Tuesday, July 25, 2023
Rick Bishop, Co-Director, Inland Center for Sustainable Development, UCR School of Public Policy
Meeting In-Person and via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Megan Barajas, Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Bill Blankenship, Greg Bradbard, Mike Burrows, Ken Coate, Kevin Dyerly, Dr. Sam Gibbs, Louis Goodwin, Otis Greer, Fran Inman, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Steve Lambert, Mike Layne, Bill Lemann, Darcy McNaboe, John Mirau, Dan Murphy, Bansree Parikh, Cid Pinedo, Cat Pritchett, Thomas Rice, Michael Rivera, Dan Roberts, LaShe Rodriguez, Dan Schenkel, Kristine Scott, Paul Shimoff, Eric Ustation, Lupe Valdez, Pete Van Helden, Reggie Webb, Ray Wolfe, and Frank Zabaleta.
Guests: Carrie Schindler and Todd Warden.
Announcements: 1) Inland Action will be dark for the month of August. The first meeting after the break will be on Tuesday, September12, 2023 when we will meet off-site at Garner Holt Productions located in Redlands. 2) Majority Leader Eloise Reyes and Assemblymember James Ramos are co-sponsoring a workshop on State Boards and Commissions with the Governor’s Appointment Secretary Catheryn Rivera on Thursday, August 3, 2023, from 9:30a.m.-10:30 a.m. By invitation after RSVP, which is at https://rb.gy/ei2uw
Kevin Dyerly, Chair presiding.
Motion by T. Rice/Second/Passed: Minutes from July 18, 2023
The Environment Committee recommends support for the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority (SAWPA) grant application ($150,000 to $650,000) for California Office of Planning and Research grant application under the Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program to implement a watershed resilience strategy with other stakeholders.
Motion by R. Wolfe/Second/Passed: Letter of Support will be sent.
The Transportation Committee recommends support for IFRA-Mega grant for an 11-mile portion of I-10 between I-15 in Ontario and Pepper Avenue in Colton which would add high-occupancy toll lane (HOT) lane capacity bi-directionally.
Motion by M. Burrows/Second/Passed: Letter of Support will be sent.
Lowell King introduced Rick Bishop, Co-Director, Inland Center for Sustainable Development, UCR School of Public Policy who joined us in person. The Inland Center for Sustainable Development (ICSD) is one of three research centers housed within the School of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside.
ICSD’s major objectives are to function as a network center, honest broker, resource and important leader in public analysis and decision-making for local and regional decision-makers and to develop research and information that will largely focus on sustainability, and how the region can best incorporate sustainable practices that can simultaneously address economic and environmental goals.
Research funders are from the public and private sectors. These funders serve on ICSD’s Leadership Council, which sets ICSD’s research agenda, but the methodology for their reports and briefs are guided by academia. Annual sponsorship is $15,000. To review the full list of their funders, visit www.icsd.ucr.edu
Their Center’s initial focus was housing. Their report from February 2022 was about housing affordability in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. This report profiled the Inland Region’s housing stock, examined housing construction trends, reviewed the implications of statewide policies and provided recommendations for consideration. In June of 2022 they issued briefs and provide related context on over-crowdedness, housing insecurities, and COVID-19. Other briefs included Small Business and the Paycheck Protection Program and the Cost of Energy Savings and Energy Burdens in the Inland Empire. They later took a deeper dive into housing and sustainability in the region building upon their previous research and examined the consequences of having an insufficient housing supply that fails to accommodate the region’s growing population. This year additional reports and briefs focused on local climate change and energy policies.
They also have conducted the successful Randall Lewis Seminar Series with key speakers discussing paths forward during a historic drought, the future of transportation and education as regional drivers of the ecosystem.
The Research Agenda for 2023-2024 is focused on the changes and growth of logistics and warehousing (L&W) that are critical to the economic development and overall quality of life in the Inland Empire. Their goal is to provide tools and information regarding the short and long-term tradeoffs from the logistics and warehousing industries in the Inland Region. They plan to examine and highlight the key questions regarding the future of L&W industries and their impacts in our region utilizing existing research and actively seeking input from industry, government, and community representatives. They have a plan of work that spans the next 12 months. Their first step was creating a focus group that was held in April. Participants in the session were asked about the:
- Strengths and weaknesses regarding logistics and warehousing in Southern California
- Common challenges to the region due to the existing and projected concentration of warehouses
- Actions regarding warehouse/logistical development
- Strategies to address future growth of the industry in the region.
Their second step will be panel sessions which will be held via Zoom. These forums will focus on the following topics:
- Role and scale of L&W industries in the IE region
- Impacts on public health: air pollution, impacts of electrification of trucks.
- L&W employment: wage, labor issues, quality of jobs, impacts of automation.
- Transportation and infrastructure: mobility, congestion, charging stations, and highway system. SCAQMD/CARB: impacts of regulatory policies on logistics and warehouses
- Quality of life: warehousing vs housing; land value vs long-term economic development
- Community voices: how local communities are involved.
- Local government and regional planning: regulations, local control, financial incentives, and major bills in the region.
- Future in the region: Consequences of future competition from Gulf and East Coast ports.
The ICSD staff is creating a list of future entities to participate and are open to suggestions to form a well-rounded reasonably minded group that can collaborate. Their final report will highlight major findings / takeaways and make policy proposals/recommendations.
Q & A period followed
Meeting adjourned 8:32 a.m.