San Diego Rules and Economic Development Committee Meeting - October 23, 2013
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San Diego Rules and Economic Development Committee Meeting - October 23, 2013
The Rules and Economic Development Committee convened on October 23, 2013, to discuss the city's legislative program, the Mount Hope Cemetery Perpetuity Fund, the Funds Commission semi-annual report, and a proposed plastic bag reduction ordinance. The committee heard presentations from federal and state lobbyists, the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce, the Independent Budget Analyst, and Environmental Services staff. Significant public testimony was taken on the bag ordinance. A motion was passed to advance the bag ordinance with an amendment.
Consent Calendar
- No consent agenda was presented. The minutes from the October 9, 2013 meeting were deemed approved.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Plastic Bag Ordinance: Speakers were divided between supporters and opponents. Supporters included Lonnie Lutar (Equinox Center), who recommended a 20% post-consumer recycled content requirement for reusable bags and broader education; Roger Cooby and Haley Hagerstone (Surfrider Foundation), who urged annual reporting and inclusion of all retail; Kristen Kuhn (San Diego Coastkeeper); Mike Price (SeaWorld), who offered 25,000 reusable bags; and several residents. Opponents included Mark Arabo (Neighborhood Market Association), who called the misdemeanor penalty asinine and argued small businesses would be harmed; Phil Rosinski (Hilex Poly) and Kathy Brown (Crown Poly), who cited job losses and the 0.5% waste stream; Stephen Joseph (Save the Plastic Bag Coalition), who raised costs for low-income area stores; and Jenna Harris (San Diego County Taxpayers Association), who requested written clarification of EIR scenarios. The San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce registered support without speaking.
Discussion Items
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1. Legislative Program & Lobbying Efforts: Federal lobbyists Merrick Gootman and Pamela Welsh (Patton Boggs) discussed the budget impasse, potential continuing resolution at sequester levels (5–7% cuts for FY14), the Water Resources Reform and Development Act, and threats to municipal bond tax exemption. State lobbyists Kevin Slote and Moira Topp (Slote Higgins) reviewed the 2013 session: elimination of Enterprise Zones replaced by a limited hiring credit and manufacturing tax exemption, ongoing CEQA reform, water bond likely delayed to 2016, and housing funding challenges. Councilmembers asked about specific priorities (third aircraft carrier, Midcoast Trolley, San Ysidro port of entry, workforce investment). Councilmember Alvarez requested performance metrics for the lobbyist contracts. Chair Lightner set a November 6, 2013 deadline for councilmembers to submit 2014 legislative priorities, with the full program to be heard on December 11, 2013.
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2. Mount Hope Cemetery Perpetuity Fund: Deputy IBA Director Jeff Kawar reported that cemetery expenses exceeded revenues each of the last five years, with General Fund subsidies ranging from $227,000 (FY13) to $513,000 (FY12). The fund principal is $10.5 million; FY13 income was $453,000 (4.8% yield). The cemetery has 42 years of burial capacity. Funds Commission Chair David Walters and consultant Mike Lavin explained Charter restrictions (income-only investments) and noted recent diversification into high-yield bonds and REITs. They cautioned that charter amendment costs might offset gains. Councilmember Emerald raised long-term viability concerns; Councilmember Alvarez suggested examining user fee cost recovery. Staff will research.
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3. Funds Commission Semi-Annual Update: Chair Walters and Mike Lavin reported that five of the six trust funds (65% stocks, 35% bonds) outperformed the cemetery fund by about 3% annually over 10 years. The commission continues to manage within charter constraints.
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4. Plastic Bag Reduction Ordinance: Environmental Services staff presented a draft ordinance banning single-use plastic carryout bags and imposing a 10-cent charge on paper bags, phased in over 6 months for large grocery stores and drug stores, and 12 months for smaller stores. Exemptions include restaurants, nonprofits, produce bags, and WIC/SNAP participants. Enforcement is complaint-based. Staff recommended a 24-month post-implementation review. Following public testimony, Councilmember Alvarez moved to adopt the staff recommendation with an amendment to include Equinox Center's recommendation for 20% post-consumer recycled content in reusable bags. The motion passed unanimously (3-0).
Key Outcomes
- Approved minutes from October 9, 2013.
- Councilmembers to submit 2014 legislative priorities to the Mayor's Office by November 6, 2013; the legislative program will be heard on December 11, 2013.
