When a new shopping center at the edge of town might skim off customers from existing businesses, how far can a planning department go to protect against "urban decay"? Quite some distance under current CEQA law, and a little farther in light of an April 1 partial publication order from California's Third District appellate court. The order gives the weight of precedent to the core of a February 28 decision in California Clean Energy Committee v. City of Woodland . The February ruling overturned an EIR for a new shopping center, saying it did not impose enough mitigations of the urban decay risks and did not fully justify its rejection of a mixed-use alternative. The court got requests to publish the decision not only from the Davis-based California Clean Energy Committee (CCEC) as successful plaintiff, but also from the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment; the Santa Cruz environmental law firm of Wittwer Parkin; and noted Los Angeles attorney Beverly Grossman Palmer of Strumwasser & Woocher LLP, representing the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City. (The Santa Monica group is in its own separate litigation against a large development project proposed for the Bergamot stop on the expanding LA County light-rail line, but that matter is not mentioned in Palmer's letter.) The city and developer opposed publication. Amanda Berlin of the Remy Moose Manley firm, which represented the city of Woodland, wrote, "The decision focuses on the record for the Gateway II project, so if the decision remains published, it's not clear whether it will have significant implications for other cities." But Ryan Moroney, an associate with Wittwer Parkin, said the opinion helpfully stated a need for "objective measurable criteria" in mitigation measures, whereas "We see a lot of EIRs that have this sort of wishy-washy mitigation measure that says, 'We're not sure what we're gonna do but when the time comes we're gonna do our best'." He said it re-enunciated CEQA's basic purpose: "The whole principle is you're supposed to mitigate to the extent feasible if you've identified impacts." And while some deferral of mitigation measures may be allowed, "you've got to really have a plan about what you're going to do." At issue in Woodland was an edge-of-town shopping center known as Gateway II, proposed by Petrovich Development Company, LLC. Petrovich's Gateway I, an existing 49-acre residential and commercial development, was already completed and leasing when the company proposed Gateway II. The Woodland Daily Democrat reported the existing Gateway Center now contains a Costco, Target and Best Buy. Woodland's City Council granted annexation and zoning approvals for the Gateway II project but reduced it from the proposed 234 acres to 61.3 acres, and imposed mitigation measures to reduce urban decay both downtown and at the existing County Fair Mall. The Council's approval resolution predicted the project "would result in physical deterioration and urban decay" of existing retail centers, especially if existing big box retailers moved to the new property -- though it said changes imposed on the project would "avoid or substantially lessen" such effects. Plaintiff CCEC argued the mitigation measures weren't enough. The trial court mainly sided with the city but the Third District held the city should have done more under CEQA to protect its existing retail businesses. The parts of the decision that were granted publication mainly considered whether the city imposed correct and sufficient requirements to mitigate "urban decay" effects. The city had required the developer to seek a master conditional use permit requiring uses that would not compete directly with existing downtown retail; to prepare its own market study; pay half the cost of two city planning studies; and work with the County Fair Mall on a strategic land use plan. The court found the market study should not have been delegated to the developer to prepare and that it failed to require specific mitigations. It found the rest of the measures weren't improper, but lacked enough clear promises of action to protect existing retail elsewhere in town. The court was not reassured by the city's plan to conduct later more detailed reviews of individual construction plans that would be tiered on the initial larger-scale approvals. Palmer's letter, provided by the Santa Monica group, emphasized aspects of the ruling that limited deferred mitigation and required enforceable criteria in promised mitigations: notably, "fair-share" payments for measures whose cost and methods are not yet spelled out, and abatement efforts "lacking any 'criteria for success'". She described one holding as "a logical extension" of Sundstrom v. County of Mendocino (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 296, "which held that development of mitigation measures may not be delegated to unaccountable agency staff members." She wrote that the Woodland case went a step farther in the same area by refusing to delegate the task of developing mitigation measures to the project proponent. Palmer's letter further noted findings that an issue was sufficiently preserved on appeal "so long as the 'specific objections' are raised by any member of the public". In a less detailed section of the opinion that Palmer's letter likewise flagged as important, the court agreed with CCEC that the city gave inadequate reasons for turning down a mixed-use alternative that would have developed 93 acres of housing and commercial uses, including "a local-serving commercial town center" with housing above the shops, on a 154-acre annexation parcel. It said the draft EIR emphasized claims that mixed-use or reduced commercial use alternatives were economically infeasible, but the city's final decision claimed without real evidence that the mixed-use alternative would have worse environmental impacts than the proposed project. Further, the court accepted CCEC's argument that the energy impacts, including transportation effects, were not properly analyzed. Palmer saw importance there in the court's finding that reference to state energy standards were not enough because they "do not address several impacts that are within the scope of CEQA, such as transportation impacts, and the question of whether a project should be built at all." In sections of the decision that remain unpublished, the court rejected a CCEC objection based on alleged noncompliance with the city General Plan rather than CEQA, finding CCEC asserted it too late in the litigation. The court also refused to call the city the "prevailing party" in deciding who should pay for preparation of the record. The CCEC organization has a modest public profile despite some environmental litigation and regulatory successes in recent years. Public records show CCEC shares an address with its lawyer, Eugene Wilson, in Davis. Reached for this article, Wilson declined to comment about the case or the organization. Two members of the original three-judge panel, Justices Ronald Robie and Andrea Lynn Hoch, issued the publication order. The third member, Justice Elena Duarte, joined in the original decision but not in the publication order. Links: The case: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C072033.PDF. Online docket including notes on the publication requests: http://bit.ly/1qrIrFt. Analysis on the Remy Moose Manley site: http://bit.ly/1eqAi2b. Background from the Woodland Daily Democrat : http://bit.ly/1sKwbBK. On Santa Monica's Bergamot Transit Village litigation: http://bit.ly/1sTQL2J

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife has placed its water quality concerns in direct conflict with the state's affordable housing shortage by filing a complaint with the Regional Water Quality Control Board against the City of San Jose over its Coyote Creek encampment, unofficial home to 150 or more people who reportedly live without access to basic utilities. The Mercury News reported at http://bit.ly/1gGkC4Q that the complaint came from Lt. Byron Jones of Fish and Wildlife, "a retired 22-year veteran of the San Jose Police Department" and it "charges that city administrators and police 'have refused to remove the encampments and protect the water.'" The charges followed two years of pressure for cleanups amid a level of expressed resentment by conventionally housed neighbors that Mercury News reporter Bruce Newman described as "an organized resistance movement." http://bit.ly/1snjvRp U.S. cities with encampments increasingly face the choice whether to provide (or permit the provision of) infrastructure such as clean water, sewage and garbage removal, sturdy shelters, electricity or responsive policing, or instead remove the encampments themselves because of nuisance conditions that appear at high population densities in the absence of urban systems such as sewerage. A news analysis based on interviews with experts about the San Jose situation is at www.mintpressnews.com/city-san-jose-cleansing-homeless-encampments/187406/. Prior news reports on grave environmental concerns about Coyote Creek water pollution include two from 2012: the Mercury News at http://bit.ly/1eilrkJ and the San Francisco Chronicle , focusing on the Save the Bay organization's  "trash hot spot" rating, at http://bit.ly/1lIl0rF. Last summer a drama-laden photo essay in Business Insider referred to the encampment as "The Jungle" and called it "the largest homeless encampment in the continental United States." http://www.businessinsider.com/the-jungle-largest-homeless-camp-in-us-2013-8?op=1. It said up to 175 people may live there at a time. Another perspective is offered by a report prepared on Sacramento's 2011 American River encampment conditions by the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation. The rapporteur, Catarina de Albuquerque, called on the United States to meet the needs of all its people for access to sanitation with dignity. At the Sacramento camp, where such provisions were otherwise absent, she praised a man named Tim who at the time of her visit was making weekly journeys by bicycle to carry bags of human waste away from the camp for disposal in a public restroom. See http://www.sacbee.com/2012/02/04/4238427/un-investigator-urges-sacramento.html and the UN report (PDF) at http://bit.ly/1g22rrn.

