Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Tuesday, February 21, 2023

Not all of the 19^th Century rules governing the rhythms of California’s legislative session are without value. The one requiring that bills must sit idle for a minimum of 30 days after filing is one of them. This gives everyone plenty of time to sift through the roughly 2,500 bills that were filed for consideration this session, most of which were filed within 10 days of last Friday’s deadline.

Upon completion of our “sift,” we’ll have a solid idea not only of which bills to track, but also which bills among those have traction. Many of the 2,500 filings are more performative than substantive, although today’s performance is often positioning for tomorrow’s traction. And that too merits tracking in terms of paying close heed to the arguments raised and the arguers who raise them.

Here are the early returns from Friday’s deadline. We are sure to find more in the coming week.

AB-363 Pesticides: neonicotinoids for nonagricultural use: reevaluation: regulations. [Bauer-Kahan; D-San Ramon]
This bill would require the department, by July 1, 2024, to publish a reevaluation of the latest science regarding the impacts of neonicotinoid pesticides, as defined, on pollinating insects, aquatic ecosystems, and human health when used for the nonagricultural protection of outdoor ornamental plants, trees, and turf, and, by July 1, 2026, to adopt regulations governing that use that are necessary to protect the health of honeybees, native bees, and other pollinating insects, aquatic ecosystems, and human health, as provided. [Click here to read a PDF version of the entire bill]

A stronger bill in terms of outright banning the use of neonicotinoids for nonagricultural use was vetoed by Governor Newsom last year. His veto message expressed concern about circumventing the state’s regulatory process while the Department of Pesticide Regulation was considering new regulations pertaining to both agricultural and nonagricultural uses.

Although the pollinators the bill aims to protect do not feast on turf, neonics do play a role in golf course turf management. Their loss would leave a hole in the game’s pest control toolbox. However, their use in golf is much more akin to the agricultural application that is being exempted than it is to the urban/suburban backyard use that would seem to be the aim of the bill’s co-sponsor Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) did make this point in its veto plea to Governor Newsom. Whether that plea proved dispositive, or part of a greater compelling argument from similarly situated sectors, may remain to be seen in the 2023 legislative session, where no doubt GCSAA and its allied partners within the California Alliance for Golf (CAG) will make the same plea for a parallel exemption for a golf course use restricted to licensed applicators and more closely regulated than required by current practice. It’s important to note that CAG is not opposed to restrictions upon neonicotinoids; it merely questions a blunderbuss approach that ensnares harmless applications.

AB-1572 Potable water: nonfunctional turf. [Friedman; D-Burbank]
This bill would make legislative findings and declarations concerning water use, including that the use of potable water to irrigate nonfunctional turf is wasteful and incompatible with state policy relating to climate change, water conservation, and reduced reliance on the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem. The bill would direct all appropriate state agencies to encourage and support the elimination of irrigation of nonfunctional turf with potable water. This bill would prohibit the use of potable water, as defined, for the irrigation of nonfunctional turf located on commercial, industrial, municipal, institutional, and multifamily residential properties, as specified.

This is one of two bills (AB 1573 in addition) that Assembly Member Friedman has filed to make clear the state’s desire to phase out the use of potable water to irrigate those categories of turf deemed nonfunctional. As part of the class of “Special Landscape Areas (SLA’s),” golf along with parks, sports fields, and cemeteries are considered “functional” turf.

AB 1573 clearly maintains this, stating emphatically, “Nonfunctional turf” means turf that is solely ornamental and not regularly used for human recreational purposes or for civic or community events. Nonfunctional turf does not include sports fields and turf that is regularly used for human recreational purposes or for civic or community events.”

However, AB 1572 makes special reference to one longtime member of the SLA class in a way amenable to interpretation as opening others to excision: “Nonfunctional turf” means any turf that is not located in areas designated by a property owner or a government agency for recreational use or public assembly. Nonfunctional turf does not include turf located in cemeteries.

As a sector defined in too many minds as too much land that uses too much water to serve the too few who have had too much for too long, golf would be wise to take note of this potential opening and recognize that in a Capitol sure to be consumed with a permanent loss of Colorado River allocation, there may be legislators keen to consider excising certain disfavored members of the current SLA Class. We don’t suggest that Laura Friedman is in that group. She harbors no hostility toward the California golf community; indeed, she has been warm to golf. But given the moment, the environmental community’s strong support of these bills, palpable hostility to golf among a minority of legislators, and the increasing realization that Mother Nature not only didn’t but isn’t capable of bailing out a long overallocated Colorado Basin in the throes of its worst drought in 1,500 years – well, suffice it to say golf beware.

