Bill Text: CA AB2549 | 2013-2014 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Gambling: moratorium: City of Milpitas.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 2-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2014-06-09 - Withdrawn from committee. Re-referred to Com. on RLS. [AB2549 Detail]
Download: California-2013-AB2549-Amended.html
BILL NUMBER: AB 2549 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN SENATE JUNE 5, 2014
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 24, 2014
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 1, 2014
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Ridley-Thomas
( Coauthor: Senator Correa
)
FEBRUARY 21, 2014
An act to add and repeal Section 53083.2 of the
Government Code, relating to local government. Section
19967 to the Business and Professions Code, relating to gambling.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2549, as amended, Ridley-Thomas. City of Milpitas.
Gambling: moratorium: City of Milpitas.
Existing law declares that it is the policy of the state to
protect and promote the sound development of economic opportunity in
cities and counties, and the general welfare of the inhabitants of
those communities through the employment of all appropriate means.
Existing law requires each local agency, as defined to include a
city, to provide specified information to the public before approving
an economic development subsidy, as defined, within its
jurisdiction, and to review, hold hearings, and report on those
subsidies at specified intervals.
This bill would authorize the City of Milpitas, on or before April
1, 2015, to organize an independent local commission, composed of
the city manager, as an ex officio member, and 7 specified members
appointed by the Milpitas City Council, to investigate and study
issues related to employment, revenues, and economic activity in
order to identify and recommend ways to raise revenues for specified
purposes.
This bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2017.
Existing law, the Gambling Control Act, provides for the licensure
and regulation of various legalized gambling activities and
establishments by the California Gambling Control Commission and the
investigation and enforcement of those activities and establishments
by the Department of Justice.
Under the Gambling Control Act, a city, county, or city and
county, may authorize controlled gambling consistent with state law,
as provided. However, until January 1, 2020, existing law prohibits
the governing body and the electors of a city, county, or city and
county from authorizing or expanding any legal gaming beyond that
permitted on January 1, 1996. Additionally, until January 1, 2020,
existing law prohibits the commission from issuing a gambling license
for a gambling establishment that was not licensed to operate on
December 31, 1999, except as specified.
This bill would, notwithstanding the moratorium described above,
authorize the City of Milpitas, upon approval of the electors, to
authorize controlled gambling within that city subject to specified
conditions, including, among others, that controlled gambling may
only be conducted by a gambling establishment licensed by the
commission and operating in the County of Santa Clara on or before
January 1, 2013, that elects to change its location to the City of
Milpitas from another location in the County of Santa Clara.
This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to
the necessity of a special statute for the City of Milpitas.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no
yes . State-mandated local program: no.
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:
(a) Recent losses of local funding have degraded public safety in
the City of Milpitas (city) as the city has cut employment. Since the
2011-12 fiscal year, the city has laid off 110 employees, including
12 firefighters, and has been unable to fill 147 other positions that
would otherwise had have been filled,
including 13 police officer positions.
(b) A lack of economic development tools has stopped investment in
previously approved critical infrastructure in the city. Two hundred
twenty million dollars ($220,000,000) worth of road,
water, and sewer improvements, which had been approved in the capital
improvement plan of the city, cannot be constructed. Other projects,
including infrastructure projects projects,
have been delayed due to significant funding shortfalls in the
city's general fund to maintain streets. The city's annual shortfall
to maintain its Metropolitan Transit Commission-mandated Pavement
Condition Index goal of 70 is $4 million four
million five hundred thousand dollars ($4,500,000) per year.
(c) A lack of economic development tools has stopped previously
approved development projects in the city, including a 120-room hotel
and a low- and moderate-income senior housing project. With respect
to the latter project, the project developer had agreed to employ 100
full-time medical and caregiver positions. Both projects had
completed permits and land use reviews, including reviews under the
California Environmental Quality Act.
(d) The city desires to ensure the greatest amount of
citizen participation to increase economic activity in the McCarthy
Ranch area of the city near the Newby Island landfill in order to
find new revenue sources to replace the funds, restore losses of
firefighters and police officers, maintain and upgrade critical
infrastructure, and generate employment and economic activity through
previously approved private investment. Milpitas City
Council adopted an entertainment overlay to its zoning ordinance on
March 16, 2010, that would allow for operation of a licensed gambling
establishment in specific areas in the City of Milpitas. Although
the Legislature enacted the moratorium on the expansion of gambling
in the Gambling Control Act, the Legislature retains the power to
create exceptions to the morator ium to determine where
gambling may take place consistent with factual and legal
circumstances.