In an outcome more helpful to residential than institutional customers, the Public Utilities Commission has interpreted the AB 327 solar legislation of 2013 to grant a 20-year extension of the current Net Energy Metering (NEM) payback deal for solar panel owners who send energy back into the grid. The extension will apply for 20 years for each customer of Pacific Gas and Electric, San Diego Gas and Electric and Southern California Edison who connects a solar system to the grid before either July 1, 2017 or the date the local cap for participation is reached, whichever comes first. The cap will be reached when the local utility's "eligible customer-generators" together have the capacity to meet 5 percent of the system's peak demand. Customers who beat that cutoff date will have the right, for 20 years from their respective dates of connection, to be paid for power they generate based on the existing NEM tariff structure. Among many other findings, the decision said that, since 2010 in California, it takes residential customers 8 to 12 years to break even and commercial customers 8 to 18 years, so a 20-year grandfathering period meets the AB 327 requirement for a "reasonable expected payback period". It said the paybacks to solar generators at NEM rates might cost other ratepayers as much as $1 billion per year by 2020 if by then the 5 percent capacity limits had been reached. For people and companies newly entering the program after the cutoff date, and for the initial adopters after their 20-year periods end, a new tariff structure is to be set that will likely pay solar-generating customers less for their energy in order to reduce burdens on other ratepayers. Some commenters in the PUC proceeding had said the initial rates should be maintained for up to 30 years, based on the expected useful life of a solar power system. The San Diego Union-Tribune wrote that "Schools and water districts that installed solar sought a 30-year transition to a new tariff and fear they may ultimately lose money." It said "Many publicly financed solar projects have a long payback period". See http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2014/mar/28/solar-tariff-grandfathered/. Because the value of a solar energy system will depend in part on whether it qualifies for the NEM tariff structure, the decision told the utilities to report their progress toward the "transition trigger level" cutoff point when the program will stop accepting new participants on the original terms. Likewise it said "The Commission expects solar installers to provide honest and complete disclosures". The PUC press release is at http://bit.ly/1lxlKxk and the proposed decision that was approved is at http://bit.ly/P83Zt0.

An academic study that gauges sprawl in cities nationwide has placed San Francisco very high in its compactness rankings ? one alternate standard, buried deep in the report, actually ranks it first. It also rates Los Angeles above a surprising number of other cities, considering it's stereotyped as suffering from low-rise growth. The study, "Measuring Sprawl," rates cites on a spectrum from "sprawl" to "compact and connected" based on four factors, each representing a basket of variables: "development density" (residential and otherwise), "land use mix" (based on data about WalkScores and types of jobs near each other), "activity centering" (roughly, whether downtowns are busier than peripheries), and "street accessibility", which values short blocks, four-way intersections and "blocks that are urban in size". This four-factor approach ranks the New York/White Plains/Wayne NY-NJ metro area highest for compactness, followed by San Francisco/San Mateo/Redwood City, California. Next in California are Santa Barbara/Santa Maria/Goleta, #4, Santa Cruz/Watsonville, #6, and Santa Ana/Anaheim/Irvine, #10. The Los Angeles/Long Beach/Glendale metro comes in at #21. San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos is #103 and Sacramento-Arden-Arcade-Roseville is #120. At the other end of the scale, the Riverside-San Bernardino/Ontario metro comes in at #215 out of 221 areas rated. The most sprawling metro in the ranking is Hickory/Lenoir/Morganton, NC, just below Atlanta. The co-authors of the study are Professor Reid Ewing and Shima Hamidi, a graduate research assistant, both of the University of Utah's Metropolitan Research Center. The reports mention project team members from the National Cancer Institute and Smart Growth America and preparation for those entities plus the Ford Foundation. The Smart Growth America site offers an executive summary and 51-page version of the report at http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/measuring-sprawl. A 203-page version of the report and other supporting material are posted at http://gis.cancer.gov/tools/urban-sprawl/. Asked about the California compactness ratings, Ewing wrote: "The favorable results for California probably mostly from high housing costs, which translates into higher densities." The 2014 study built on a 2002 predecessor effort by Ewing, who was then at Rutgers University, together with Rolf Pendall of Cornell and Don Chen of Smart Growth America. That study, with its separately posted ranking table for high and low levels of sprawl, is at http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/research/measuring-sprawl-and-its-impact/. Ewing confirmed the research team chose to make few comparisons between the 2014 study and its 2002 predecessor due to the risk of "apples to oranges" misunderstandings. He wrote: "Metropolitan area definitions changed, and the variables we used to measure sprawl changed." The main 2002 study ranked Riverside-San Bernardino worst for sprawl. At the top end of the scale, the New York City MSA's top ranking was followed by Jersey City, the Providence, R.I. area, and only then San Francisco. Los Angeles was then 39th, just below San Diego. Ewing noted that an alternate set of "apples to apples" comparisons appears in Chapter 9 of the large report text on the Cancer Institute site. That chapter sets out and applies an alternate sprawl standard that is able to use data available in the same forms for both 2000 and 2010 with respect to 162 large "urbanized areas" (as distinct from metropolitan areas) that had populations of 200,000 or more as of 2010. Tables on Pages 109-111 of the large report's PDF show urbanized areas' compactness levels changed little from 2000 to 2010 according to these "apples to apples" standards. In each case the most compact urban area was San Francisco-Oakland, California ? this is the alternate form of the study in which San Francisco actually ranked highest. In 2010 the top-ten list also included Oxnard and Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim in eighth. In 2000, the only California urban area after San Francisco-Oakland on the top-ten list was Visalia. In both decades the only California urbanized area among the "most sprawling" ten was Victorville-Hesperia. In each case the "most sprawling" metro area was Atlanta, Georgia.   Boston and other Massachusetts towns weren't in either the 2014 rankings, nor the 2000-to-2010 comparisons, because they used Local Employment Dynamics (LED) data, which Massachusetts is alone in choosing not to collect.