Click here to read AB 1572. Click here to read AB 1573.

SB-423 Land use: streamlined housing approvals: multifamily housing developments. [Wiener; D-San Francisco]

This bill would authorize the Department of General Services to act in the place of a locality or local government, at the discretion of that department, for purposes of the ministerial, streamlined review for development on property owned by or leased to the state. The bill would delete the January 1, 2026, repeal date, thereby making these provisions operative indefinitely.

This bill would modify the above-described objective planning standards, including by deleting the standard that prohibits a multifamily housing development from being subject to the streamlined, ministerial approval process if the development is located in a coastal zone, and by providing an alternative definition for “affordable housing costs” for a development that dedicates 100% of units, exclusive of a manager’s unit or units, to lower income households. The bill would, among other modifications, delete the objective planning standards requiring development proponents to pay at least the general prevailing rate of per diem wages and utilize a skilled and trained workforce and would instead require a development proponent to certify to the local government that certain wage and labor standards will be met, including a requirement that all construction workers be paid at least the general prevailing rate of wages, as specified. [Click here to read the Legislative Counsel’s Summary. The bill is excruciatingly detailed; those with such appetite can click here to read the full bill]

This bill, for which there is a companion version in the Assembly from Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland, Chair of Housing Committee), promises to be one of the most scrutinized and consequential bills in the 2023 hopper. The way we would boil down its 39 pages is as follows. The controlling piece of legislation regarding the incentivization of affordable housing, SB 35, also authored by Senator Wiener, has proven nettlesome in part due to what developers find two key obstacles: 1) A too high percentage “affordable” requirement, and 2) a set of labor standards that make “affordability” unattainable. SB 423 purports to solve the 2^nd obstacle in a way that renders the 1^st obstacle moot. While it has secured the endorsement of some sectors of California’s labor community, most notably the Carpenters, it has thus far incurred the opposition of the Building Trades, presaging in our view a replay of last year’s drama concerning Buffy Wicks’ AB 2011, which managed at the last minute to find the sweet spot of common ground to earn the support of the Building Trades and become law – in the minds of many political commentators and soothsayers an epochal achievement that contains the promise of actually constructing housing in this housing starved state.

While we don’t see or anticipate any direct assaults on California’s golf stock like AB 672 or 1910 in this session and are gratified that Cristina Garcia’s old Assembly District is now represented by Blanca Pacheco (D-Downey), a member of the Latina Golfers Association, we trust you understand the wisdom in tracking any and all bills that take control over planning decisions away from local cities and repose them in Sacramento – and repose them by right per the truncated permitting processes euphemistically referred to as “ministerial.”

Golf cannot escape nor much mitigate its encumbrance of large swaths of contiguous land in precisely those urban/suburban enclaves ripe for housing. Any who doubt just how critical the state deems its housing shortage need only read the state’s latest report card. Bills like SB 423 are going to keep coming quickly and furiously for as long as Californians of all stripes, locations, and political affiliations identify housing as their number one concern. So are the bills that keep moving housing up and open space/recreation down in the Surplus Land Act’s assignments of priority.

While golf can prevent being singled out among the many other land uses also ripe for housing, it cannot stop the stampede toward those obviations of local control and those assignments of priority capable of breaking the logjam that has long prevented the state from meeting its residents’ housing needs, albeit if California keeps hemorrhaging 500,000 souls, we may be closer to meeting our housing needs than we think. Of course, there are serious consequences to any city, region, or state that becomes hollowed out.

What golf can do is everything within its power to make real a community value proposition not founded on an economic metric guaranteed to make a compelling case for housing and other commercial uses, otherwise known as the traditional economic impact report (spoiler alert: Golf lags far behind other uses in terms of employment generation, tax generation, and economic multiplier effects), but founded upon the many quality of life, quality of environment, and quality of community values the game uniquely provides the places in which golf courses are located.

Call us foolish if you like but as persons responsible for getting results in a rather tough environment, we find it wise to lead with strengths, not weaknesses, albeit we do very much take our weaknesses into account with every strength we project.

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency signed a partnership agreement Monday (September 19) with the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America (GCSAA) pledging a commitment to environmental stewardship and environmental sustainability on golf courses everywhere.

