August 30, 2026 · Governmental Organization · 3,456 words · 13 speakers · 70 segments
Thank you. Thank you. Here we go. Hello. Good afternoon. We'll call the GO hearing at 4 p.m. We will start as the subcommittee. Thank you, Senator Groh, for being here. Please come. We can get you out of here quickly, hopefully. And then, Sergeant, please call the absent members. I know there's committees going on. And yes, thank you.
Senator Grove. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm proud to present SB 931, a bipartisan measure designating September 25th as Dolly Pardon Day in California. First, I want to start by thanking the chair for not only having the bill today, but also So she's a true icon whose impact. Dolly Parton is a true icon with impact that goes beyond music. Her philanthropic work was unmatched, and one of her greatest achievements was the Imagination Library, which provides free books to young children. It helps foster a love for reading in the early ages while improving literacy rates. I was so honored to partner with my bestie, former Senate pro-tem Tony Atkins, to pass ASB 1183, securing $68 million to bring the Imagination Library statewide all 58 counties. Through that historic partnership, California became one of the first states in the nation to offer fully bilingual books for English and Spanish. And just to share a short story, in my district office, a few months after the program had started, a six-year-old brought her mom and a four-year-old little brother into the office. And the six-year-old translated and said, my mom is learning English. And the mom quoted Llama Llama Red Pajama in English and in Spanish, and she had a big smile on her face. So I thought that was pretty cool. Dolly Parton brought people together of all backgrounds together through her unmatched generosity, love, kindness. She brought it to vulnerable children, children's hospitals, underserved communities, families, the LGBTQ community, the old, the young, the right, the left, anyone she came in contact with. SB 931 officially honors that extraordinary legacy in California on September 25th, the date inspired by her famous anthem, 925. Respectfully ask for an aye vote at the appropriate time. Thank you.
Any members of the audience in support?
Yeah, I just, it's Keith Dunn here on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council. As the member mentioned, this is a woman who came up from nothing, represented not only the people that she came from as working class, but brought in everyone. And on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council, which tries to do the same thing and emulate that behavior, we're here to support this measure. Thank you.
Any other members in support? I'm sorry, members of the audience in support? Okay, anyone in opposition? Better not come up. I'm just teasing. Anyone in opposition? Okay, hearing none, committee members? Yes, Assemblymember Dixon?
I fully support. I'd love to be a co-author. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there a motion? I'll make a motion. We don't have a quorum yet. Oh, okay. Assemblymember Rodriguez?
Yes, I'd like to be added as a co-author as well, if I haven't already.
Yes, we'll take a list of members that want to be added as co-authors. Okay. I've got to go to Puttintin. Yes, thank you.
It's so good to see you, Senator Grove, and you and I have talked about how special Dolly was to both of us. And one thing that I think since she's passed is you always wonder what people are going to say about you after you're gone. And I think the fact that so many people have had nothing but wonderful and lovely and happy things to say about Dolly speaks to her legacy. And we'll never forget that rhinestones and lipstick can fix a lot of problems. But I think the world's going to miss her and we need love like Dolly had. So thank you for bringing this forward.
Any other members? Okay, well, I'll make a comment. One of my favorite songs is My Quote of Many Colors. And I thought it was just a song. And then when I heard the story, I literally was crying. You know, she's amazing. And as a teacher, what she did for the communities, bringing the books to people in masses was amazing. And I think the other quote from her is, if you see somebody without a smile, give them one. And I share your sentiment I think across cultures and partisan all of the things that we usually fight about We never fought about Dolly Parton So thank you for bringing that up And just to be clear
she says, I need your help. And I was like, absolutely, let's do this. So we're here. And so thank you for authoring it. And of course, I'll get you a list of all of us that want to be co-authors. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. And just not to be political and not to, But I looked online and the National Communist Party, the DSA, the Democrats, the Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Independent Party, every one of them came out with glowing statements about this incredible woman. And somebody might ask what the urgency and why not wait. The urgency is that 20 other states are already doing this. And nobody's picked 9 to 5, 925. And so Senator Laird came up with that. And I'm like, let's do this. And I just appreciate all of you guys for supporting the bill and respectfully ask for an I vote. Thank you.