As Phil Frank's "Farley" cartoon said years ago, "If in-laws are outlawed, only outlaws will have in-laws!" Phil Frank didn't live to see it, but the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has finally created a process for homeowners to legalize "in-law" units built within single-family homes. In-law unit owners will be allowed to submit information to the city for a pre-screening process in which owners will suffer no penalty if they decide not to go through with improvements that the city's reviewers prescribe for legalization -- unless the city notes an "imminent and substantial hazard". Legalization will be closed to units that have been the subject of no-fault evictions in the past ten years. The SF Chron story is at http://bit.ly/1kEbJx3. Draft minutes from the April 1 approval meeting, including notes of amendments, are at http://bit.ly/1hmBwMa. The Council's tracking page on the legislation, including ordinance draft texts and staff reports, is at http://bit.ly/1imIUlQ. Eminent domain upheld for new Sacramento Kings arena Sacramento has won its eminent domain action to take over a former Macy's store at 600 K Street for a Kings basketball arena. The Sacramento Bee reports that when the Third District Court of appeal refused to block a Superior Court order allowing the action, it gave the city "full control" of the whole site for the planned arena. The land on the site is owned by the California Public Employees Retirement System. Securities investors represented by a U.S. Bank trustee are owners of the building and the trustee contested the eminent domain on their behalf. CalPers reportedly did not contest the city's action. The city now turns to finalizing terms of the eminent domain purchase deal and completing public design review. A City Council approval vote on the deal is set for May 13. See news reports at http://bit.ly/1jIg0AI and http://bit.ly/NVXxVE. The city Planning and Design Commission will take up details of the arena plan at its April 10 meeting; the agenda, which links to detailed planning and EIR documents on the project, is at http://bit.ly/1jW5I0b. The 7-page Sacramento Superior Court decision of March 20, available at http://bit.ly/1iqn4zj, cites briefly to last fall's SB 743. As CP&DR reported last fall at http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3404, some of the less far-reaching provisions of SB 743 were enacted to smooth the way for a new NBA venue to replace the existing Sleep Train Arena in Sacramento. Among several provisions to advance the project, SB 743 created an addition to the Public Resources Code that provides specifically, "The city may prosecute an eminent domain action for 545 and 600 K Street, Sacramento, California..." SB 743's preamble and text are at http://bit.ly/1lM4qY8. The Third District appellate decision is not posted online but the register of actions for the appeal is at http://bit.ly/1stxQeW. AB 1970 would create anti-emission grants for local governments AB 1970, a bill to use cap-and-trade revenues for local greenhouse gas reduction projects, passed the Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 7, as the League of California Cities was happy to report at http://bit.ly/1kkYfKQ. The bill would make the Strategic Growth Council the administrator of a "Community Investment and Innovation Program" that would provide grants and financial assistance to local governments. The state bill tracking page, with legislative counsel and committee analyses, is at http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_1970&sess=CUR&house=B. Higher meter prices teach SF drivers which parking hopes are realistic UCLA Prof. Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking , has a study out that says San Francisco's SFPark approach to meters has reduced circling ("cruising") in search of parking by half. NextCity has details at http://bit.ly/1eaAgeM. SFPark varies parking meter prices by time of day in some busy areas of San Francisco according to measured levels of demand. The system makes a smartphone app available for finding open parking spaces, but the main point of the study is that any driver, smartphone user or not, will learn from this congestion-charging approach to look for parking in lower-demand areas where prices are set lower, and hence won't take up space with unrequited searching for available places on high-demand blocks of downtown. A direct link to the study is at http://bit.ly/1g1XezG. Monterey water ballot measure can't claim "Local Ownership and Cost Savings" The Measure O referendum for the Monterey Peninsula Water Management District may no longer be called the "Monterey Peninsula Water System Local Ownership and Cost Savings Initiative" per an April 3 court order by Judge Thomas Wills. The Monterey Herald said Wills ruled in three parallel cases that neither local ownership nor cost savings is definitely promised by the measure, so those words must be removed from the title. Wills allowed such words to remain in proponents' ballot arguments as statements of opinion, but found some of proponents' other statements excessive "and worked with attorneys on editing them from the bench." For details see http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_25488380/water-war-judge-orders-revision-measure-o-ballot. The Herald said the decision was issued in three parallel lawsuits listing Richards J. Heuer III, a local businessman, as plaintiff, but the paper described the cases as a challenge by California-American Water Company to Measure O. If passed, the measure would establish a policy in favor of public ownership of the district's water systems. It would require the district to consider acquiring Cal Am's water system as public property, and, if appropriate, to go forward with seeking to purchase it, possibly by eminent domain. An earlier news report has more background at http://www.montereyherald.com/news/ci_25428620/cal-am-backed-suit-challenges-measure-o-ballot. The sponsor of Measure O, Public Water Now, has posted the initiative text at https://www.publicwaternow.org/the-ballot-initiative/. Costa Mesa trying again with a city charter Costa Mesa's City Council is working on a second proposal to adopt a city charter. A prior charter proposal was rejected in a November 2012 referendum. See http://www.ocregister.com/articles/city-606377-charter-costa.html. The City Council's agenda site at http://www.costamesaca.gov/index.aspx?page=1675 has video of the contentious March 18 Council discussion on the charter proposal and notes a special meeting of the Council is scheduled April 22 on the proposal. Could this golf course make more money as a marsh? The San Diego Union-Tribune reports on a proposal to turn a golf course near the San Luis Rey River into a wetlands, creating a "land bank" of environmental mitigation credits that would be sold to developers by the acre. For more on this "inverse real estate development" scheme, see http://m.utsandiego.com/news/2014/apr/06/bonsall-golf-land-bank-wetland/. LA City Council rolls back Hollywood zoning code to 1988 CBS affiliate KNX1070 (item via CACities.org) is reporting the LA City Council has agreed to repeal the much-contested 2012 amendments to the Hollywood Community Plan pending negotiations over new zoning. It reported the 2012 provisions were recently defeated in litigation and that the old 1988 code will take effect while disputes are resolved over changes in the new code, especially height limits. See http://cbsloc.al/1hkmP6i. The Council's tracking page on the Hollywood Community Plan Update is at http://bit.ly/1hyplWV. According to a city staff report at http://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2012/12-0303-S4_misc_d_03-18-14.pdf, the Los Angeles Superior court decision defeating the 2012 plan amendments was issued February 11 in Fix the City v. City of Los Angeles , Case No. BS138580. Subway allowed into Beverly Hills The Los Angeles subway dig may advance under Beverly Hills High School per a ruling by Judge John A. Torribio. See the Beverly Hills Courier at http://bit.ly/1ebh7cH and LA Times at http://lat.ms/1i4uXsI, both items also via CACities.org Santa Monica persists in having other ideas for its airport Disputes continue in Santa Monica over efforts to close its small and reputedly noisy local airport -- although, as Ben Rubin of the Nossaman firm explained at http://bit.ly/QZfep7, a federal court threw out the city's quiet title suit on the airport property in February. On March 25 the Santa Monica City Council took up the subject again -- see Item 8a in the agenda, staff report and video at http://santamonica.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=3248. The item began with an announcement that 101 people had asked to speak at public comment. Per the unofficial meeting "wrap up" at http://www.smgov.net/departments/council/wrapup.aspx, it ended with the Council agreeing, "with staff direction," to "continue to pursue City control of the use of its Airport land" and move toward a plan to close the airport after July 1, 2015. More background, from an aviation source via CACities, is at http://bit.ly/1qfgJvx. Housing more out of reach than ever The National Low-Income Housing Coalition has its annual Out of Reach report out on housing costs, and it's more dismal than ever. See http://nlihc.org/oor/2014 for the latest granular data by state, county and MSA on just how many minimum-wage jobs it takes to afford a two-bedroom apartment on the increasingly quaint assumption that housing should cost 30 percent of total income. Per the report's California state data page, at http://nlihc.org/oor/2014/CA, the average California "housing wage" is $26.04 per hour, or $54,168 per year, which works out to 3.3 minimum wages per household at the California statewide minimum of $8 per hour. Also in the news Gil Kelley, former director of planning for Portland, Oregon, and, previously, Berkeley, has been named Director of Citywide Planning in San Francisco. See  the second item in the San Francisco Chronicle news report at http://bit.ly/1jWRiNh. The city's press release is at http://www.sf-planning.org/index.aspx?recordid=244&page=3418. Sacramento's 336-unit McKinley Village infill project, whose proponents include former State Treasurer Phil Angelides and developer Angelo Tsakopoulos, is hung up on opposition to its proposed exit and entry points, which could affect existing residential areas. Critics are calling on the developers to build a railroad undercrossing tunnel at a less sensitive spot to serve the new development. The tunnel's importance and likely cost are disputed For more see the Sacramento Bee at http://bit.ly/1ennVOO. AB 2104, by Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, would allow HOA residents to plant drought-resistant landscaping even if the HOAs' landscaping requirements dictate otherwise . See the U-T at http://bit.ly/1dW7jCP. The measure passed the Assembly on April 3 and was referred to the Senate. The bill tracking site is at http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB2104.