“Our biggest advances in protecting human health and the environment come from working together,” said EPA Mid Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz.  “This partnership with GCSAA will go a long way in benefitting surrounding communities while also enhancing our ongoing dedication to greenspaces, clean water and healthy air.”

During an event at the Langston Municipal Golf Course in Washington, D.C., officials from EPA and GCSAA signed a Memorandum of Understanding that enhances their joint commitment to share information on environmental issues, to promote best practices, to address industry challenges in a joint effort to protect and enhance the environment.

“This partnership between the EPA and GCSAA is the culmination of decades of collaboration and environmental stewardship on golf courses,” said GCSAA Chief Executive Officer Rhett Evans. “By implementing science-based best management practices, golf course superintendents have made theses public greenspaces more sustainable than ever before.”

The MOU outlines partnership opportunities for the following priority EPA areas:

• Environmental Stewardship, including controlling stormwater run-off and sustainability
• Environmental Justice
• Improved pollinator sites
• Children’s and Public Health
• Environmental and STEM Education

As the allied California golf community argued successfully during the AB 1910 controversy, well-managed golf courses provide significant community benefits through the creation of community greenspaces that provide recreational opportunities, health benefits, heat sinks, fire breaks, wildlife habitats, all while preventing destructive stormwater run-off into neighboring communities.

As the allied California golf community demonstrated successfully at last month’s golf & water summit, golf always seeks collaborative partnerships with its regulators to achieve goals both hold in common, chief among them steadily reducing the game’s water footprint over time, integrating golf courses into the fabric of their surrounding communities, and as much as the game has done the last 20 years to significantly reduce its water consumption, not resting on that laurel, but using that record of innovation and accomplishment to innovate and accomplish much more in the next 20 years to ensure that golf remains a large component of California’s recreational community.  Not as a “do good” proposition, but a survival proposition.   

Invest – innovate – collaborate.

And just as the GCSAA is doing all three in partnership with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the allied Southern California golf community continues to do the same with the region’s large water wholesalers and retailers. 

Well done GCSAA!  You keep punching well above your organizational weight in the public policy arena, and we here in Southern California recognize and appreciate it.

The California Legislative Information website offers the general public the full text of bills, resolutions, and constitutional amendments, and their status, history, votes, analyses, and veto messages if applicable. The website is updated every day at 4:00am and 9:00pm. Please click here to continue staying informed.

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Thursday, May 19, 2022

AB 1910 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee’s Suspense file today, killing it for the remainder of the 2022 legislative session.

When bill author Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) pulled the bill from the docket of the Assembly Local Government Committee April 6, we thought it might have been finished then. But as we pointed out at the time, there was still a chance that the bill could be heard in that committee and successfully passed out before the end of the month. And that’s exactly what happened; however, it only passed out per an agreement between Ms. Garcia and Assembly Member Bloom (D-Santa Monica) that the author amend the bill to substantially limit its scope in three very specific areas – areas backed up by credible metrics. That was a tall order in the compressed time frame between the April 27 Local Government Committee hearing and today’s Appropriations Suspense hearing. Whether a tall order not met, or evidence of the old adage that you can’t fix a bad bill, AB 1910 will not receive an Assembly floor vote before the May 27 deadline for bills to pass out of their house of origin. It cannot be resurrected in 2022, except for an end of session gut-and-amend procedure that is virtually never pursued for bills held in Suspense.

There is much about this episode in terms of lessons learned and harbingers of things to come – much that we’ll be sharing, because there is much that the golf community will need to understand to cope with what we fully anticipate will be more predations upon golf’s space in urban California. No matter the issue, it’s all about the land. But that analysis can wait. For today, know that AB 1910 is dead for the rest of 2022.

And know that it is in large part dead due to the thousands of rank-and-file golfers who took the time to express their thoughts to their elected leaders, the unified response of California’s golf organizations, and the support of so many of golf’s national organizations. SCGA and the whole alphabet soup of golf’s leadership organizations may have made solid public policy arguments to counter the bill, but without the support of rank-and-file golfers, those arguments would have carried far less weight. The congratulations go to you!

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Monday, May 2, 2022

When we counseled “concern, not panic” regarding recent headlines about water allocation curtailments, we didn’t mean to diminish the seriousness of the moment; we meant only to assuage the many of you who read those headlines and concluded that golf courses in certain areas of the Southland, most particularly Ventura County, the San Fernando Valley, and parts of the San Gabriel Valley, would be restricted to irrigating one day a week come June 1.

