PUBLIC GOLF ENDANGERMENT ACT: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

For those of you who have been confused by contradictory reports about the fate of AB 672 (Garcia; D-Bell Gardens), there’s good reason for that. Well after AB 672 died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee (January 20) the Sacramento Bee ran a story that was subsequently picked up by the Southern California News Group and other media consortia that led readers to believe that AB 672 was quite alive and well. This wasn’t true when the stories ran; it isn’t true now.

Per California’s requirement that all 2-year bills pass their legislative house of origin by January 31 of the second year, AB 672 is no more and cannot be acted upon the rest of the 2022 Assembly session unless refiled under a new number and title as a 1-year bill in the 2022 session. A clear strategy to rush this “endangerment act” through the Assembly and over to the Senate before any real vetting of its public policy and fiscal implications could be vetted by Assembly Staff and Assembly Offices was nixed in Appropriations. There’s a reason that Appropriations is often referred to as the place where bad bills go to die.

Assembly Member Garcia has publicly stated her intention to refile AB 672, whether in a form identical to the one that just failed in Appropriations or in amended form won’t be known until she files something. The deadline for filing is February 18. We’ll know by then whether she indeed fulfilled her publicly stated intention.

We take her at her word and expect nothing less, which is why the SCGA has kept the “Save Public Golf” campaign alive on its website – alive with accurate information about the bill’s failure to move out of the Assembly by the Constitutionally mandated January 31 deadline, but also alive so that it can be seamlessly updated with information about the specifics of any refiled bill that while perhaps different in some ways, is sure to be the same in terms of reading California’s municipal golf sector out of the parkland/open space/recreational community of which it has been a part for more than 100 years.

Bottom line: While pleased that AB 672 qua 672 is no more, we have begun to prepare to deal with a refiled version of the “Public Golf Endangerment Act.” We have begun to prepare our local, regional, and national allied associations/organizations, and we have begun to seek out those in the greater recreational/open space community whose blood is also in the water to the degree to which a successful excision of golf from the parks pantheon can only lead to further excisions. We have begun to hone the many public policy, fiscal, historical, and legal arguments that render any version of AB 672 a notion best suited to the dustbin. And we have begun to explore options for bringing on additional support for doing all the things we’ll need to do to counter what promises to be a well-funded, well-organized effort in support of a “new and improved” Public Golf Endangerment Act.

It’s a bad “Act,” but it’s a bad “Act” that has a lot of support from a nascent political movement that calls itself YIMBY (yes in my backyard). They are many. They are organized. They are well-funded. They are focused. They are passionate. They are politically savvy. They hire veteran politicos to manage their well organized, well-funded, focused organizations. For a snapshot of who they are and what they’re about, click the following link to the YIMBY organization, which while national in scope, is very heavily California-centric: https://yimbyaction.org/2021/. The Los Angeles Chapter, which goes under the name, “Abundant Housing,” has just hired a savvy politico as its Executive Director and has elaborate plans for converting the City of Los Angeles’ 9-hole Penmar Golf Course in Venice to housing. When AB 672 was considered last month in the Assembly Housing & Community and Local Government Committees, the two pro speakers were from YIMBY organizations/chapters.

Now for some good news. Golf has arrows in its quiver to deal with whatever comes, and for a refiled Public Endangerment Act in the 2022 Assembly session, here is what is going to come once Assembly Member Garcia refiles:

• 30-day posting/dormancy period in which no action can be taken;
• Housing & Community Development Committee hearing replete with analyses provided by Assembly Housing Staff and Legislative Counsel;
• Local Government Committee hearing replete with parallel objective/non-partisan analyses;
• Appropriations hearing in May;
• Assuming all of the above goes favorably for the bill, Assembly floor vote.

Assuming a favorable floor vote (41 votes), the bill goes over to the Senate for a similarly dilatory process. If all goes well there (that would be badly for golf), over to the Governor for signature or veto.

That’s a long process – considerably longer than the 2-year “rush” we were forced to tackle in January. It gives the California golf community time to amass its arguments and array its stakeholders, albeit time we should not luxuriate in. And let us add, we are not luxuriating in.

A little more good news to gladden your hearts. For the last year the City of Santa Rosa has been contemplating doing precisely what AB 672 would have offered developer incentives to do – repurpose its municipal golf course Bennett Valley as housing. The course was operating in the black, but that did not matter to those in the community who didn’t think golf merited the same consideration as every other park/recreation/open space activity. After doing what every level of government ought to do when confronted with such debates, which is commission an objective 3^rd party study of the matter, the City of Santa Rosa just announced that it had decided to keep the course open, seek new management, and begin investing those net revenues in the capital improvements to, in the words of the City Manager, “improve the asset so that it has a long life.”

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat ran an Editorial Saturday that stated in part the following:
“Santa Rosa’s commitment to golf comes amid rumblings from an anti-golf crowd that even has a voice in Sacramento. Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia has been pushing Assembly Bill 672, which would have encouraged localities to turn their golf courses into affordable housing and public open space by offering cash incentives.”

The bill failed to pass last year, but Garcia, a Democrat from the Los Angeles area, tried to revive it in January. Lawmakers left it in committee to die. But bad bills often don’t stay dead, returning year after year if a lawmaker is enthusiastic about an idea.”

Garcia told Golf magazine that she has nothing against golf. Really? If she had been looking for public land on which to build affordable housing, she could have offered incentives to tear up not just golf courses but soccer fields, parks, playgrounds, abandoned rights of way and public squares. She chose to target golf specifically.”

Click here to read the complete editorial: https://santarosapressdemocrat-ca.newsmemory.com/?publink=0e0e1da17_1348351.

Golf can and routinely does prevail in these kinds of controversies. Golf can prevail in making its case for the high societal value proposition of municipal golf courses in the communities in which they reside. But it has to make its case. It cannot for a minute think that its case is self-evident. It cannot for a minute assume that there are not competing uses for its land that also have great societal merit. The problem with AB 672 isn’t its aim – housing is a huge problem in desperate need of a multi-faceted set of solutions. The problem is that it aims at a solution that causes far more problems than it solves. But unless golf can make that abundantly clear to a world prepared to consider anything and everything that purports to “solve” this desperate problem, the world will not only “consider” it, it will implement it, particularly when, as in this case, there are well organized and funded political forces pushing implementation.

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Not to put a damper on the “good news” with which we closed our Public Endangerment Act update, but we trust everyone has taken note that January was as bone dry as December was wet. A snowpack that was well above average when we celebrated the New Year is now below average and dropping with each passing day of abundant sunshine and unseasonably warm weather, a pattern that the meteorologists tell us is expected to hold until the middle of February. Great for playing golf! Not so great for what is sure to come our way unless Mother Nature reverses course and delivers a wet and snowy late February and March.

Whatever comes our way in the short run, golf forgets at its great peril that California is pretty much a land of permanent drought interrupted from time to time by brief respites from Mother Nature. The game’s long run success in Southern California is going to be dependent upon accelerating the many agronomic practices, technological advancements, and infrastructure investments that have already significantly reduced the game’s water footprint – a solid record to be sure, but one that because of factors beyond the game’s control, needs to keep getting better and better.