National and local writers have been all over the San Francisco Supervisors' April 1 decision to grant a Class 6 categorical exemption from CEQA to a pilot program for tech industry commuter shuttles, so instead of retelling the whole saga here we've gathered some links to CEQA and policy aspects of the story: The city's pilot program has been allowing the "Google Bus" and other tech industry shuttles to pick up and drop off employees at public bus stops in exchange for a payment to the city of $1 every time a bus makes a stop. While the shuttles reduce car trips by commuters between San Francisco homes and Silicon Valley tech campuses, they have been criticized for encouraging displacement of lower-paid San Francisco residents near the bus stops and inducing increased development to serve high-paid shuttle users -- which the CEQA appeal to the Supervisors described as having a discriminatory impact. Complaints are also made that the buses interfere with public transit service at the bus stops, are bad for roads, and themselves pollute the air. A related charge is that the buses relieve what might otherwise be pressure on Peninsula towns such as Mountain View to allow more housing closer to the campuses. Environmental and social activists may appeal the Supervisors' decision. Just some of the material on this locally symbolic issue: - Board of Supervisors tracking page on the agenda item, with activists' appeal letter contesting the CEQA exemption and SFMTA transit agency's staff response: http://bit.ly/1g235oR - San Francisco Chronicle account of the meeting: http://bit.ly/PhELs4 - League of Pissed-off Voters argument against the shuttles: https://medium.com/p/9765445ad685 - Pacific Legal Foundation objecting to the use of CEQA: http://blog.pacificlegal.org/2014/ceqa-special-interest-groups-favorite-toy/ - Exchange between two smart lefty writers, Julia Wong and Darwin Bond Graham, about the CEQA process and whether it aids or blunts activism: https://twitter.com/DarwinBondGraha/status/451190095131848705 - Critical artist and designer Alfred Twu's renderings of Silicon Valley tech campuses hypothetically rebuilt to hold high-rises, so that each campus would contain all of the housing needed by its thousands of workers. See https://sites.google.com/site/techcampushousing/. - Stamen Design's unofficial maps of corporate shuttle routes as an unadvertised parallel transit system: http://stamen.com/zero1/ - Via NextCity, a speeded-up view of tech buses stopping and filling with riders at one public bus stop in San Francisco on one morning: http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/a-time-lapse-look-at-san-franciscos-commuter-buses - SF Chron report, a few days after the vote, on a small company, "Bigcommerce", trying to scout talent away from tech companies by flyering the Eighth and Market tech bus stop: http://bit.ly/1lHElt6 One recruiter told the Chronicle : "We're just trying to get people off the bus... I mean, why have a three-hour commute to the valley?"

An appellate court has upheld a CEQA exemption for the 2011 deputy sheriffs' charity rodeo at the Santa Cruz County fairgrounds in Watsonville. Although it was the first rodeo held there in a generation, the court held a categorical exemption was proper for the event on the grounds that, environmentally speaking, the rodeo was much a "normal operation" as any other livestock or equestrian event at that venue. Plaintiffs objecting to the rodeo had claimed "unusual circumstances" existed that might have a "significant effect" on the environment because of a risk that manure from the event would harm nearby Salsipuedes Creek, and also, per the court, because of "proximity to residential and agricultural land, or a public safety risk of bull riding". The March 26 decision by California's Third Appellate District upheld decisions by Sacramento County Superior Court judge Lloyd Connelly that had allowed the 14th District Agricultural Association, which runs the fairgrounds, to grant the rodeo a Class 23 categorical exemption from CEQA environmental review as "normal operations of existing facilities for public gatherings." Per the case history in the decision and local news reports, Connelly allowed Stars of Justice Inc., a nonprofit created by the Santa Cruz County Deputy Sheriff's Association, to go ahead with its charity rodeo in October 2011 after the county had gone "two decades" without one. Just under 1000 people reportedly attended. Connelly later confirmed his approval in 2012. (See http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_18993102; http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_19819481; http://bit.ly/1jSZyjO.) Since the rodeo itself was over long ago, the appeal that followed from rodeo opponents was moot, but the appellate court chose to rule on the environmental issue as a public interest matter "likely to recur and capable of evading review." The court found the rodeo was part of "normal operations" at the fairground because it was essentially similar to other events held at the same site. It said the site did not have to be compared to other kinds of public venues, nor to other fairgrounds, to determine what was normal. It distinguished a series of cases involving refusals to grant categorical exemptions, arguing that the exemptions were denied not because nearby neighbors or watercourses presented unusual circumstances, but because the activities in question were new ones, with new, unaccustomed effects. Plaintiffs had claimed that, in adopting a Manure Management Plan to protect the creek, the fairground managers essentially gave up their claim to a categorical exemption by admitting there was a hazard to mitigate. The court found the same sanitation measures applied to all events involving horses and livestock, not just the rodeo, and were not new, just recently formalized and possibly increased. The plaintiffs contesting the rodeo were Citizens for Environmental Responsibility, Eric Zamost, and his Stop the Rodeo organization. The stoptherodeo.org Web site objects to rodeo events as promoting a culture of violence entailing mistreatment of animals and also, in fewer words, to the discharge of "raw manure" into Salsipuedes Creek. The case is Citizens for Environmental Responsibility v. State of California ex rel. 14th District Agricultural Association , at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C070836.PDF.