Irrigating once per week in a hot and dry summer is tantamount to death for a golf course. The biology of turf is what it is. Residences and businesses can rip out turf in favor of California friendly drought tolerant palettes, but while golf can be played on less turf, it cannot be played on something other than turf. Parks, sports fields, and cemeteries fit the same mold, and that is why along with golf courses, they are routinely treated differently than ornamental or non-functional turf.

“Treated differently” doesn’t mean given carte blanche in a drought. It still means having to curtail water consumption, but it means curtailing consumption in ways more creative than day-of-week/time-of-day, one-size-fits-all methods. It means keeping 100% control over times and days of application while curtailing consumption – in other words cutting back in ways consistent with maintaining core functionality.

In those places where “golf and water task forces” that work directly with water providers have continued to meet regularly – e.g., Coachella Valley – SCGA is working with its allied partners to beef them up. In those places where such task forces have gone on hiatus since 2016 – e.g., Los Angeles – SCGA is working with its allied partners to reassemble and revitalize them.

We’re getting ready by getting in front of events. The ride promises to be bumpy this year, and golf has proven that it is well equipped to handle “bumpy.” But do consider what next year or the year after might portend if the next two precipitation years look anything like the last three. “Bumpy” will hardly suffice to describe that ride. But it’s something to begin contemplating now. Hope for better weather but begin planning for more of the same.

And under the heading, something to consider in the much longer term, take careful note of Metropolitan Water District General Manager Adel Hagekhalil’s comment in the Los Angeles Times last week about the critical need for “real investments in recycled water, real investments in storm water capture, real investments in storage. . . these are critical; we can’t conserve our way out of this.” For the golf community the question going forward isn’t whether those expensive infrastructure projects will be funded; it’s only a question of how they are going to be paid for. That’s why we were warm toward the mechanism that Los Angeles County’s Measure “W” on the 2020 ballot sanctioned – a parcel fee attaching only to that portion of a property that is non-permeable with credits for discharge permits. The drafters couldn’t have devised a more equitable, fact-based way for golf’s participation in the funding. Nonetheless, this is another cost factor that the game needs to embed into its longer-term business strategy.

But until those new storage mechanisms are in place, conservation remains the only effective tool to deal with drought.

# # # # # # # # #

Speaking of the Coachella Valley, home to 120 golf courses, and “planning for more of the same,” the Coachella Valley Water District (CVWD) is initiating a Colorado River Water (CRW) Conservation Program for all of its canal customers – those that draw raw water from the Colorado River in lieu of pumping from the aquifer. Twenty-six (26) golf courses are among those customers.

The fact that CVWD is rolling this program out should inform desert golf courses that have become complacent that the time for complacency has passed. The Colorado River Basin has been experiencing historic drought conditions for over 20 years, during which time system storage has decreased from 95% full in 2000 to less than 35% today. CVWD, which has long resisted any discussion of curtailing the generous allocation accorded it by various federal compacts over the years, has been actively discussing with other Basin States how to do just that. If the Colorado River is to continue to be a reliable source for the states that have long possessed more allocations than there is water to allocate, there is no other choice.

As an initial step, CVWD is soliciting interest for a voluntary, temporary, and compensated water conservation program for canal water users that can demonstrate a reduction in Colorado River water use for 2022 and 2023. Although this program will need to be formally approved by the CVWD Board, it is envisioned that participants will be incentivized $200/acre-feet (net and funded by external agencies) based on water conserved against their historical water use over the most recent 5 – year period, and the Irrigation Water Availability Assessment (IWAA) will be waived during the participation period.

The program is anticipated to start on October 1, 2022, and end on December 31, 2023 (program may be extended subject to further discussion with funding partners). For information about the program one can:

1. Attend CVWD’s public workshop on May 17, 2022, at 9 a.m. at CVWD’s Coachella Office (51501 Tyler Street, Coachella, CA 92236);
2. Visit www.cvwd.org/ConserveCRW; or
3. Contact CVWD at ConserveCRW@cvwd.org or (760) 398-2661 extension 2466.

No doubt we’ll be sharing more about such new incentive programs in the coming weeks and months. CVWD is contemplating more of them as we write these words, many of which will be discussed at the bimonthly meetings of the CVWD Golf & Water Task Force. Anyone interested in perhaps participating in this particular task force can contact either of us via E-mail: ckessler@scga.org or kfitzgerald@scga.org.

