BILL NUMBER: SB 1205 ENROLLED
BILL TEXT
PASSED THE SENATE AUGUST 25, 2010
PASSED THE ASSEMBLY AUGUST 19, 2010
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY AUGUST 16, 2010
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY JUNE 10, 2010
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 1, 2010
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 13, 2010
AMENDED IN SENATE MARCH 24, 2010
INTRODUCED BY Senator Corbett
(Coauthors: Senators DeSaulnier and Hancock)
FEBRUARY 18, 2010
An act to add and repeal Title 7.26 (commencing with Section
66720) of the Government Code, relating to disaster recovery.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 1205, Corbett. Bay Area Disaster Recovery Planning Council Act.
Existing law authorizes 2 or more public agencies, by agreement,
to jointly exercise common powers. Existing law also establishes the
San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority to raise and allocate
resources for the restoration, enhancement, protection, and enjoyment
of wetlands and wildlife habitats in the San Francisco Bay.
This bill would establish, until January 1, 2030, the Bay Area
Disaster Recovery Planning Council to create a long-term regional
recovery plan, to be implemented before and after an earthquake or
other disaster occurs in the bay area, by cooperating with various
stakeholders in the bay area, including, but not limited to, the
cities, counties, special districts, school districts, emergency
managers, hospitals, members of the public, private businesses, and
nongovernmental organizations.
The bill would impose specific duties on the Association of Bay
Area Governments, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the
state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that
reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this
act for a specified reason.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. Title 7.26 (commencing with Section 66720) is added to
the Government Code, to read:
TITLE 7.26. BAY AREA DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING COUNCIL
CHAPTER 1. FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS
66720. This title shall be known and may be cited as the Bay Area
Disaster Recovery Planning Council Act.
66721. The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) The San Francisco Bay area will experience a major earthquake
in its future.
(b) Disasters not properly managed and planned for can easily
escalate into catastrophies that will have major lasting consequences
on the region.
(c) The nine counties surrounding the San Francisco Bay constitute
a region of vital importance to the national economy and future
business innovation. The bay area leads the nation in innovation,
research, and new technology.
(d) The bay area is crisscrossed by many active faults. Several of
these faults, including the San Andreas and Hayward faults, are
capable of causing a major disaster in the region. The United States
Geological Survey predicts that there is a 67 percent chance that a
major earthquake will strike the bay area in the next 30 years. The
Hayward fault, which runs through the densely populated urban cities
of Fremont, Oakland, and Berkeley, experiences a major earthquake
approximately every 140 years. The last earthquake on this fault was
in 1868, making the Hayward fault the most dangerous in the bay area
today.
(e) While the bay area has appropriately focused on risk
mitigation strategies and emergency response preparation, there has
been little attention given to the lengthy post-90 day, long-term
recovery period that will follow a major disaster such as an
earthquake. This is the period that will make or break the region's
economic future.
(f) The bay area is making great strides to reduce the impacts of
a major earthquake, but the scale of the problem is huge and critical
components of the system are still vulnerable. A great amount of
work still needs to be done to prepare the region. Transportation,
water, and housing are key systems that must be robust in order to
facilitate a speedy recovery for the region.
(g) Recent disasters have repeatedly shown that the weeks and
months following a disaster require that all city and county
departments, special jurisdictions, the state and federal government,
and the private sector work together toward disaster recovery.
(h) Past disasters clearly show the consequences of not planning
for recovery. In 2010, the San Francisco Bay Bridge seismic retrofit
has still not been completed despite the known hazard since the 1989
Loma Prieta earthquake, and the City of Atascadero is just beginning
to replace its city hall that was damaged in the 2003 San Simeon
earthquake. New Orleans is still struggling to rebuild its
communities more than five years after Hurricane Katrina. In Kobe,
Japan, where a massive earthquake devastated the region in 1995,
thousands of people still live in temporary housing nearly 15 years
after the earthquake.