A challenge by dissident conservationists to the Lake Tahoe Regional Plan Update is in the hands of U.S. Judge John A. Mendez following oral arguments in Sacramento March 26. The arguments put a bookend to a fierce, prolonged exchange of court papers heavy with mutual exasperation, between parties who may disagree more utterly than most. The Sierra Club and Friends of the West Shore, plaintiffs in the litigation, are holdout critics of the 2012 Regional Plan Update (RPU), which forms the centerpiece of a major political and regulatory settlement on California and Nevada officials' shared environmental governance of the Lake Tahoe basin. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3435.) Based on claims that the RPU erodes previously established scientific standards, the Sierra Club plaintiffs have been contesting its validity in federal court for the past year. The Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA), as defendant in the litigation, is being pressed to justify the work of negotiators at many levels, including some Tahoe Basin conservation leaders, who put years of effort into crafting the RPU. The Sierra Club plaintiffs depict TRPA as soft on developers; TRPA depicts the plaintiffs as destructive perfectionists. According to the Tahoe Daily Tribune (See http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/10781943-113/plan-lake-tahoe-trpa) and a statement released by TRPA, the oral arguments themselves addressed well-established themes in the briefing. Mendez will now decide competing motions for summary judgment that could very possibly end the case. Fractious briefing The lawyers exchanged indignantly phrased briefs through early 2014, taking extra bites at each other's arguments by filing oppositions to amicus briefs and judicial notice requests. TRPA's counsel tried during the last week before the hearing to gain an extra edge from two recent high-profile cases in which courts trusted agencies' judgment on environmental plans. One was Judge Jay Bybee's call for deference to administrative-branch expertise in the Ninth Circuit's Delta Smelt decision  (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3448). The other was the California Second District's choice to accept "adaptive management" of the endangered spineflower in proposed Newhall Ranch development areas. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3461 and Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish and Wildlife at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B245131.PDF.) Judge Mendez did not focus on the two new cases. TRPA's John Marshall answered an email query: "The recent cases were not discussed at the oral argument". Earthjustice's Wendy Park answered a parallel query: "The Judge only commented at the beginning of the hearing that argument on those two cases was not necessary since they were only marginally relevant (they'd be "the last case in a string cite")." Invited to respond to Park, TRPA spokesman Jeff Cowen wrote: "TRPA has no response to the statement." In earlier 2014 briefing, TRPA, joined in an amicus brief by the California and Nevada natural resource agencies, suggested the difficulty and extent of the bi-state public process that created the RPU was itself an argument for the RPU's validity. Plaintiffs countered that the court's review was limited to the legality of TRPA's proceedings and the adequacy of supporting evidence. In late February the plaintiffs quoted a warning out of Laurel Heights v. UC Regents , 47 Cal.3d 376 (1988), against the risk that "bureaucratic and financial momentum" would overrun "environmental concerns that could be dealt with more easily at an early stage." Otherwise TRPA continued to defend the Regional Plan Update as a pragmatic shift toward regulation via incentives for environmental retrofitting and reduction of ground coverage via denser redevelopment. Supporters of the RPU have argued that its new frameworks for regulation are based on scientific advances and physical changes in the lake basin's environmental needs that have appeared since the prior Regional Plan's 1987 approval. (See http://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-3435.) Disputes in the 2014 briefing included whether the RPU would provide adequately for ongoing enforcement of required Best Management Practices (BMP) on developed properties, and whether the lake's Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) standards would be either strict enough or sufficiently enforceable, especially on the Nevada side and in areas where local jurisdictions would be taking over enforcement tasks. In an argument that TRPA may have meant to answer by quoting the Newhall Ranch spineflower decision, the plaintiffs claimed in a January brief that TRPA's "adaptive management" approach to BMP enforcement "amounts to possibly reacting to worsened conditions (in an unspecified manner)" instead of getting ahead of them. TRPA retorted in its papers that the standards were real, sufficient and sufficiently enforceable to improve on current conditions, complaining meanwhile that "Plaintiffs persist in failing to distinguish between TRPA's BMP Retrofit Program for existing legacy development, and BMPs required for new development or redevelopment." TRPA further accused plaintiffs of "ignoring an overwhelming scientific and technical consensus" supporting the TMDL "load reduction credits" system of regulation, and of cherry-picking both laws and regulations to find fault. Plaintiffs argued in their series of briefs that TRPA hadn't sufficiently studied the true likely effects on runoff and soil from the RPU's incentives for developers to restore properties in fragile areas and transfer development credits to town center areas. TRPA accused plaintiffs of shifting ground improperly by leading with a water quality analysis in their opening brief, then shifting emphasis to soil conservation arguments in later papers. TRPA argued the EIS had met the necessary standard on soil conservation because it modeled and analyzed "potential impacts on nutrient cycling" and discussed effects on vegetation and on fish habitat. Plaintiffs wrote that "'Redevelopment' Means More Development" and predicted the RPU would allow "183 more acres of coverage region-wide" and that "the transfer of 960 development rights from... undeveloped and undevelopable parcels to developable parcels located in centers" would increase overall construction. Plaintiffs disagreed with a group of business and real estate amici on whether a new "resort recreation" designation of 315 acres of prior "recreation" lands at the Edgewood and Heavenly resort properties would expand urban boundaries. On the contrary, in its press statement about the March 26 oral arguments, TRPA reiterated its position that "The Regional Plan will result in less impervious land coverage in the Basin, more open space, and will accelerate the removal of legacy land coverage from sensitive lands." As for ozone monitoring, said by the plaintiffs to be neglected under the RPU (their January brief said there were no monitors at all in South Lake Tahoe), TRPA replied in its papers that the RPU would reduce vehicle use, that auto emissions standards have caused ozone levels to decline, and that more monitoring is not required by law. TRPA's statement quoted Executive Director Joanne Marchetta as saying, "We all want Lake Tahoe to continue to be one of the most protected watersheds in the nation and our plan will do that... This litigation boils down to how we balance strong environmental protections with the need to upgrade existing development that is impacting the Lake." The Tahoe Daily Tribune reported Judge Mendez took the case under submission without specifying a date for his decision.