AB 1910

Given the thread by which this bill continues to hang, we’d be remiss if we didn’t first reiterate the status report we issued immediately after last Wednesday afternoon’s Assembly Local Government Committee meeting, followed by a verbatim transcript of the comments issued during that meeting that formed our initial assessment and the questions raised by both.

INITIAL ASSESSMENT (Condensed from last Wednesday’s “Update”)

With 5 members voting aye, 2 members voting nay, and 1 member abstaining (Boerner-Horvath; D-Oceanside), the Assembly Local Government Committee moved AB 1910 out of committee Wednesday. Sort of. The 5th member and deciding vote, Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), who had expressed skepticism throughout, made clear that his deciding vote to move the bill out of committee was contingent on a pledge from bill author Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) to significantly reduce the scope of the bill by amending it in three (3) areas to his satisfaction before it reaches Appropriations; otherwise he has Ms. Garcia’s pledge to drop the bill in the 2022 session.

In addition to maintenance of 100% local control over any decision to repurpose a parkland golf course as affordable housing per a requirement that the resultant housing be at least 25% of the finished development and the finished development be at least 15% open space, the only publicly-owned golf properties subject to qualification under the program must meet the following limiting conditions: 1) The subject golf property must be deemed “underutilized;” 2) the subject golf property must be in a community that rises to a certain level of “population density;” and 3) the subject property must be in a community deemed “park poor,” albeit it is not entirely clear what Bloom meant by the “park poor” admonition. And per Wednesday’s discussion, all three limiting conditions or criteria are to be “objectively measured” in order to pass muster.

TRANSCRIPT OF ASSEMBLY MEMBER BLOOM’S COMMENTS

“Thank you Madam Chair and I apologize for being late and I apologize for walking in on the middle of this important discussion. But as I think Assembly Member Garcia has already mentioned she and I have been discussing this bill and I want to thank her for working with me and listening to my concerns. I expressed concerns about singling out golf courses, in fact I think I voiced those concerns at the last hearing on this issue, especially municipal golf courses that serve as important recreational areas for the public, something that I completely understand. But as I hope all of you know one of my great priorities and abiding priorities since I was elected in 2012, and I think one of the reasons I was sent to Sacramento was to work on the housing crisis and try to find ways which by necessity have to be creative ways to solving the housing crisis. So, I want to again thank the author for her willingness to narrow the bill based on three criteria that we’ve agreed on. But I want to point out we’ve agreed on a broad set of criteria we now need to agree on the metrics for those criteria, and that’s not going to be easy, but I’m committed to doing that in good faith and I know that the author is as well. The three criteria we’ve agreed upon are to one limit the consideration of golf courses to areas that exceed a certain population density – we have to determine what that density will be. We would also limit this to golf courses that are underutilized or underused and again that’s a term of art and we will have to determine what that means. And finally, we would limit it to areas that are considered park poor and exactly what that means again is something we need to work out. I do hope that we’ll be able to work these criteria out and the metrics along with them and I expect that we will hopefully be able to do that before the Suspense Hearing, and I appreciate your commitment that if we’re not able to work out those criteria that you will park the bill. If and when we do work out the criteria the amendments would be taken in the next committee – the amendments that we agree to, and the author is nodding. Again, I want to say that housing is a critical need in the state of California and my thinking on this is that if we have golf courses, there may be none, if we have golf courses that are being underutilized however we end up defining that, then perhaps there is a better and greater purpose that we can put that land to. It’s not that I want golf courses to be underutilized, but if they are then I think we should consider them for this use. The LA Times ran an editorial as you, for those of you who are interested in this issue probably know, encouraging us to think creatively about a creative bill. This is the author’s attempt to find a way to provide for more housing and to the extent that we can honor that direction and not have a significant impact on the golfing public that’s something I think we should do.”

OVERRIDING/COMPELLING QUESTIONS

What do “underutilized,” “population density,” and “park poor” mean in concrete terms? What are the metrics of each? How are they to be “objectively measured?” Those are the devils of these particular details – devils to be hashed out between now and the Appropriations Suspense hearing. Who or what will serve as the final arbiter of whether real meat can be put on the bones of these three vague admonitions? That’s not entirely clear. What is clear is that at least in terms of what might constitute an “underutilized” or “underperforming” publicly owned golf course, that is an area of specific subject matter expertise that is not likely to be found among the staffs of Assembly Member Bloom, Assembly Member Garcia, or the Assembly Local Government Committee.

