Close to Death 2 weeks ago AB 1910 springs back to life
After pulling AB 1910 from the April 6 docket of the Assembly Local Government Committee, bill author Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) has now set it for a hearing on April 27, which is 2 days before the deadline for bills to pass out of committee. Fiscal bills that don’t pass out of their respective policy committees of reference by the 29th die.
Ms. Garcia pulled the bill on the 6th because it did not then have the votes necessary to pass out of committee due to what we believe to be opposition from two key Democratic members of the committee. It was not placed on the regular meeting of the Local Government Committee set for tomorrow (20th), an indicator that Ms. Garcia has likely been trying to amend AB 1910 to curry the favor of at least one of the recalcitrant Democrats, who we believe to be Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).
Indeed, that’s exactly what Assembly Member Garcia indicated in a Friday CalMatters podcast that we would strongly encourage you to listen to for a number of reasons – not just to confirm what may be going on in terms of finding the amendments necessary to get AB 1910 out of committee, but to listen carefully to what Garcia and her media hosts, one of whom is the housing writer for the Los Angeles Times, think about the utility of golf courses in densely packed neighborhoods – that and just as importantly, the picture of the housing problem in some of those neighborhoods that Ms. Garcia paints so vividly. It’s the “Gimme Shelter” podcast and can be found at www.calmatters.org.
We strongly suspect that an op-ed that the Southern California News Group carried Sunday April 10 on the front page of the Opinion Section of the Los Angeles Daily News, Long Beach Telegram, Riverside Press Enterprise, Torrance Daily Breeze, and Orange County Register breathed a little life into Ms. Garcia’s cause. It was penned by Marc Joffe of the Reason Foundation; a libertarian think tank that has long taken issue with all sorts of public sector activities that most Americans find integral parts of life. An interesting confluence of political left and right to be sure and one that ought to get the attention of a besieged golf community. We would share a link to it, but it is so full of cherry-picked facts and intellectually dishonest argumentation that we don’t want to give it any more play than it has received already.
Garcia has not filed any amendments yet, and there is no guarantee that we’ll see them in a timely fashion. We have to believe there are amendments on their way, assuming they can be worked out to the satisfaction of prior opposers and supporters. If not, the bill very well could be pulled again.
We suggested this possibility when we reported April 6’s reversal of fortune. We pledged to remain vigilant through the end of April, and we have. Golfers can remain vigilant by continuing to express their opinions to their legislators. Nothing matters more.
Are you interested in becoming an advocate for golf in California? The CGCOA is seeking amateur golfers who are passionate about protecting the game of golf and promoting public policies that enable golf to flourish in California. Take the next step to becoming an advocate for golf by completing the attached Golf is Good Ambassador Application.
Read More →FORE - The magazine of the SCGA. Find archived Public Affairs articles on the website of the SCGA's award winning quarterly publication.
Read More →Four Los Angeles City Council members introduced a motion yesterday that seeks to crack down on what the motion describes as “black-market tee time brokers” who book and resell city golf course tee times for profit.
Read More →When introduced by Assembly Member Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) February 16, AB 3192 contained a provision that would have banned the use of all nonorganic pesticides and fertilizers on golf resorts in California’s Coastal Zone.
Read More →A cautionary tale from semi-rural Santa Barbara County to remind you that the pressure to repurpose golf courses is not just a phenomenon in California’s densely packed urban cores.
Read More →The National Golf Course Owners Association’s (NGCOA) Harvey Silverman may have characterized the City of Los Angeles’ uncommonly quick reaction to intense media scrutiny (five separate Los Angeles Times stories including a Sunday lead editorial) of the depredations of tee time brokering with his quip in the organization’s “Golf Business Weekly” about the city having reacted “faster than fixing potholes.”
Read More →Every year there seems to be one bill filed in one house of the California Legislature that keeps the California golf community up at night.
Read More →Here's the difference this last week made, and it’s a difference not just in terms of the alacrity with which we can expect the major municipal golf systems to begin implementing mitigations, but also in terms of what the week means in terms of disabusing all notions of golf somehow being underutilized and golfers not as passionate about the object of their affection as others are about theirs.
Read More →With respect to the furor over tee time brokers making it nearly impossible for Los Angeles Basin’s public golfers to secure tee times at almost any time of the day or week, let’s just say that we’ve seen this picture before.
Read More →