(i) Earthquakes will affect the entire region, not just individual
cities and counties. The regional nature of an earthquake demands a
regional long-term recovery strategy, but few models exist from other
regions.
(j) With 101 cities, nine counties, and more than 400 special
districts, the bay area is poorly structured to undertake the
regional-scale challenge of the long-term recovery phase. However,
with advance planning and organization, the bay area can plan for
long-term recovery. This will entail having an understanding of the
issues that will confront the region, the goals pursued, and the
decisionmaking protocols that it will follow.
(k) Adequate planning for the weeks, months, and years after
immediate life and safety needs have been addressed will determine
whether the region recovers and persists as a vibrant community and
driver of the nation's prosperity, or whether the region suffers
long-term depopulation with businesses and residents permanently
relocating to more stable communities.
(l) A major earthquake on the Hayward fault, for example, is
predicted to leave 156,000 housing units uninhabitable. In contrast
to Hurricane Katrina, where 40 percent of homeowners were insured,
less than 10 percent of bay area homeowners have earthquake
insurance. Because of high deductibles, it is anticipated that only
4.4 percent of losses will be covered by insurance. The likelihood
that these homeowners will have the resources to rebuild their homes
in a timely manner is low and rebuilding will depend on the ability
of homeowners to attract private investment to their properties. At a
time when rental vacancy rates are already very low and homeowners
are struggling to hold on to their properties, there is little
incentive or ability for uninsured homeowners to invest in the
rebuilding of their properties.
(m) Recovery of the business economy depends on the ability of
workers to return to work, and workers without homes are unlikely to
be able to do so.
(n) A regional long-term recovery plan must involve all
stakeholders from local governments, emergency managers, lifeline
operators, schools, private sector businesses, members of the public,
the health and hospital community, and nongovernmental
organizations. These stakeholders must reach consensus on the
priorities for long-term disaster recovery, including serving
vulnerable communities that may have the least access to resources,
are more reliant upon government services, and most susceptible to
the impacts of delays in government action after a disaster.
(o) Key functional areas of recovery that must be understood
include lifeline interdependency, long-term housing replacement,
business recovery, government facilities and services,
transportation, health and education, vulnerable communities, and
land use change.
(p) Public-private partnerships are key to this process. Private
businesses must be confident that recovery will happen quickly in
order to continue to invest in the region. The planning process must
address their needs and concerns. The roles of private business in
the long-term recovery plan will be identified together with local
governments.
(q) The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is a unique
regional entity, well suited to lead this effort. The ABAG was formed
as a Council of Governments by the 101 cities and nine counties of
the bay area to address social, environmental, and economic issues
that transcend local borders. The mission of the ABAG is to
facilitate and strengthen cooperation and coordination among local
governments.
(r) The San Francisco Bay area needs to develop regional
mechanisms to address threats of natural hazards and to secure
opportunities for the improvement of the long-term disaster recovery
capacity of the San Francisco Bay area, which will promote
sustainable redevelopment and create a more disaster-resistant
region.
(s) It is in the public interest to create the Bay Area Disaster
Recovery Planning Council as a regional entity to facilitate
long-term disaster recovery planning for the bay area. The council
will endeavor to provide its members with shared knowledge and
familiarity of the issues necessary to tackle critical tasks of
prioritizing recovery activities, sharing resources, and interfacing
with a vast array of local entities and stakeholders as well as state
and federal agencies. The council will sponsor and review local
actions to improve preparation for long-term recovery, including
guidelines for member cities, counties, and agencies to align finance
department preparation, building ordinances, emergency housing
strategies, nonemergency response mutual aid agreements, and a
variety of additional tasks, along with information gathering, plan
consolidation, application for resources, and policy discussion.
CHAPTER 2. DEFINITIONS
66722. Unless the context otherwise requires, the following
definitions govern the construction of this title:
(a) "ABAG" means the Association of Bay Area Governments.