With that, we just lost quorum. But it's okay. We'll take it up as soon as one more member comes. Yes, Assemblymember Dixon, you had a comment? Okay.
Yeah, as soon as one more member comes, we should have taken quorum, but we're too busy in the conversation.
Thank you, Senator. I can guarantee you it's going to get out. Thank you. Senator Rubio. SB 1228, Senator Rubio, you may begin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is this on?
Yes.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Ladies and gentlemen of the Assembly, thank you for allowing me to present this bill. SB 1228 is a bill that is narrowly tailored to support economic activity in some of our areas in our community. The goal of SB 1228 is simply and has two parts. First, it allows our small number of existing outdoor advertising displays to continue operating under current law rather than abruptly shut down due to statutory sunsets. The second is recent amendments that we included. They're technical and they're clarifying language that ensures that one outdoor billboard sign located in Los Angeles outside the convention center is included in the existing bill. It enables the Sea of Los Angeles to generate an additional $5 million in revenue.
Senator, may I stop you for a second? We have quorum, so that way we can establish quorum. I know everybody's running around. So, Madam Secretary, can you call the roll, please? On the quorum, Rubio?
Here. Rubio here.
Davies?
Here. Davies here.
Alvarez?
Berman?
Here.
Berman here.
Brian? Carrillo? Carrillo here. Chen? Chen here. Chen here. Dixon? Dixon here. Fong. Gabriel. Gibson. Macedo. Here. Macedo here. McKenner. Here. McKenner here. Nguyen. Pacheco. Ramos. Here. Ramos here. Rodriguez. Sanchez. Solache. Present. Solache present. Zoria. Here. Zoria here. Ta. Valencia. Wallace. Here. Wallace here. Gabriel. Here. Gabriel here. We have a quorum. Thank you. We've established the quorum. You may continue. Just thank you.
This bill will help Los Angeles in a much-needed time to generate revenues. But with me, I have a guest, Christy Weiss, who will just shortly present on behalf of this bill.
Thank you.
Good afternoon, Christy Weiss with Capital Advocacy here on behalf of AEG in support. The senator explained it very well. She's been gracious enough to take some amendments that clarify the signage around the Los Angeles Convention Center. These are technical and clarifying, and we very much appreciate the senator's willingness to partner with us and the work of the committee to get these drafted and drafted correctly. And we ask your aye vote.
Move the bill.
Okay. Motion by Assemblymember Davies. And I heard it over there. Wallace. Okay. Can Madam Secretary, can you call? Oh, sorry. I'm sorry. Yes. and anybody in the audience for support. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Keith Dunhar on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council, asking for your support.
Thank you.
Madam Chair, Yvonne Fernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Labor Unions in support.
Thank you. Anyone in opposition may come up to the dais or to the table. No. Any members of the audience in opposition? Okay, Assemblymember McKenna.
Hello, Madam Chair and Senator. I just want, most respectfully, I oppose SB 1228 by Senator Rubio and Senator Smallwood Cuevas, which is hard. So you guys know this is a hard opposition for me. While I have a great respect for the authors and support the efforts to provide additional revenue for the Los Angeles Convention Center, SB 1228 was recently amended to double join the measure with AB 2717. The proposal is not limited to the LA Convention Center or the Dodger Stadium. This proposal reopens the window for the proliferation of billboards in my district in Inglewood. But, you know, this has a grave harm for us. Such a dramatic increase in billboards will cause blight and have a severe, harmful impact on the city of Inglewood's finances that rely upon his existing billboard contract to pay for public safety and other essential services. And so with this, I respect the authors. I respect people wanting to do something for their district. I do it and I ask you guys to vote on it every year since I've been here. But this one will really affect my district in a negative way. If this does pass on the floor, I am going to come back next year and I'm going to ask for you guys' help to help me fix this for the city of Englewood. Because if you look around at most of these convention centers, new stadiums, when you look in those communities, downtown is doing pretty good. But we been through blight We been up and down on downtown LA But a lot of these areas are filled with blight because these big arenas move in but they not necessarily doing the things that they should do for the community And with that, you know, we Englewood has been fighting with about these billboards and they got the right from the courts to have them. And so now we want to we don't want legislation to go around those decisions and undo what already has been done. And so with that, I'll have to oppose the bill.
