Advocacy Day Focuses on East Bay Policy Priorities

The East Bay Leadership Council organized a joint Advocacy Day with East Bay EDA and Innovation Tri-Valley Leadership Group in Sacramento where we met with state legislators and key leadership staff last week.

The meetings illuminated the growing momentum for creative solutions to the East Bay’s housing crisis, the need for bipartisan leadership for critical infrastructure funding, and better preparing our local workforce for the business demands of the future.

“Last year, I did not intend to do a single bill on housing,” said Assemblymember Thurmond. But after the East Bay Assemblymember organized several town halls it became clear that addressing the housing crisis could not wait.

In response Thurmond authored AB 2406 which works to lower the regulatory costs required to convert a space in your home into an accessory dwelling unit (ADU).

Senator Bob Wieckowski is also passionate about decreasing the costs on homeowners to create ADUs and proved it by authoring SB 1069 (discussed in last month’s newsletter).

Senator Wieckowski put the barriers in real terms and shared that “if you want to build a 600 square ft cottage in Fremont, it is going to cost $65,000 just for the privilege.”

That reality is not isolated to Fremont and the EBLC is proud to support SB 1069 and other creative solutions for addressing the East Bay’s housing crisis.

But not all of the discussion was focused on housing (unlike Part II of the East Bay Leadership Series). The group discussed transportation funding throughout the day and all agreed that passing any funding package will prove difficult in an election year where bipartisanship can be hard to come by.

Art Dao of the Alameda County Transportation Commission put the need to clear infrastructure investment’s political hurdles in urgent terms to the electeds and staff who met with the group.

“I have always said that the Port of Oakland was the 5th largest port in the United States, but I can’t say that anymore. The port is now only the 10th largest because the lack of infrastructure caused some shippers to leave,” said Dao.

Assemblywoman Catharine Baker did not deny the urgent need or the political barriers in the way of infrastructure investment, but made clear that you will not find her standing in the way.

To successfully reach a compromise on infrastructure funding Baker said “she is ready to sit down and talk about new sources of revenue that could earn bipartisan consensus” including a fee on low emission vehicles, but was not interested in increasing the ever-unpopular gas tax.

A key provision of new revenue for Baker would be putting those funds in “a lock box for transportation” protected by at least a two-thirds vote of the legislature.

“Whatever the infrastructure solution is going to be, it needs to be bipartisan and two Republicans is not bipartisan,” said Baker who was adamant that compromise like what displayed on the recent passage of the MCO Tax is possible if both sides are willing to set aside their sacred cows and discuss reform and revenue.

Buck Koonce of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was passionate about the need for infrastructure investment and housing in order to ensure that the National Laboratory can hire the workforce it needs.

“Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory needs to hire 3,000 people in the next two years. The Lab can’t do that without housing for the workforce and adequate transportation infrastructure to get those people to work.” Koonce made it clear that without progress on housing availability and affordability that those jobs would go to other states, including New Mexico.

As the day came to a close the group had met with six state legislators, the chief of staff to the Assembly Speaker, the legislative director to the Assembly Minority Leader, and heard from Susan Bransen, the Executive Director of the California Transportation Commission over lunch.

The packed schedule provided for thoughtful discussion on a wide range of policy issues (too much to capture here) that highlighted the importance of the Council staying engaged on these key issues in a way that conveys the breadth and depth of our membership to our elected officials. EBLC encourages you to scroll through our twitter feed from the day for an in depth look at our trip to the Sacramento.