(b) "Administrative committee" means the Bay Area Disaster
Recovery Planning Administrative Committee convened by the governing
board of the Bay Area Disaster Recovery Planning Council pursuant to
Section 66724.5.
(c) "Board" means the governing board of the council.
(d) "Council" means the Bay Area Disaster Recovery Planning
Council established pursuant to Section 66723.
(e) "Member" means a person appointed as a member of the board.
(f) "San Francisco Bay area" or "bay area" means the area that
includes the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San
Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma.
(g) "Technical advisory committee" means the Bay Area Disaster
Recovery Planning Technical Advisory Committee convened by the board
pursuant to Section 66724.6.
CHAPTER 3. BAY AREA DISASTER RECOVERY PLANNING COUNCIL
66723. (a) The Bay Area Disaster Recovery Planning Council is
hereby established as a regional entity with jurisdiction extending
throughout the San Francisco Bay area.
(b) The council shall create a long-term regional recovery plan by
cooperating with various stakeholders in the bay area, including,
but not limited to, the cities, counties, special districts, school
districts, emergency managers, hospitals, members of the public,
private business, and nongovernmental organizations.
(c) The scope and purpose of the recovery plan shall be for
planning for the region's resiliency following a disaster by
increasing the speed of rebuilding lifeline infrastructure,
including, but not limited to, water, and energy pipelines, planning
for temporary transportation and transit programs during the repair
of the transportation system, enhancing government management
capacity for large scale capital projects programs, planning for the
reconstruction of housing supply damaged by the disaster, creating
mechanisms to assist businesses with temporary relocation and
financing, and other issues associated with sustainable redevelopment
following a major disaster. In planning for the purposes contained
within this section, the council shall consult with emergency
managers and other local government staff involved in disaster
recovery to ensure that the plan incorporates local planning efforts
and is not duplicative of work already being done in the region. The
recovery plan shall not be a postdisaster operations plan.
(d) Nothing in this title shall be deemed to confer upon the
council any land use, regulatory, or permitting authority. The power
of the council is limited to planning.
(e) The jurisdiction of the council is not subject to the
Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000
(Division 3 (commencing with Section 56000) of Title 5).
66723.5. It is the intent of the Legislature that the council
complement existing efforts by cities, counties, districts, and other
local, regional, and state entities, related to addressing the goals
described in this title.
CHAPTER 4. GOVERNING BODY
66724. (a) The council shall be governed by the board composed of
voting members, as follows:
(1) All members of the ABAG Regional Planning Committee.
(2) The ABAG Executive Board shall appoint one member representing
each of the following:
(A) Not less than four members representing lifeline
infrastructure districts such as water and wastewater, power and
energy, telecommunications, and transit.
(B) A school board member or member of a county board of
education.
(C) A nonprofit service delivery agency.
(D) A member of the Bay Area Urban Area Security Initiative.
(E) Not less than four members representing private sector
business, economics, and planning organizations.
(F) A county or city emergency manager.
(b) Each member shall serve at the pleasure of the ABAG Executive
Board.
(c) A vacancy shall be filled by the ABAG Executive Board within
90 days from the date on which the vacancy occurs.
66724.1. The members of the board are subject to the Political
Reform Act of 1974 (Title 9 (commencing with Section 81000)).
66724.2. Each member shall exercise his or her independent
judgment on behalf of the interests of the residents, the property
owners, and the public as a whole in furthering the intent and
purposes of this title.
66724.3. The board shall elect from its own members a chair and a
vice chair who shall preside in the absence of the chair.
66724.4. (a) The time and place of the first meeting of the board
shall be at a time and place within the San Francisco Bay area fixed
by the ABAG President.
(b) After the first meeting described in subdivision (a), the
board shall hold meetings at times and places determined by the
board.
(c) Meetings of the board are subject to the Ralph M. Brown Act
(Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 54950) of Part 1 of Division 2 of
Title 5).
66724.5. (a) Not later than six months after the date of the
board's first meeting described in subdivision (a) of Section
66723.4, the board shall convene a Bay Area Disaster Recovery
Planning Administrative Committee to assist and advise the board in
carrying out the functions of the board. The administrative committee
shall meet on a regular basis.