The proposed 60,000-population Newhall Ranch development began a recent winning streak with an LA Superior Court ruling Jan. 31 on water supply adequacy and greenouse gases in the project's Phase 1 EIR – as reported in a Santa Clarita Valley Signal news story whose comments section reflects fierce local debate: http://www.signalscv.com/section/36/article/113952/. In another decision that supports the project, the Castaic Lake Water Agency's recent acquisition of the Valencia Water Company received a PUC approval in February per documents made available at http://bit.ly/1j90b8v by an opponent of both decisions, Santa Clarita Organization for Planning the Environment (SCOPE). In early March, environmental and tribal groups filed a federal suit contesting Clean Water Act approvals by the Army Corps of Engineers and EPA based on potential environmental effects and potential intrusion on Chumash heritage and burial sites. For details see the LA Times at http://lat.ms/1gDxhW8 and the site of one of the plaintiffs, Friends of the Santa Clara River, at http://www.fscr.org/html/newhall.html. And then on March 20 California's Second District Court of Appeal backed the Newhall Land and Farming Co. by upholding a state Fish and Wildlife environmental impact statement that favors the project over objections from a similar group of plaintiffs, who said they would likely seek state Supreme Court review. The decision is at http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B245131.PDF and further details at http://lat.ms/1imoY5D. Water board adjusts flow in farmers' favor but zero allocation still predicted Over environmentalists' objections, the State Water Board issued orders March 18 allowing more Delta water to flow to farmers, and less out of the Delta, though it did not end the zero allocation forecasts of the Department of Water Resources and Bureau of Reclamation. The Sacramento Bee has details at http://bit.ly/PPsr3o. The orders themselves are on the State Water Resources Control Board site at http://bit.ly/1esWgiI. Also in the news: The California State University system has chosen not to build a new campus at the Concord Naval Weapons Station. The Contra Costa Times has news of other redevelopment plans at http://bit.ly/Nxi1DX. Los Angeles City Planning released its Draft Mobility Plan in mid-February, opening a comment period that ends May 13, 2014. See http://la2b.org/. The L.A. Dept. of Water and Power, Sacramento and parts of the Metropolitan Water District are all paying homeowners to remove their lawns. See, respectively, http://lat.ms/1nCGjqV, http://bit.ly/1jRKxex and http://www.socalwatersmart.com/index.php/qualifyingproducts/turfremoval. San Francisco's Measure B, which would subject all future waterfront height limit variances to referenda, survived a court challenge, keeping its place on the June 3 county ballot, but its campaign manager, Jon Golinger, was in hot water for trying to become the author of the official arguments both for and against the measure that he in fact supported. See http://bit.ly/1lVgxPt and http://bit.ly/1d6oama. The L.A. Board of Supervisors has approved the proposed Local Coastal Program (LCP) for the Santa Monica Mountains, which has languished in part-drafted form since 1986. As the Malibu Times reports at http://bit.ly/1iJf8LX, Zev Yaroslavsky wrote a furious response to local critics at http://zev.lacounty.gov/blog/exposing-a-mountain-of-deceit. The plan still awaits final Coastal Commission adoption. For the LCP see http://planning.lacounty.gov/coastal.

A generation ago, moratoriums on new water hookups were important to the statewide land use picture in bad drought years. During 1991, new hookups were banned in some large southern and coastal California cities and all of Marin County. Santa Monica made developers mitigate new hookups by buying low-flush toilets for existing users. The Metropolitan Water District suspended annexations. Not so in 2014. As this year's drought deepens, urban water systems are in general keeping new hookups available. Not necessarily because there's more water, but thanks to improvements over the past two decades in planning and connectivity. As every day's news attests, the drought is slamming agriculture, natural habitats, and small water districts that are poor, awkwardly placed, or under-connected. Wood chips from uprooted almond trees have reportedly poured in to power plants as fuel. But meanwhile, like a cozy kitchen in a tumbledown house, the urban centers hold steady. Some urban districts that are enforcing strict conservation measures are also looking at new annexations and subdivisions without blinking. People do still ask where the water's coming from for new large developments. It seems possible, however, that drinking-water supply for expanding urban footprints may have lost some importance as grist for development debates compared with the days of the big moratoriums. This year it is rare to find municipal districts suspending new water connections specifically as a response to the current dry season. An extensive if unsystematic search by phone and Internet found only two: the posh suburb of Montecito, next door to Santa Barbara, and Willits in the parched Mendocino County interior. Some districts, mostly small, banned new hookups long before the current drought: Bolinas since 1971, Cambria since 1990, Redwood Valley, with very occasional relief, since 1989. Customers of California American Water in the Monterey Peninsula Management District are under a moratorium on water permits for new construction and remodels, addressed in a current proposed bond bill, SB 936: http://legiscan.com/CA/text/SB936/2013. Brooktrails Township – a community services district near Willits – is probably not alone in having no need to ban new connections. It has had 24 connections available since a state-imposed moratorium ended in 2010, but district staff member Elizabeth Simpson said there were no takers. Connection fees are $23,711 apiece. Other districts, including Solvang and Nipomo, have discussed moratoriums but aren't there yet. Reflecting a contrast between municipal and rural/agricultural pressures, Paso Robles has banned new private wells, including for houses, because of groundwater depletion pressures that have a lot to do with vineyards. The city has not stopped new connections to municipal pipes. Its contingency plan would impose a hookup moratorium at the strictest stage of water crisis but Planning Manager Susan DeCarli said: "That would be a long way out from here now." In the Redwood Valley County Water District of Sonoma County, general manager Bill Koehler said the district had about 120 days of stored water. He said whether it would last depended whether the vineyards that sustain the local economy required spraying for protection from more than one or two frost events in the next few weeks. And yet, the list of some 200 local conservation measures compiled by the Association of California Water Agencies at http://www.acwa.com/content/local-drought-response shows no large districts banning water for new development as of March 20. So what exactly is different since 1991? Water and infrastructure expert Ellen Hanak, co-director of research at the Public Policy Institute of California, wrote: "The difference is that there have been major strides in drought planning and resiliency investments since then. The 1987-92 drought really marked the beginning of many of the practices that have become very important for the modern approaches to modern water that most large urban agencies now subscribe to."   