BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE GOVERNANCE & FINANCE COMMITTEE
Senator Lois Wolk, Chair
BILL NO: AB 2455 HEARING: 6/11/14
AUTHOR: Williams FISCAL: No
VERSION: 6/2/14 TAX LEVY: No
CONSULTANT: Urquiza
THE SANTA RITA HILLS COMMUNITY SERVICES DISTRICT
Allows, until January 1, 2035, the Santa Rita Hills
Community Services District's board of directors to consist
of three members instead of five.
Background and Existing Law
State law allows residents of an unincorporated area to
initiate the formation of a community services district
(CSD), which can provide a wide variety of services such as
water, garbage collection, wastewater collection, fire
protection, street lighting, and mosquito abatement
services. The residents of the CSD elect a board of local
residents to oversee the management and operations of the
district. A candidate for the board of directors must be a
voter of the district. Before 2005, state law allowed CSDs
to have boards of directors with either three or five
members. In a rewrite of CSD law, SB 135 (Kehoe, 2005)
required all CSDs to have five-member boards of directors.
The Legislature has authorized some special districts to
increase or decrease the size of boards of directors. For
example, SB 235 (Negrete McLeod, 2011), authorized water
conservation districts with boards consisting of seven
directors to reduce the number of directors to five by a
resolution adopted by two-thirds of the board. SB 210
(Local Government Committee, 2001) authorized the Sawyers
Bar County Water District to decrease the size of its board
from five to three members if a majority of the district's
voters signed a petition requesting that reduction. The
Sawyers Bar County Water District served a remote rural
community in the County of Siskiyou with approximately 14
registered voters, which made it difficult to find
individuals willing and able to serve as members of the
district's board of directors.
AB 2455 -- 6/2/14 -- Page 2
The Santa Rita Hills Community Services District (SRHCSD),
formed in 2009, serves the small community of Santa Rita
Hills in Santa Barbara County. SRHCSD's powers and
responsibilities include the acquisition, construction,
improvement and maintenance of streets, roads, bridges, and
sidewalks. There are only 10 registered voters residing
within the district's boundaries. Due to challenges in
filling a board vacancy, achieving a quorum during board
meetings, and in anticipation of future vacancies, SRHCSD
wants to reduce its board membership from five members to
three members.
Proposed Law
Assembly Bill 2455 allows the Santa Rita Hills Community
Services District to reduce the size of its board of
directors from five members to three members.
AB 2455 requires that before reducing the board membership,
the board of directors must:
Adopt, by majority vote of the board of directors,
a resolution proposing to reduce the number of
directors to three members;
Hold a public hearing regarding the proposal to
reduce the number of directors;
Give notice of the public hearing by placing a
display advertisement in a newspaper of general
circulation for three weeks and mailing notice to each
voter in the district;
Hold a public hearing at least 45 days after
mailing the notice;
At the hearing, receive and consider any written or
oral comments regarding the proposed reduction in the
number of directors. After receiving and considering
the comments, the board shall disapprove the proposal
or adopt a resolution ordering the reduction.
The bill prohibits a reduction in the number of directors
from affecting the term of office of any director and
requires a director holding office as of the effective date
of the reduction to continue to be director until the
office becomes vacant by means of term expiration or
otherwise.
The bill allows the district board of directors to consist
of three members until January 1, 2035.
AB 2455 -- 6/2/14 -- Page 3
The bill allows the board of directors to increase the
board to five members before 2035 following the same
procedures used to reduce the number of board directors. If
the board adopts a resolution to increase the number of
directors, it cannot subsequently reduce the number of
directors.
State Revenue Impact
No estimate.
Comments
1. Purpose of the bill . The Santa Rita Hills Community
Services District is comprised of 35 parcels of land with
only 10 registered voters residing within the district's
boundaries. Due to a vacancy, and the inability to find a
replacement for a vacancy, the current board only has four
members. Santa Barbara County prohibits new residences
from being built in the district until the district
upgrades its roads. The county's restriction is limiting
the potential for new registered voters to move into the
district. Additional vacancies are expected in the near
future, leaving the board in a situation where they may
lose a quorum to conduct business. By reducing board
membership to three members instead of five, AB 2455 gives
the Santa Rita Hills Community Services District the
opportunity to regularly conduct the business required to
help it fulfill its role of providing road infrastructure.
2. Effective Solution ? The Santa Rita Hills Community
Services District was created to design and construct a
system of roads within the CSD to provide acceptable access
to existing parcels. The District has faced many
challenges in building road infrastructure, including
building a dependable road to the nearest public street.
The district's challenges involve a lack eminent domain
power, a dissenting property owner, and other challenges
with permit requirements to build a road. Reducing board
AB 2455 -- 6/2/14 -- Page 4
membership does not address the fundamental obstacles to
the district's efforts to build road infrastructure.
3. Voter Involvement . The Legislature has required
various levels of voter involvement when changing the size
of the board of directors of some special districts. In
response to a situation similar to Santa Rita Hills
Community Services District, SB 210 (Local Government
Committee, 2001) authorized the Sawyers Bar County Water
District to decrease the size of its board if a majority of
the district's voters signed a petition requesting that
reduction. AB 2455 does not explicitly provide for voter
involvement. The committee may wish to consider amending
the bill to require the majority of voters in the district
to sign a petition before the CSD can initiate the process
to reduce the number of board members to three.
4. Sunset Review . AB 2455 allows the Santa Rita Community
Services District's board of directors to increase the
number of board members back to five prior to the bill's
sunset of January 1, 2035. However, increasing the number
back to five is optional and no built-in trigger exists in
the case that the voter base grows during a twenty year
period. Instead, a shorter sunset would allow the
Legislature to review the district's progress. The
committee may wish to consider amending the bill to require
a sunset date of 2025 instead.
5. Special legislation . The California Constitution
prohibits special legislation when a general law can apply
(Article IV, §16). AB 2455 contains findings and
declarations explaining the need for legislation that
applies only to the Santa Rita Hills Community Services
District.
Assembly Actions
Assembly Local Government: 8-1
Assembly Floor: 70-3
AB 2455 -- 6/2/14 -- Page 5
Support and Opposition (6/5/14)
Support : Santa Rita Hills Community Services District;
County of Santa Barbara; Santa Barbara Local Agency
Formation Commission.
Opposition : Unknown.