LAKEPORT
Lakeport Council to hold hearing on delinquent accounts
The Lakeport City Council will hold a public hearing on delinquent utility accounts during their Tuesday, July 18, 2023, regular meeting.
The accounts included have been identified by the Lakeport Finance Department as delinquent as of May 31, 2023. The city is required to notify the delinquent account holders and give them an opportunity to pay their delinquent bills.
Utility bills and delinquency notices are mailed monthly. The final notice was sent to property owners on July 6, 2023.
The delinquent charges are for water, sewage and solid waste utility bills.
Approval of the resolution requires a 2/3 vote of the Lakeport City Council.
In other council business, the city is asking for the approval to change fees collected for the Water and Sewer Expansion Fee program.
According to the Lakeport City Staff report, the city contracted Willdan Financial Services to prepare a water and sewer expansion fee study in June 2022. The main objective of this study was to update the water and sewer expansion fees to reflect the cost of providing services to new or expanded development.
The expansion fee difference will depend on the meter size of the property.
—Zack Jordan
SACRAMENTO
Gavin Newsom gets out his veto pen
While the Legislature is on summer break until Aug. 14, Gov. Gavin Newsom is signing bills into law — or, in the case of one unfortunate proposal, vetoing them.
He said “no” to Senate Bill 275, which would require state Senate confirmation of California’s oil and gas supervisor. In his veto message, the governor said he agreed with transparency in gubernatorial appointments, “especially when considering California’s ambitious and time-sensitive clean energy and carbon neutrality goals.”
But he said this particular position already goes through an “extensive and exhaustive identification, evaluation, and selection process” and reports to the Director of Conservation, who is subject to Senate confirmation.
The bill was authored by Republican Sen. Shannon Grove of oil-rich Bakersfield, so Newsom’s veto came with an interesting bit of timing: He announced it on Thursday, just hours after his intervention helped resurrect another of Grove’s bills — to increase punishments for child trafficking.
Grove shouldn’t feel too bad. This is going to happen to many, many of her colleagues this year.
Last year, Newsom vetoed 169 bills, while signing 997, including some very significant ones. In 2021, he vetoed 66 and signed 770 into law.
The Legislature can override vetoes, with two-thirds votes in both the Assembly and Senate. But that doesn’t happen often, and in recent decades almost never.
Another bill going nowhere fast: Senate Bill 584, a proposal to tax Airbnb and other short-term rentals to fund affordable housing projects, will not advance any further this legislative session.
The construction unions-backed measure cleared the state Senate at the end of May, but Sen. Monique Limón, the Santa Barbara Democrat who introduced the bill, quietly pulled it from consideration several weeks back.
Her office said Limón did not have time to resolve a disagreement with the Assembly housing committee over wage and labor standards for projects that would be eligible for the grants.
Limón intends to revive the measure next year, though it may include additional changes. Her office said the senator is exploring whether she could reduce the proposed 15% tax rate, or exempt small operators while still raising enough money to make the fund worthwhile.
“While the bill is part of a desired and needed conversation about the impact short term rentals have on our housing market,” Limón said in a statement, “it is clear this bill could benefit from more time to continue discussions at the state and local level to understand the underlying issues the legislative process has uncovered.”
—Lynn La, CALMatters
Push, pull on CA travel ban
Attorney General Rob Bonta followed current state law and added Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming to the state-funded travel ban list on Friday due to recently enacted anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The list now includes 26 states.
Bonta, in his announcement: “By preventing transgender individuals from participating in sports aligned with their gender identity, or by denying them access to critical healthcare, these legislative actions directly contradict the values of inclusivity and diversity. These laws pose significant risks for deepening the stigmatization and alienation of LGBTQ+ youth who are already subject to pervasive discrimination, bullying, and hate crimes.”
Bonta doesn’t mention it in his release, but the ban may not be law much longer.
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins, the first openly gay person in that position, says the ban isn’t working to prevent anti-LGBTQ legislation. So she’s pushing a bill, which passed the Senate in May and is alive and well in the Assembly, to repeal the travel ban and replace it with the “Bridge Project” to buy advertising in the targeted states to promote inclusion.
Atkins, in a tweet responding to Bonta’s announcement: “California’s state-funded travel ban didn’t stop 23 other states from passing anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and didn’t stop these latest three either. It’s time for a different approach.”
—Lynn La, CALMatters
