BILL ANALYSIS AB 1204 Page 1 Date of Hearing: January 13, 2010 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT Anna Marie Caballero, Chair AB 1204 (Huber and Gaines) - As Amended: January 4, 2010 SUBJECT : El Dorado County Transportation Commission. SUMMARY : Revises the membership of the El Dorado County Transportation Commission (EDCTC). Specifically, this bill : 1)Adds an additional member to EDCTC to be appointed by the county board of supervisors, revising the number of representatives that are appointed by the county board of supervisors from three to four members. 2)Revises the appointments made by incorporated cities within El Dorado County to specify that there shall be two members appointed by the city council of each incorporated city (excluding cities in the Tahoe Basin), unless there is only one incorporated city, in which case that city shall have three appointed members. 3)Declares that if the Commission on State Mandates determines that this bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made pursuant to state law. EXISTING LAW : 1)Creates the El Dorado County Transportation Planning Agency, otherwise known as the El Dorado County Transportation Commission, to provide regional transportation planning for the area of El Dorado County, exclusive of the Tahoe Basin. 2)Provides EDCTC is composed of six members, with three members appointed by the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors and three members appointed by the city council of the City of Placerville. 3)Provides for the composition of other county transportation commissions. FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown AB 1204 Page 2 COMMENTS : 1)EDCTC was designated as the Regional Transportation Planning Agency (RTPA) for El Dorado County on July 23, 1975. In 1993, EDCTC was administratively reorganized and separated from El Dorado County, actions that were codified in state statute by SB 902 (Leslie), Chapter 436, Statutes of 1996. 2)As the RTPA, EDCTC serves as the planning and programming authority for transportation projects on the western slope of El Dorado County (County), excluding those areas within the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency boundaries. EDCTC is the forum for making policy decisions about the regional transportation system in the County, and is responsible for allocating local, state, and federal funds for a variety of transportation projects including highway improvements and road maintenance, relief of traffic congestion, and promotion of economic development. EDCTC's funding streams come from the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP), the Regional Surface Transportation Program (RSTP), the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Program (CMAQ), and the Transportation Development Act (TDA). 3)AB 1204 is an author-sponsored bill introduced for the purpose of revising the membership of EDCTC in order to represent the heavily populated El Dorado Hills region of the County, an area that is currently underrepresented, in terms of population, on EDCTC. The author notes that "the population of El Dorado Hills, in the unincorporated area of El Dorado County, is approximately 35,000, while the population of the City of Placerville is approximately 10,000." Moreover, "with the rapid growth in El Dorado Hills, the population trends and transportation needs within the county have changed dramatically since the structure for the agency was adopted 13 years ago." 4)In July of 2009, EDCTC established a 14-person advisory committee, made up of citizens from throughout El Dorado County, for the purpose of discussing the current composition of EDCTC and providing a recommendation with respect to the future representative composition of EDCTC. The advisory committee held eight meetings over a three-month period, including town hall meetings held at various locations AB 1204 Page 3 throughout the County. The recommendations developed by the advisory committee were presented to the EDCTC on December 3, 2009. In addition, the Policy Advisory Committee to EDCTC (comprised of technical staff from the County, City of Placerville, the County's Transit Authority, CalTrans, and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) also developed a recommendation which was presented at the meeting. EDCTC voted unanimously to adopt language which is substantially similar to the contents of AB 1204. 5)The current EDCTC makeup consists of three members of the El Dorado County Board of Supervisors and three members of the Placerville City Council. The Caltrans District 3 Director and a City of South Lake Tahoe Council member serve as ex-officio members of the Commission. 6)AB 1204 would revise the membership of EDCTC by adding one member from the county board of supervisors, increasing from three to four representatives. Right now there is only one incorporated city - Placerville - in the County (outside of the Tahoe Basin), and thus under AB 1204, the number of appointments from the City of Placerville would remain at the current level of three members. AB 1204 plans for future growth by giving any newly incorporated city two seats on EDCTC. A newly incorporated city in the future means that the City of Placerville would reduce its number of appointments from three to two members, and then two members would be appointed by the new city. 7)COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS : The committee may wish to ask the author to take the following committee amendments to specify that the change to the membership of EDCTC contained in AB 1204 does not constitute a reimbursable mandate because the local governments in El Dorado County are requesting the statutory change. Strike Section 2 of the bill and instead replace with: No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district are the result of a program for which legislative authority was requested by that local agency or school AB 1204 Page 4 district, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code and Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution. REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION : Support El Dorado County Transportation Commission Four Seasons Civic League Individual letters (4) Opposition None on file Analysis Prepared by : Debbie Michel / L. GOV. / (916) 319-3958