergency Medical Services Act funds must be reinstated. Leave base funding as is and apply future increases to the counties that are underfunded until parity is reached.
Judicial
Judicial reallocation
The Monday Morning Group requests additional vacant Riverside County judicial positions to be filled either by legislation or by reallocation of vacant funded judicial positions from counties that have far more judges than their court workload justifies as established by the objective, statistically-valid analysis of the Judicial Council.
The Monday Morning Group is grateful that Riverside County was reallocated two such vacant funded judicial positions from Alameda and Santa Clara Counties in 2017, as was our neighbor San Bernardino County. This was a small but appreciated step toward resolving the problem.
Environment & Water
Implementation and development of a statewide low-income water assistance program
The Monday Morning Group encourages the State Board, as they develop the report to the Legislature in compliance with the requirements under AB 401 (Dodd, 2015) Statewide Low Income Water Rate Assistance, to give greater consideration to the following:
- Enhance stakeholder communications with members of the water community to vet research data and establish a consensus on what “affordability” means,
- Give adequate consideration to existing locally developed LIRA programs,
- Consider phased program implementation to allow for minor program adjustments and ease cost burdens on ratepayers who do not receive the benefit,
- Task existing government agencies that serve low income populations with collecting and allocating the subsidy, instead of having the states’ approximately 3,000 water providers undertake costly retrofits to their billing systems; and
- Consider allocation-based tiered rates as a method for addressing affordability concerns.
Additionally, as the Legislature prepares to receive the report from the State Board, we encourage them to work alongside the water community and other stakeholders to align affordability objectives with other important policy objectives, such as water use efficiency.
The California WaterFix (formerly called the Bay Delta Conservation Plan)
The Monday Morning Group strongly urges the Governor and the Legislature to engage in the California WaterFix and to allow Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) funds to be utilized for the Central Valley Project portion.
Long term water use efficiency framework
The Monday Morning Group strongly urges that SB 606 and AB 1668 make technical amendments to address the concerns water agencies have over the current framework, which include the following:
- Clarify that the State Water Resource Control Board (SWRCB) must adopt variances, pursuant to the provisions of the bills;
- Setting sideboards for the SWRCB on how much they can reduce the outdoor irrigation standard;
- Update definitions of recycled water to reflect enactment of AB 574 (Quirk), based upon amendments to Water Code §13561;
- Expand and clarify meaning of Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (MWELO) principles;
- Limit CII performance measures to those that are locally cost effective;
- Study to evaluate wastewater impact of less than 55 GCPD and trends and natural progression of improvements in UWUE;
- Clarify that reporting of objectives and use can be based on calendar or fiscal years; and
- Clarify that supplements to Urban Water Management Plans do not trigger notice and hearing to adopt.
Additionally, as the Legislature prepares to receive the report from the State Board, we encourage them to work alongside the water community and other stakeholders to align affordability objectives with other important policy objectives, such as water use efficiency.
Proposed statewide water tax does not address underlying contamination and accessibility issues for specific group of small water providers
The Monday Morning Group opposes SB 623 (Monning), unless it is amended to remove the tax on water. The Monday Morning Group also encourages the California Legislature to work alongside efficient water agencies to implement a permanent solution, which includes addressing governance concerns, to ensure that communities suffering from quality and accessibility issues will have access to safe and reliable drinking water.
Military
March air reserve base regional groundwater issues
The Monday Morning Group seeks the creation of a federal, state, and local partnership to fund efforts to resolve both the rising groundwater condition and water quality concerns that are affecting the region, commencing with Eastern Municipal Water District’s (EMWD) MARB Program Refinement Phase; this effort is expected to cost around $3 million
Appreciation was expressed to all that participated and both groups agreed continued collaboration benefits all.
Meeting adjourned at 8:30 a.m.