Thank you. Any other comments? Assemblymember Dixon.
Thank you. I know there's no opposition speaking on this. Well, then I have a question because the California State Outdoor Advertising Association is opposed. Could you just explain why they are opposed and their concern?
Thank you.
Well, first of all, thank you. And I want to just acknowledge the comments of my good colleague here, Assemblymember McKinner. And, you know, I understand this issue very, very well, and I don't disagree with your comments. I just want to clarify that, you know, this bill started very specifically because we have some billboards that have been in existing since redevelopment. in particular when I was a councilwoman, we had some billboards and then we put a sunset and all of a sudden these billboards that generate positive income for our communities would have to disappear. So this was very narrowly tailored to two that were in existing since, you know, many decades ago. And then the Los Angeles had the need and I had to work with my colleague Lola Smallwood Cuevas who have the need to include the one in Los Angeles. And we were very specific about very tight language because I did not want what the good assembly member just stated for it to just become a free-for-all. And I was very clear that I needed the language to be very, very tight. And so I'm going to turn it over to Christy to kind of talk about the bills that you just stated and how they work together. Thank you, Senator.
The language that you're referring to, Assemblymember McKinner, is the chaptering language. It's not the language related to the convention center. It's because both this bill and the bill you're referring to by Assemblymember Colosa amend the same code section of the BMP code. Ledge Council drafted chaptering language, and the senator's staff is checking with legislative council to confirm that, in fact, it is drafted correctly, that it does not put both bills together, but that it is just straight chaptering language, signing order language. So we're working on getting clarification on that the Senator's chief of staff is checking. He's checking. And like I said, everything you said, I echo that because I was very clear that it needed to be very tight language around everything that you stated. So I won't belabor it since I know we have to go back and vote, but anything that I can do to make sure that you're comfortable with it. I will definitely come back in, and right now we're out of time, so I'll just defer to you, but I will work with you to make sure that we take your comments into consideration. Thank you.
With that, I ask for an aye vote.
Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Well, my question was following that is why is the Outdoor Advertising Association opposed, and they cite something about the loss of federal dollars. So what is all of that about?
Go ahead.
I'm just going to say, I believe they were opposed to the bill previous to this amendment and are just opposed to the bill. Yes. So the language they're referring to is the RDA provision. We passed that bill on 624, June 24th, and the vote out of here was 20 to 0. So they're opposed to that language, and that's why the clarification of the conjoining has to happen. We work closely with the senator to to to restrict that to one particular billboard and it all got connected. And that's why we're clarifying that, you know, that it's not connected. So we're working with the senator's office to clarify if we have to come back in January to to redo that. But the bill that they're opposed to was passed on June 24th, not out of this committee.
Then a follow-up question. I just read quickly, it's all happening very fast here, that this bill would permit for every, if I understand it correctly, please correct me if I misunderstand this, for every certain arena sports facility could have two additional billboards. Is this true for all over the state?
Yes, but it has to go through the same exact process that we're going through right now. And the local and the legislative process, we don't...
So even though it's in the law that they could apply for it, is that what you're saying to be authorized?
It's not a guarantee. It has to go through the same regulatory process and through the same local approval process.
But there's still an issue of withholding federal highway funds.
Well, that's always under threat, right? I mean, that's any billboard exemption.
Does that happen?
No, there has not been any of those funds directly. That's always under fear of threat any time you do a billboard exemption.
Okay. It just gives me concern about, I know the unsightly billboards in Los Angeles, and are they neon and digital and all that? High electronic signage is kind of problematic for a lot of people. But anyway, I appreciate your clarification.
Yeah, no, no, no. Thank you for the questions. We're not trying to, you know, this was last minute opposition. But again, it's regarding the bill on June 24th. But when we were working with the senator's office, the senator and senator's office, we were trying to clarify that it was one specific billboard, but it got convoluted because of the other bill. And so that's what we're working on right now to make sure that the concerns that Assemblymember McKinner just stated are not part of this. So in January, they're clarifying right now. If the clarification is it's fine, then it's going to be fine without connecting those bills. It'll need to be fixed.
Right.
