AB 1991, the bill that emerged from the city’s March settlement agreement with Keenan, has faced nonstop intransigence since arriving at the state Senate. Unlike the comparative ease with which it zipped through the Assembly side of the Legislature, the bill has been stuck in the Senate Rules Committee for six weeks. There is little public evidence of the efficacy of a five-figure lobbying campaign on behalf of city interests.
Now with less than a week left before voting on the Senate floor begins, city and state officials are beginning to look at an alternate strategy: accepting the $18 million hit mandated in the settlement should the bill fail and hedging the damage.
|
|
The assemblyman says that his staff has been planning for the possibility that the bill might not make it, ever since AB 1991 began encountering obstacles in the Senate. As part of that preparation, Mullin says that he authored two extra “vehicle” bills — empty, inactive legislation that act as placeholders — at the beginning of the legislative season.
Mullin says that new language could be quickly added to one of the vehicle bills, making a new piece of legislation that could give some state aid to Half Moon Bay. Mullin could not say specifically what such an aid bill could do for the city, but its goal would be to ease the damage done to the city by the $18 million loss.
“If there’s going to be an alternate version of the bill, we need to have that available pretty soon,” Mullin said. “My desire with the legislation is to make Half Moon Bay as whole as possible.”
As written in the settlement agreement, if Half Moon Bay paid the $18 million to Keenan, the city would become owner of the Beachwood property. Opponents of AB 1991 have argued that the city could recoup its massive loss to Keenan through limited development on the property. City consultants have rejected this idea, saying it would take years to develop the property and cost between $9 and $46 million.
Legislative staff members have previously speculated that an alternative to AB 1991 could order the California Coastal Commission and other state agencies to streamline their oversight process for developing Beachwood and Glencree, thus saving the city money and time.
While proponents of the legislation have begun to take a nuanced look at alternatives, officially all the city’s representatives involved in the Senate negotiations are still holding out for some iteration of AB 1991 that can save the city from the $18 million loss.
But others involved in the Senate Rules Committee negotiations say AB 1991 is essentially dead.
Although closed-door Legislature negotiations are kept close to the vest, sources close to those negotiations say that about a dozen amended versions of AB 1991 have each failed to pass out of the Rules Committee.
By all accounts, compromise cannot be struck merely by amending facets of the bill because the conflict stems from the core purpose of the legislation: exempting Beachwood and Glencree from environmental regulation.
“You can’t nullify and wipe away environmental laws. You can’t eliminate coastal protection laws,” said Sen. Leland Yee, who briefly was listed as a supporter of the bill in principle before abruptly changing course to become one of its most vocal critics in the Capitol. “Some of the city’s representatives continue to hope that they can revive Mullin’s bill, but I don’t believe that’s true.”
Yee says that unless the bill is rewritten so that it contains no environmental exemptions, the bill will not get out of the Rules Committee.
Staff members working for Sen. Don Perata, the chair of the Rules Committee, say the bill is being held back from a floor vote because it doesn’t have the support needed to pass.
“We’re still waiting for there to be a compromise,” said Lynda Gledhill, spokeswoman for Perata.
Half Moon Bay officials have also begun ramping up preparations in case AB 1991 fails.
While Keenan has aided the city in supporting the legislation, the developer has said that he intends to collect his $18 million if the city cannot deliver development rights for the Beachwood and Glencree properties.
Given that dire situation, Half Moon Bay, which operates on an annual budget of about $11.6 million, would have to float a bond in order to remain intact. An $18 million bond has been estimated to cost the city about $1.3 million annually for 40 years.
City Manager Marcia Raines says that the city’s executive team has begun planning for that eventuality.
“We’re looking at what the impact would be on city services if we have to pay the $18 million, and what we would have to do to make the payments,” Raines said. “We’re working on some scenarios, but they’re in the draft stage at this point.”
Raines and other city officials remain hopeful that AB 1991 can still gather enough support to pass through the Senate.
“I’m doing this one day at a time,” said Mayor Bonnie McClung. “I’m still hopeful that we’ll have a resolution by the end of this session.”
w