In an interview, Hanak said the water year (from a statewide perspective) was looking like about the fourth-driest on record, about a "30-year drought." That is, a level of drought already planned and accounted for in long-term water management plans. Her comments, and other recent PPIC publications, viewed the drought as a crisis mainly for agriculture, the environment, and remote rural towns "not connected to a larger grid". Urban systems, she said, were "mostly in very good shape during this drought" though it was further encouraging long-term planning, especially to increase physical connections among existing systems to allow sharing. Hanak recently coauthored a PPIC report on "serious funding gaps" affecting California water systems, including drinking water contamination in small, poor agricultural towns: http://ppic.org/main/publication.asp?i=1086. The report saw a shortage of funds for other ordinary water management such as responses to floods, storm and other runoff, ecological conservation, and coordination among systems. In an email exchange, Hanak demurred to the blanket suggestion that urban water systems' strength might make water supply less of a constraint on growth. She wrote: "I think there's potential for things to fall more through the cracks in some places that are growing fast from a smaller base – planning and often supply diversification actions are likely to be less well-established." She declined to name any particular district as one for concern, writing that her comment was based on a statistical analysis in the mid-2000s "where we found that places that were growing faster and that had smaller water agencies were less likely to be complying fully with all the requirements of the Urban Water Management Planning Act," also noting that "communities with fewer than 3,000 service connections don't actually even need to prepare urban water management plans." Urban Water Management Plans (UWMPs) are required of more than 400 urban water districts every five years, with the next revisions due in 2015. Large new developments must additionally meet "show me the water" requirements under Senate Bills 221 and 610 of the 2001 session. An SB 610 "Water Supply Assessment" is required for any project with more than 500 housing units or hotel rooms, work space for more than 1000 people, business space on a similar scale, or a 10% increase in the local district's total hookups. The overlapping SB 221 requires "Verification of Sufficient Water Supply" for approval of a tentative map, parcel map or development agreement for a similar-sized project, with exemptions for infill or low-income housing. Both standards require water planning for the next 20 years that anticipates expected population increases and recurrences of known types of drought periods: http://www.water.ca.gov/urbanwatermanagement/SB610_SB221/. Among local development disputes it is difficult to find substantive connections being drawn between the current drought's effects and projects that have had to pass reviews under SB 610 and SB 221. Jonas Minton of the Planning and Conservation League said requirements such as SB 221 and SB 610 are determined to be satisfied relatively easily. The laws "have had very little effect to date," he said. Despite a few court cases involving egregious cases of ignoring water supply concerns, he said developers generally have managed to satisfy authorities that a 20-year water supply exists. He said analyses for such purposes are based on "a short record" of the last 150 years, which may not reflect all possible conditions. But like Hanak, he said forecasts for frightening drought effects "overstate the reality that we're finding this year" and most urban areas would not suffer dire water shortages. City of Folsom Minton pointed to the "very development-friendly" city of Folsom as the scene of a land annexation whose planned water supply "was semi-theoretical, a bunch of water wonks arguing about that." The city's main water source, Folsom Lake, this winter left so much of its lake bed exposed that tourists wandered the temporary mudflats admiring ruins from the Gold Rush: http://bit.ly/1fGZD82. Folsom's South of Highway 50 annexation covers land in which developer Angelo Tsakopoulos was a major initial investor. The 2010 UWMP predicted this "Folsom Plan Area" (FPA) would gain population from zero in 2010 to 24,335 in 2035. Water supply was important in local controversy over the annexation, including a contentious 2004 election season. That year voters approved developer-sponsored Measure W, which allowed the annexation if existing residents' water rights and rates were protected. The FPA passed its SB 610 review around 2009. Folsom then planned to serve the new area by purchasing water rights from the Natomas Central Mutual Water Co.: http://bit.ly/PVtnTL; http://bit.ly/1gEsh3F. The Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) approved the annexation in January 2012. Later in 2012, plans for the FPA's water supply shifted. City spokeswoman Sue Ryan responded to questions about that by sending the first 100 pages of a staff report supporting two approval resolutions that the City Council passed in December 11, 2012. (The report is downloadable from Item 8a on the 12/11/12 agenda at http://www.folsom.ca.us/agendas/.) The resolutions agreed that instead of using the Natomas water rights purchase to bring water from the Sacramento River (which had run into "uncertainties" about Bureau of Reclamation approval), an existing water entitlement would be transferred south from the East Area and supplemented with water saved through conservation while the developers paid for new infrastructure. The East Area's demand would be met with conservation savings and, if necessary, water purchases based on "a Sacramento County Water Agency contract with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, known as the Fazio Water Supply." As of summer 2013 the Sacramento Bee reported the developers would spend some $52 million to move and treat water for new properties out of the city's existing supply: http://bit.ly/1ggUvaD. There was an indignant discussion about that on the Tomatopages community site at http://bit.ly/1hK52I3, especially asking if the transfer of water rights infringed Measure W, but that's where the matter appears to have rested. Marcus Yasutake, who became Folsom's environmental and water resources director in summer 2013, described the year's drought, not as an all-out disaster, but as a data point and opportunity to teach conservation habits. In an interview that did not address technicalities or politics, he said the city was not in a situation to suspend new permits or connections. "Doesn't mean we won't ever be." He said, "I'm sure at some point in time 2013 will be included as a drought year from a planning perspective because we haven't gone through anything like 2013". He said "typically people look to the '76-'77 years," which at the time were "the worst on record, and now we have something that was even below that. So, the requires us to look at those drought type of years and to identify reduction or other supply alternatives." He said conservation measures under the 2010 UWMP included finding and patching leaks -- locally difficult because water easily seeps through cobbles left by Gold Rush dredging -- and an end to unmetered flat-rate water supply. Residential water meters began use in January 2013. Asked if there were any concerns about the water promises made in the annexation approval process being kept, Yasutake said it would take a drought years worse than the current one to trouble the water supply to the annexed area. Paso Robles Though facing a groundwater shortage and currently banning new wells, Paso Robles is not stopping two proposed annexations and a request for a General Plan change to allow further buildout. Planning Manager Susan DeCarli said recently begun construction will give the city better access to purchased water from Lake Nacimiento and the city also has had conservation successes, in part by replacing flat-rate billing with graduated rates. She said, "We have enough water capacity to withstand our full development buildout," which calls for population expansion from 30,000 to 45,000. "So as new developments are proposed, it's confusing to people," she said, because there are heavy restrictions on use of groundwater at the same time. The grandest proposed expansion, the Paso Robles Gateway development, calls for three hotels, houses and vineyards. DeCarli said given the "heightened sensitivity to water resources" the developers voluntarily agreed to do a Water Supply Assessment -- "they didn't argue" -- and planned to buy their own Lake Nacimiento water. "It's going to be a major issue when they go to LAFCo", she said. Did better planning help in such arrangements? she said it did help to direct new development to urbanized areas. "You can manage urban water to make sure you've got services."