(e) Gambling establishments are significant sources of tax
revenues within their jurisdictions that can fund staffing, economic
development, and public infrastructure projects, including those that
have suffered in the City of Milpitas as a result of cuts in the
city's budget.
SEC. 2. Section 53083.2 is added to the
Government Code, to read:
53083.2. (a) On or before April 1, 2015, the City of Milpitas may
organize an independent local commission to investigate and study
issues related to employment, revenues, and economic activity in
order to identify and recommend ways to raise revenues to increase
city staff to adequate levels, to invest in infrastructure and
development projects, and to increase economic activity in the
McCarthy Ranch area of the City of Milpitas near the Newby Island
landfill.
(b) The commission shall be composed of seven people appointed by
the Milpitas City Council, as follows:
(1) One member of the business community who is also a member of
the Milpitas Chamber of Commerce.
(2) One employee of the City of Milpitas Fire Department.
(3) One employee of the City of Milpitas Police Department.
(4) One member of a local union that is unaffiliated with public
employee unions representing workers for the City of Milpitas.
(5) One owner of real property within the McCarthy Ranch area of
the City of Milpitas near the Newby Island landfill.
(6) Two residents of the City of Milpitas.
(c) The city manager of the City of Milpitas shall be an ex
officio member of the commission and report on the commission's
activities to the Milpitas City Council.
(d) The commission shall elect its own chairperson.
(e) Within one year of the City of Milpitas forming the
commission, the commission's authority shall cease.
(f) This section shall remain in effect only until January 1,
2017, and as of that date is repealed, unless a later enacted
statute, that is enacted before January 1, 2017, deletes or extends
that date.
SEC. 2. Section 19967 is added to the
Business and Professions Code , to read:
19967. (a) Notwithstanding any provision of this chapter,
including, but not limited to, Sections 19961, 19961.06, 19962, and
19963, the City of Milpitas may authorize controlled gambling within
that city pursuant to this section.
(b) The City of Milpitas may authorize controlled gambling in that
city if a majority of the electors voting thereon have affirmatively
approved a measure that complies with subdivision (c) of Section
19960.
(c) (1) Controlled gambling authorized pursuant to this section
shall be conducted only by a gambling establishment licensed by the
commission and operating in the County of Santa Clara on or before
January 1, 2013, that elects to change its location to the City of
Milpitas from another location in the County of Santa Clara.
(2) A gambling establishment shall do both of the following prior
to relocating to the City of Milpitas from another location in the
County of Santa Clara:
(A) Apply for, and receive, a license from the City of Milpitas.
(B) Upon receipt of the license described in subparagraph (A),
provide notice to the commission and the department of the gambling
establishment's intent to relocate to the City of Milpitas from
another location in the County of Santa Clara. The notice required by
this paragraph shall be provided at least three months before the
gambling establishment relocates to, or offers controlled gambling
in, the City of Milpitas.
(d) Notwithstanding any law or regulation, if the conditions of
subdivision (c) are satisfied, the commission and the department
shall authorize a gambling establishment's relocation to the City of
Milpitas from another location in the County of Santa Clara.
(e) The Legislature finds and declares that a special law is
necessary and that a general law cannot be made applicable within the
meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the California Constitution
because of the unique circumstances in the City of Milpitas,
described in Section 1 of this act. There is a rational relationship
between authorizing controlled gambling within the entertainment
overlay designated by the city's zoning ordinance and reversing the
city's financial crisis. This act simply allows the voters in the
City of Milpitas to act effectively on the question of whether to
authorize controlled gambling in that jurisdiction consistent with
provisions of the Gambling Control Act and under the city's financial
circumstances. Should the voters in the City of Milpitas adopt such
an ordinance, the city can then compete to attract one of the three
licensed gambling establishments operating in the County of Santa
Clara to move within the county to the City of Milpitas. This
exception to the moratorium in the Gambling Control Act is not
arbitrary because it respects the Legislature's policy, adopted in
the moratorium, to not authorize new licenses. Moreover, the
circumstances in the City of Milpitas outweigh any consideration of a
more general law creating an even greater exception to the policy
adopted by the Legislature in the moratorium.
SEC. 3. The Legislature finds and declares that
a special law is necessary and that a general law cannot be made
applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the
California Constitution because of the unique circumstances in the
City of Milpitas, where parcels on the west side of Interstate 880
and to the east of Coyote Creek in the McCarthy Ranch area of
Milpitas near the Newby Island landfill, the San Francisco Bay area,
and the regional water pollution control plant face particular
challenges to economic development as a result of their restrictive
location.