(b) The membership of the administrative committee shall be
determined by the council based upon criteria that provide a broad
representation of community and agency interests and geographical
diversity within the council's jurisdiction over the long-term
disaster recovery in the San Francisco Bay area. The membership of
the administrative committee shall be appointed by the council.
66724.6. (a) Not later than six months after the date of the
board's first meeting described in subdivision (a) of Section
66723.4, the board shall convene a Bay Area Disaster Recovery
Planning Technical Advisory Committee to be composed of local
emergency managers, city and regional planners, engineers, and
members of other technical fields, as necessary. The technical
advisory committee shall meet on a regular basis.
(b) The membership of the technical advisory committee shall be
determined by the council based upon criteria that provide a broad
representation of community and agency interests and geographical
diversity within the council's jurisdiction over the long-term
disaster recovery in the San Francisco Bay area. The membership of
the technical advisory committee shall be appointed by the council.
66724.7. (a) The board is the legislative body of the council
and, consistent with this title, shall establish policies for the
operation of the council.
(b) The board may act either by ordinance or resolution in order
to regulate the council and to implement this title.
(c) A majority of the voting members of the board shall constitute
a quorum for the purpose of transacting any business of the council.
A recorded majority vote of the total voting membership of the board
is required on each action.
(d) Notwithstanding subdivision (c), only members of the council
who are elected from a city, county, or special district may vote on
the management of revenues pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section
66725. A majority vote of members specified in this subdivision shall
be required to take action regarding the management of revenues.
CHAPTER 5. POWERS AND DUTIES
66725. The council may do all of the following:
(a) Apply for and receive grants from federal and state agencies.
(b) Solicit and accept gifts, fees, grants, and allocations from
public and private entities.
(c) Receive and manage a dedicated revenue source.
(d) Deposit or invest moneys of the council in banks or financial
institutions in the state in accordance with state law.
(e) Sue and be sued, except as otherwise provided by law, in all
actions and proceedings, in all courts and tribunals of competent
jurisdiction.
(f) Engage counsel and other professional services.
(g) Enter into and perform all necessary contracts.
(h) Enter into joint powers agreements pursuant to the Joint
Exercise of Powers Act (Chapter 5 (commencing with Section 6500) of
Division 7 of Title 1).
(i) Use interim or temporary staff provided by the Association of
Bay Area Governments. A person who performs duties as interim or
temporary staff shall not be considered an employee of the council.
66725.1. Th council shall not acquire or own real property.
66725.2. All records prepared, owned, used, or retained by the
council are public records for purposes of the California Public
Records Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 6250) of Division 7
of Title 1 of the Government Code).
66725.3. The council shall not apply for funding dedicated solely
for planning for emergency response immediately after a disaster.
CHAPTER 6. FINANCIAL PROVISIONS
66726. (a) The board shall provide for regular audits of the
council's accounts and records and shall maintain accounting records
and shall report accounting transactions in accordance with generally
accepted accounting principles adopted by the Government Accounting
Standards Board of the Financial Accounting Foundation for both
public reporting purposes and for reporting of activities to the
Controller.
(b) The board shall provide for annual financial reports. The
board shall make copies of the annual financial reports available to
the public.
66726.5. The council shall be funded through federal funds,
gifts, donations, grants, local bonds, other appropriate funding
sources, and other types of financial assistance from public and
private sources. Nothing in this title shall be construed to
authorize the council to incur debt or raise revenue by levying
taxes, assessments, or fees, or to obligate the state to provide
funding for the council.
CHAPTER 7. REPEAL
66727. This title shall remain in effect only until January 1,
2030, and as of that date is repealed, unless a later enacted
statute, that is enacted before January 1, 2030, deletes or extends
that date.
SEC. 2. 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 district, within the
meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code and Section 6 of
Article XIII B of the California Constitution.