With $1.54 billion already spent on California carbon emission rights, debate continues on whether the state's cap-and-trade auction process is valid and what the auction proceeds are for. The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) has repeatedly questioned Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed uses for an expected $850 million in annual revenue from cap-and-trade auctions of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission allowances. While Brown's proposals do support projects related to air quality, LAO has asked if they will achieve the best GHG reductions available for the money. LAO lays out and critiques Brown's proposals in a February 24 report at http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/2953. It urges the Legislature to have the Air Resources Board set standards for state departments to use in deciding what programs would reduce GHGs most effectively. Of interest to local planners is that, per the February 24 report, Governor Brown's proposals would include $100 million in each of the next two fiscal years to support transit-oriented development programs related to SB 375 compliance, to be administered by the Strategic Growth Council, including possibly for grants to local governments' projects. These funds would replace the funds previously provided by Proposition 84, which will run out after this year. The LAO has been chivvying Brown on his proposed uses cap-and-trade proceeds since January, especially on his proposal to spend up to one-third of each year's proceeds on high-speed rail construction. LAO's January 13 report on the budget proposal at http://lao.ca.gov/reports/2014/budget/overview/budget-overview-2014.aspx called the use for high-speed rail "legally risky". As the Sacramento Bee noted at http://bit.ly/1cvGNuc, the Feb. 24 LAO report said high-speed rail construction "would actually generate GHG emissions of 30,000 metric tons over the next several years." Similar objections appear in a March 6 transportation report at http://www.lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/2966. Brown's proposals have drawn mixed reviews from others too, as discussed in StreetsblogLA at http://bit.ly/1gGYkA8 and the LA Times at http://lat.ms/1g9dJyA. Per the LAO, the Governor's budget proposal would divide cap-and-trade money among 23 program components run by 11 departments and boards. The High-Speed Rail Authority would get $250 million in the coming fiscal year, and then 33% of all cap-and-trade revenue from 2015-2016 on. The Air Resources Board would get funding to administer the cap-and-trade program itself plus $200 million in each of the next two years for clean transportation. As noted, there would be the $100 million in each of two years for the SB 375 programs. Other recipients would include low-income weatherization, upgrades to Caltrans and state buildings, waste emission reduction and recycling, water conservation, State Water Project generator efficiency, wildfire prevention and watershed restoration. Out of $500 million borrowed from past cap-and-trade income by the General Fund, the budget would pay back $100 million in the coming year. The report suggested these activities might not reduce GHGs optimally, or if they did, it might be through "activities that would have happened on the natural (meaning without the support of cap-and-trade auction revenues)." Instead, it urged using cap-and-trade income for ending the separate $40 million "Cost of Implementation" charge to polluters or funding energy storage efficiency, carbon sequestration or alternative fuels. The State Senate's Standing Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review discussed the Governor's proposals for the revenue February 13. Materials are at http://bit.ly/1f0KfxV. On March 19 the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Resources and Transportation heard testimony on the Governor's proposals for the revenue. The Sacramento Bee's Dan Morain wrote up the appearance at this second hearing of "45 smart lobbyists and consultants" who each had ideas about how to spend the money. http://bit.ly/1gkVBRv. Steinberg's carbon tax proposal: rhetoric or literal legislation? State Senate president pro tem Darrell Steinberg has commented on Brown's proposals indirectly with a carbon tax proposal that, as the Mercury News commented at http://bit.ly/1dcbPx2, may be more rhetorical than legislative. Saying, "My attempt here is to stoke a debate," Steinberg proposed replacing the transportation fuels portion of the cap-and-trade system, which is expected to raise the cost of gas in 2015, with a carbon tax starting around 15 cents per gallon of fuel, rising in future years. His proposal would transfer most of the proceeds to households with incomes below $75,000 through a state earned-income tax credit, and would spend the rest on transit. Steinberg's initial statements on the tax are at http://bit.ly/1gEfKSl. The LA Times has more at http://lat.ms/1kZHUYG and http://lat.ms/1l1JGeD. Steinberg introduced a vaguely phrased version of the proposal as SB 1156: see http://bit.ly/1gMpJ4b. Auctions continue alongside litigation to stop them As of the most recent auction in February, which sold nearly $330 million in carbon permits, the Sacramento Bee reports at http://bit.ly/1hQg8Lz that California companies have spent $1.54 billion on greenhouse gas emission rights so far. The ongoing ARB auction page is at http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/auction/auction.htm. However, the legality of the auctions themselves is still at issue. Chamber of Commerce official Loren Kaye noted in a blog post at http://bit.ly/1jiR68Z that notices of appeal are on file in California Chamber of Commerce v. California Air Resources Board, a Sacramento Superior Court case that upheld the existing auction system last year. The decision and pleadings are at https://services.saccourt.ca.gov/publicdms/Search.aspx under case number 34-2012-80001313.

Officials of Healdsburg and at least three smaller water districts have been trying to shed unwanted status as poster children for the California drought. In a January 28 press release at http://www.cdph.ca.gov/Pages/NR14-012.aspx, the Department of Public Health issued a list of 17 communities that it said were at risk for running out of drinking water. Since then, Healdsburg City Manager Marjie Pettus has been insisting she doesn't know why. Pettus said, "We believe that perhaps an assumption was made because our City Council took proactive measures and implemented a mandatory water conservation measure." But she and Planning Director Barbara Nelson said the early move to strict conservation was a stewardship measure, not a sign of immediate shortage. city of healdsburg was on the initial list of 17 water systems identified as at risk with drought-related water supply concerns... based on our initial survey. since that time, some systems, such as healdsburg, have been able to improve their situation, some with cdph assistance, and the concerns have reduced."> city of healdsburg was on the initial list of 17 water systems identified as at risk with drought-related water supply concerns... based on our initial survey. since that time, some systems, such as healdsburg, have been able to improve their situation, some with cdph assistance, and the concerns have reduced."> Healdsburg is at Stage 2 mandatory water conservation, which calls for a 20% reduction below last year's water use. The city's Web site cites low Russian River flows from Lake Mendocino in imposing the restrictions: http://www.ci.healdsburg.ca.us/index.aspx?page=397. But Pettus said: "Healdsburg has sufficient water to meet current demand." She said the city can additionally draw from wells in Dry Creek Valley as of April 1 of each year. "Between the river and the wells we can meet all of our commercial and residential water needs." This chic wine-tourism destination with more than 11,000 residents was the largest water district on February's at-risk list. It appeared alongside smaller areas whose reactions have been mixed. Water managers in Shaver Lake Heights, Bass Lake and Sierra Cedars wrote that they were placed on the "at-risk" list in error and were then removed. Pete Conrad of Sierra Cedars passed on an email from CDPH's Merced District saying Sierra Cedars "should not have been included on the list as there is no indication that the system is experiencing any reduced capacity or other complications due to drought conditions." Pettus, however, said phone calls to state officials by Healdsburg Mayor Jim Wood got no clear explanation for the at-risk designation. She said, "They might have acknowledged the mistake but there was no corrective action taken." Some of the districts on the list of 17 do face nervous water situations. One such is Lake of the Woods, nearly a mile above sea level in the Tejon Pass area of Kern County. The New York Times' Adam Nagourney reported March 7 at http://nyti.ms/1g76cj1 that the community was near the point of trucking in water. In Redwood Valley, water manager Bill Koehler didn't mind being on the list. "Yes, we are, and yes, we deserve to be." He said tree-ring records suggested his area of Sonoma County, served by drastically low Lake Mendocino -- "It's a mudflat" -- was suffering a 400-year drought. He said Redwood Valley had about 120 days of water and then would have to depend on neighbors. The at-risk designation had no formal effect but Pettus said it drew "a tremendous amount of media attention". The 17 listed communities have been mentioned as emblematic of California's drought in news reports as far away as Toronto: http://bit.ly/1bK8n6m. Likewise Nagourney, reporting on Lake of the Woods, narrated, "for 17 small rural communities in California, the absence of rain is posing a fundamental threat to the most basic of services: drinking water..." At CDPH, spokesman Ron Owens responded to a request for comment by calling attention to a new list posted March 4: http://bit.ly/1g76RRq. The new list says "CDPH has prioritized assistance to the following public drinking water systems," and names seven districts: Willits, Redwood Valley, Lake of the Woods, and four remote districts that each serve 100 or fewer people. CDPH had not responded specifically by press time to a request for comment on the objections from Healdsburg and the three smaller towns, nor to a question how the criteria compared for the January 28 and the March 4 lists.