And if there is a fix, then we will potentially do that. And we've done billboard fights forever. But every time we want to expand the billboards, the federal government threatens that if we don't do it correctly, then they're going to withhold funds. So that why we have to go through the regulatory process and we also have to go through Caltrans to make sure that that doesn happen Okay Thank you very much But we make sure that we keep everybody posted on this Again when we started this process we didn know that this was going to happen. And so that's why we've asked the Senator's office to make sure that it's clarified one. And if it needs fixing, we're going to do that immediately. Okay. Very good. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. I have a motion. Nope. I need a motion. Okay. Sorry. Motion by assembly member Solache, second by assembly member Rodriguez. Okay. And everybody else. Madam secretary. Yes. And you may close.
No, thank you. And thank you for expressing your concerns. So yes, I'm in agreement. I am in agreement and my goal is to get it really narrowly tied to to address your concerns. Thank you. And with that, I ask for an aye vote. Thank you.
Thank you. Madam Secretary, can you call the roll? SB 1228, Senator Rubio, the motion is due pass. Rubio?
Aye. Rubio, aye. Davies?
Davies, aye. Alvarez?
Berman? Aye.
Berman, aye. Brian? Aye. Brian, aye. Carrillo? Aye. Carrillo, aye. Chen? Aye. Chen, aye. Dixon?
Not voting.
Dixon not voting. Fong? Aye. Fong, aye. Gabriel? Aye. Gabriel, aye. Gibson? Aye. Gibson, aye. Macito? Aye. Macito, aye. Nguyen? Pacheco? Aye. Pacheco, aye. Ramos? Aye. Ramos, aye. Rodriguez? Aye. Rodriguez, aye. Solache? Aye. Solache, aye. Soria? Aye. Soria, aye. Ta? Aye. Ta, aye. Valencia? Aye. Valencia, aye. Wallace? Aye. Wallace, aye. Did I skip McKenna? McKenna?
McKenna, no.
Well, we just voted on the signed bill. We didn't do Dolly Parton. How many votes? All right. That bill has 18 votes. Thank you. And then if we open the roll for the Dolly Parton bill. We already have a motion and a second. We have a motion and a second. SB 931 Grove. The motion is due pass. Rubio? Aye. Rubio aye. Davies? Aye. Davies aye. Alvarez? Aye. Alvarez aye. Berman? Oh, we didn't have the thing. Berman aye. Brian? Aye. Brian aye. Carrillo? Aye. Carrillo aye. Chen? Aye. Chen aye. Dixon? Aye. I'd like to be added as a co-author. Dixon, aye. Gabriel? Gabriel, aye. Gibson? Aye. Gibson, aye. Macedo? Aye. Macedo, aye. McKenner? Aye. McKenner, aye. Wyn? Aye. Aye. Aye. I have Fong as in aye. Fong, aye. I have Wyn as in aye. Pacheco? Pacheco, aye. Ramos before you go if you would like to be out of the co-author please let us know and we'll add you Ramos I can't hear Ramos Ramos aye Rodriguez aye Solache aye Soria aye Ta Ta aye Valencia Valencia, aye. Wallace, aye. Okay, co-authors. Okay, co-authors. We have me, Soria. I'll ask everybody. Wallace. Gibson. Berman. I'll send them a little. Okay. Thank you. The meeting's adjourned. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Open the roll for Rubio's bill. Yeah. Opening the roll on SB 1228, Rubio. Alvarez. Aye. Alvarez, aye. When. Aye. When, aye. Did you check secret co-authors on that? Oh, yeah. She was. That's this one. Alvarez, co-author, right? He said yes. Oh, Alvarez, too. Everybody said yes. Avelino, co-author? Yeah. Ramos, did you want to be a co-author? On the Dolly Parton? Yes. Co-author, Dolly Parton, aye. Elisolache. Okay, we said Alvarez. Did Dave? Aye. Co-author, Dolly Parton, aye. Gibson said he wanted to be a co-author, yeah. Solache. Hi. That was a wire. Okay. You'll double check that. Did we do the Dolly Branton? Yeah. Did we have Rodriguez as a co-author? Yes. Yes. Rodriguez? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Okay. All right. You're free to adjourn. Okay. We are adjourning the meeting at 425 p.m. Thank you. Thank you.