- Environmental Services will proceed with environmental review (likely an Environmental Impact Report) for the plastic bag ordinance, expected to take 9–12 months. The final ordinance will return to City Council.
- The adopted motion includes the 20% post-consumer recycled content amendment.
- Staff will research cost recovery for Mount Hope Cemetery and continue stakeholder engagement on small business impacts.
- Lobbyist teams will provide regular updates to council chiefs of staff.
Meeting Transcript
If I could be with you, I'd love you strong. If I could be with you, I'd love you long. I want you to know. Okay. Welcome to today's meeting of the Rules and Economic Development Committee. Let the record reflect we have a quorum consisting of Vice Chair Faulkner, Councilmember Emerald, and myself. Also here with us is committee staff, including Kerry Gleason from the Office of the City Attorney, Jeff Kwar from the Office of the Independent Budget Analyst, Nika Bukalova, the committee consultant, and Jamie Bradford, our representative from the mayor's office. I want to thank you all for being here today. We will begin our agenda with non-agenda public comment. There is none. And there is no request for regulatory streamlining open government and economic development comment. Moving on to committee comment. Is there any committee comment? Any comments from the city attorney, IBA, or mayoral staff. Seeing none, we move to our first order of business, which is the approval of the minutes from the October 9th, 2013 meeting. They are deemed approved unless there are any corrections. Seeing none, the minutes are deemed approved. We do not have a consent agenda this morning, so moving on to item one. It is committee discussion regarding the city's legislative program and related lobbying efforts. Before I introduce our guests, I'd like to turn it over to Ms. Bradford of the mayor's office. She wanted to do an introductory comment. Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for having us this morning. We have today with us our federal and state uh representatives. Um Merrick Gootman and Pamela Welsh from Pat and Boggs and Kevin Slote and Moira Top from Slote Higgins. They have officially been back on board since October 1 and are will be representing us until June 30, 2014, or until the RFP concludes. Today they'll be kind of doing some highlights of 2013 and going over some of the kind of hot topics happening now and coming up in 2014. And this kind of fits in with the memo that Council President Pro Tem Leitner and Inter Mayor Gloria sent last week asking for recommendations from City Council on our 2014 legislative program, which I will return to this committee later this year for your consideration. We're happy to have them back on board. Both teams have a great knowledge and history with the city so they can quickly get up to speed and um represent us in Sacramento and DC. With the firm Patent Boggs in Washington, D.C. They will be providing the first part of this legislative program discussion relating to federal issues. We will take questions related specifically to the federal issues immediately following this presentation, then move on to the presentation for the state lobbyists. We want to be brief in our introductory comments and allow some opportunity for you all to give us input and dis and uh and and ask questions. We have a discussion about the federal relations opportunities or issues going forward. Our objectives to fold in our introductory comments. One is to just give a sense of what's going to be happening for the rest of this calendar year at the federal level around legislative and regulatory issues most relevant to the city, and then offer up some categories of consideration, which touches on different topics that the city has been focused on in the past and where there may be the most ripe uh opportunities going forward as you are thinking about how to structure your calendar year 2014 federal relations agenda. So on the first part, I will turn this over to Pamela, who can discuss where we are at the federal level or where we are not. Pamela um budget discussions have continued to monopolize the federal agenda. Um the recent short-term agreement to address the uh FY14 funding and the debt ceiling uh provided three dates uh in the near future. One is a budget conference where the House and the Senate have to reconcile their budget or attempt to reconcile their budget resolutions by December 13th. That is a non-binding deadline. So if they don't come up with such an agreement, there's no impact on the Federal Government. The CR for FY14 appropriations expires on January 15th, and the debt ceiling extension expires on February 7th, although they can use accounting procedures to extend that probably through March. With regard to the Budget Conference coming up, neither side wants to face another government shutdown, but that doesn't mean that the negotiations are going to be any less contentious than they have been. The House and Senate budget resolutions have extreme philosophical and funding differences. For example, the Senate proposal cuts spending by $315 billion over 10 years and includes revenue over 10 years of $828 billion, whereas the House proposal cuts spending by $5 trillion over 10 years, and also includes some changes to to change Medicare to a block and block grant program. For FY14, the funding differences are $91 billion, although those are all with regard to domestic programs that will impact the city, and also those are priorities for Democrats.
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