BILL NUMBER: SB 1205 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
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, as amended, Corbett. The San Francisco Bay Area Disaster
Recovery Authority 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 the San Francisco Bay Area Disaster
Recovery Authority 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, schools, emergency operators, 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.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: yes.
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. San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Recovery Authority
CHAPTER 1. FINDINGS AND DECLARATIONS
66720. This title shall be known and may be cited as the Bay Area
Post Disaster Recovery Authority.
66721. The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) The San Francisco Bay area will experience a major manmade or
natural disaster such as an 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 dense 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, and the state and federal
government work together toward disaster recovery. Similarly, while
hazard mitigation is essential to minimize the damage of disasters to
communities, having a comprehensive plan for the long-term process
of recovery is often overlooked and is the key to preventing
disasters from becoming catastrophes.
(h) Past disasters clearly show the consequences of not preparing
for recovery. In 2010, the San Francisco Bay Bridge has still not
been replaced 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
because of difficulty it has faced with the Federal Emergency
Management Agency process. 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) Disasters such as 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 be prepared
for long-term recovery. This would entail having an understanding of
the issues that will confront the region, the goals pursued, and the
decisionmaking protocols that it will follow.
(k) When the San Francisco Bay area experiences a major disaster
such as an earthquake in the future, government agencies will
immediately activate emergency response plans and scramble to restore
order, alleviate human suffering, and protect property. In the days
after a disaster, short-term recovery plans will be implemented to
set up shelter locations, remove debris, and tag buildings. But what
happens later, in 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 disaster escalates into a
catastrophe and 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 and 356,600
people displaced. 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) Retrofitting homes is an effective method to reducing housing
losses in a disaster, but relatively few homes have been retrofitted
and programs and funds to encourage more widespread retrofit are
scarce. 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 cannot simply be an
operations plan for governments to follow. All stakeholders, from
local governments, lifelines operators, schools, private-sector
businesses, members of the public, the health and hospital community,
and nongovernmental organizations, 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 post disaster.
(o) Key functional areas of recovery that must be understood
include lifelines, 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. 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 ABAG is to facilitate and
strengthen cooperation and coordination among local governments.
(r) ABAG has a long history of planning for disasters and has been
a national leader among planning agencies in developing and
continuing an earthquake and hazards planning program. In the past
this program has coordinated with all of its member cities and
counties, as well as special districts to develop a Federal Emergency
Management Agency approved multijurisdiction local hazard mitigation
plan with regional mitigation strategies agreed upon by all the
participating jurisdictions.
(s) The San Francisco Bay area needs to develop regional
mechanisms to generate and allocate additional resources 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.
(t) It is in the public interest to create the San Francisco Bay
Area Disaster Recovery Authority as a regional entity to generate and
allocate resources for development of long-term disaster recovery
plans, protocols, and mitigation projects for the San Francisco Bay
area. The authority 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 authority will sponsor and
review local actions to improve preparation for recovery, including
guidelines for member cities, counties, and agencies to align finance
department preparation, building ordinances, emergency housing
strategies, mutual aid, 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 Administrative Committee convened by the governing board of
the San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Recovery Authority pursuant to
Section 66724.5.
(c) "Authority" means the San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Recovery
Authority established as a regional entity pursuant to Section
66723.
(d) "Board" means the governing board of the San Francisco Bay
Area Disaster Recovery Authority.
(e) "Elected official" means an elected member of a city council
or an elected member of a county board of supervisors.
(f)
(e) "Member" means a person appointed as a member of
the governing board of the San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Recovery
Authority.
(g)
(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.
CHAPTER 3. SAN FRANCISCO BAY BAY
AREA DISASTER RECOVERY AUTHORITY
66723. (a) The San Francisco Bay Area Disaster Recovery Authority
is hereby established as a regional entity with jurisdiction
extending throughout the San Francisco Bay area.
(b) The authority shall 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 operators, hospitals,
members of the public, private business, and nongovernmental
organizations.
(c) The jurisdiction of the authority 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 authority
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 authority shall be governed by a board composed of
voting members, as follows:
(1) All members of the ABAG Regional Planning Committee.
(2) ABAG 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 district or county board of education.
(C) A nonprofit service delivery agency.
(D) A member of the Bay Area Super-Urban Area Security Initiative.
(E) Not less than four members representing private sector
business, economics, and planning organizations.
(b) Each member shall serve at the pleasure of the
appointing authority ABAG .
(c) A vacancy shall be filled by the appointing agency
ABAG 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 chair of the board.
(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
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 authority based upon criteria that provide a broad
representation of community and agency interests and geographical
diversity within the authority'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 authority.
66724.6. (a) The board is the legislative body of the authority
and, consistent with this title, shall establish policies for the
operation of the authority.
(b) The board may act either by ordinance or resolution in order
to regulate the authority 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
authority. A recorded majority vote of the total voting membership of
the board is required on each action.
CHAPTER 5. POWERS AND DUTIES
Article 1. General Provisions
66725. The authority 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 authority 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 appropriate state
agencies or the Association of Bay Area Governments. A person who
performs duties as interim or temporary staff shall not be considered
an employee of the authority.
66725.1. The authority shall not acquire or own real property.
66725.2. All records prepared, owned, used, or retained by the
authority 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).
Article 2. Grant Program
66725.5. (a) The authority may raise funds and award grants to
public and private entities, including, but not limited to, owners or
operators of public and private property within the San Francisco
Bay area, for the purposes of maintaining and enhancing the region's
resiliency following a disaster by reducing the potential loss of
life, property damage, or environmental degradation, and accelerating
economic recovery from those disasters.
(b) In reviewing and assessing projects, the authority shall
solicit input from the administrative committee convened pursuant to
Section 66724.5. The authority shall give priority to projects that
do either of the following:
(1) To the greatest extent possible, address the highest priority
mitigation strategies identified in the most recent
multijurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan led by ABAG and
adopted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
(2) Address additional needs identified in the recovery plan.
(c) Grants awarded pursuant to subdivision (a) may be used to
support all phases of planning, construction, monitoring, operation,
and maintenance for projects that are eligible pursuant to
subdivision (b).
CHAPTER 6. FINANCIAL PROVISIONS
66726. (a) The board shall provide for regular audits of the
authority'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 authority shall be funded through gifts, donations,
grants, state or local bonds, assessments, 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 authority to incur debt or raise revenue by levying
taxes, assessments, or fees.
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 a
local agency or school district has the authority to levy service
charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or
level of service mandated by this act, within the meaning of Section
17556 of the Government Code.