SCGA Public Affairs

SCGA Public Affairs Updates

Archived reports on matters where golf and public policy intersect.


PLAY TO YOUR STRENGTHS - AS MUCH A RULE IN ADVOCACY AS IT IS IN LIFE

“CalMatters” is a nonprofit, non-partisan state news service that was created a few years ago to do the kind of in-depth journalism once routinely provided by newspapers and periodicals and now provided scantily if at all only by those media organs funded by charitable contributions or substantial enough to sustain deficits.

Read More → Legislation / Regulation

SEPULVEDA BASIN “VISION PLAN”

A local example but an instructive one in a long string of examples of how a golf association can amass the facts of the matter as opposed to a version of them provided by those intent on repurposing golf course land for their preferred use, make those facts known to the decision-makers, and then rally its members and member clubs behind those “facts” to get a verdict in the public arena favorable to golf’s cause.

Read More → Municipal Golf

2023 LEGISLATIVE SESSION – FINAL WORD

Our last “Update” detailed the one piece of water legislation (AB 1572 – Proscription upon the use of potable water to irrigate nonfunctional turf) that we considered the most positively impactful to the statewide golf community to get signed into law in the 2023 legislative session – “positively impactful” because golf is specifically referenced as “recreational” and/or “functional” turf exempt from the proscription, language sure to be copied and pasted into all sorts of future bills and regulations, not just at the state level, but at the local and regional levels as well.

Read More → Legislation / Regulation

DIRECT POTABLE REUSE GOOD FOR THE COLLECTIVE, A CHALLENGE FOR GOLF

Six years and one month ago in October 2017 the Director penned an article in SCGA’s hard copy magazine FORE entitled, The Era of Recycled Water May be Drawing to a Close.” The kind of recycled water used for outdoor irrigation, that is – nonpotable reuse.

Read More → Water / Environment

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Often attributed to Albert Einstein, who many say wrote it on a blackboard in his Princeton office, its origin is much older than that. However, in this exact form, it appeared in a seminal sociology textbook in 1963 and has been quoted repeatedly since to highlight the fact that certain important matters are simply not amenable to quantification.

Read More → Legislation / Regulation

“MAKING CONSERVATION A CALIFORNIA WAY OF LIFE”

The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is set this Wednesday to open its first public hearing on the Proposed Rule it published August 18 to effectuate what the Governor and others have termed “Making Conservation a California Way of Life.”

Read More → Water / Environment

2023 LEGISLATIVE SESSION TELLS US MUCH ABOUT DIRECTION OF CALIFORNIA WATER LAW

The 2023 session of the California Legislature closed in the waning hours of Thursday night. While some of 2023’s bills have already been passed on to the Governor and signed into law, many more are now on the Governor’s desk for signature or veto, among them AB 1572 (Friedman; D-Burbank), which proscribes the use of potable water to irrigate purely ornamental or non-functional turf.

Read More → Legislation / Regulation

SACRAMENTO UPDATE

As the legislature races to the finish of a session complicated by a budget deficit that cannot be known until the Franchise Tax Board receives Californians’ tax returns in mid-October, here is what we can report now about those bills the golf community has supported in the session, the bills the community has been tracking carefully, and one gut-and-amend job we have brought to your attention for what its fate may be able to inform us about the decibel level of what we have termed “labor’s roar” and others have called “labor’s hot summer.”

Read More → Legislation / Regulation

COLORADO BASIN GOLF & WATER SUMMIT OCTOBER 12 IN LAS VEGAS

The SCGA is pleased to be one of the “supporting sponsors” of the “Colorado Basin Golf & Water Summit” October 12 in Las Vegas, a conference organized initially and primarily by the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) but secondarily organized and supported by the SCGA and many more.

Read More → Water / Environment

HEEDING LABOR’S ROAR

Anyone over a certain age, and even those below a certain age, know something of Yogi Berra’s caveat about predictions – “predictions are a dangerous thing, particularly about the future.”

Read More → Legislation / Regulation
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Update Types

Covid-19

The SCGA is committed to ensuring that golf remains a safe and viable activity during the pandemic.


Legislation / Regulation

The SCGA advocates for the game at those junctures where the game and public policy intersect by engaging elected officials, regulatory agencies, special districts, and commissions and committees of all types.


Municipal Golf

Municipal golf’s continued success is key to the game’s continued success, and SCGA Governmental Affairs is laser focused on promoting policies conducive of that success.


Water / Environment

SCGA is committed to reducing the water footprint of the game in a manner consistent with sound agronomic practice and conducive of long-term sustainability.