And if these “questions” are not answered to the satisfaction of either Mr. Bloom or Assembly Appropriations in the compressed time frame available (May 27 is the deadline for bills to pass out of their houses of origin), what does that mean in terms of Ms. Garcia’s pledge on the Assembly record to “park” the bill for 2022?

The next 3 weeks promise to be as impactful as they are interesting. Stay tuned.

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Monday, February 28, 2022

How clubs and organizations in particular can help in the 1^st phase of the game’s allied effort to beat back this bill for a 3^rd and final time.

As you know, Assembly Member Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) has refiled most of the contents of the AB 672 iteration that died in Appropriations in January. The title is the same; however, the author is calling it the following: “Incentivize Conversion: Accessible Open Space & Affordable Housing.” We’re still calling it what it is – The Public Golf Endangerment Act or depending on the audience sometimes “The Park and Open Space Endangerment Act.” The new number is 1910. To read it online click here. To read a PDF version of it click here.

AB 1910 is in its gestation period through March 14; that is, no action can be taken until then. But after March 14 the “action” promises to be fast and furious – the 1st phase of the “action” that is. That phase: Hearings before the two Assembly policy committees of reference (Housing & Community Development and Local Government).

Golf clubs can have an outsized impact upon that 1st phase by filing letters with those two committees. But in order to do so they must act quickly! That’s why SCGA has made it easy. Click here to access the simple form letter that SCGA has prepared for a club or organization to execute. Because the process for filing formal committee letters is a convoluted one, SCGA will handle the filing for clubs and organizations during this 1^st important phase of the game’s allied effort to beat back this bill for the 3^rd and what is likely the last time. E-mail signed, executed letters to kfitzgerald@scga.org. SCGA Public Affairs will make sure your club’s letter gets to the committees in time to be impactful.

SCGA executed a soft opening to this 1^st phase of the effort late last Thursday. The above information has appeared on the “Public Golf Endangerment Act” landing page at www.scga.org since then. Early this week (Monday or Tuesday) a harder opening in the form of this same information cum form letter will go out to the officers and directors of SCGA’s clubs in their monthly “Club Digest” e-publication.

The World Golf Foundation (WGF) has contacted the state’s First Tee Chapters to encourage them to participate in this 1^st phase of the campaign by executing and returning policy committee letters to SCGA. The Golf Course Superintendents Association and California Golf Course Owners Association have sent out action alerts to their membership bases. California’s two PGA Sections will soon follow suit, as we anticipate will the state’s other leadership organizations. The National Golf Foundation (NGF) is close to completing a comprehensive redux of the California public golf market for filing with the two policy committees, which promises to be a total rebuke of the false information about “underutilized golf courses” that AB 1910 author Cristina Garcia has been spreading around the Capitol.

Over the weekend the NCGA tweeted out a blogpost that ran February 14 highlighting several PGA Tour Professionals giving testimonials regarding the role municipal golf played in their respective journeys – along with a lot of solid information to clubs and individual golfers as to how they might make their voices heard. Click here to view the NCGA blog.

It’s important to flood the two policy committees of reference (Housing and Community Development & Local Government) with as many organizational “oppose” letters as possible. Time is short. Both committees can schedule their hearings any time after March 14. They must pass the bill out of committee no later than April 29. We have no control over when they’re heard, nor will we have much advance warning. And we have little time to collect and file these letters, which is why this 1^st phase of the game’s allied campaign is focusing so intently on executing and filing them. There will be time thereafter to gin up the generic “contact your legislator” protocol that SCGA (and others) promoted December 6 through the bill’s failure to pass Appropriations January 20. AB 1910 must again pass muster with Assembly Appropriations, and that has to happen before May 20 in order to move 1910 to an Assembly floor vote, and that’s exactly what every phase of the game’s allied strategy is focused on preventing, albeit even a successful floor vote presages the same gauntlet for AB 1910 in the Senate.

Now would be the time to get those club and organizational letters executed and returned to the SCGA (kfitzgerald@scga.org) for filing with the policy committees.

While clubs and organizations do their part, the California Alliance for Golf (CAG) will be doing its part by providing both policy committees with a very deep policy and legal dive into why AB 1910 is just bad public policy, something sure to cause great harm to the state’s park and open space stock while doing next to nothing to mitigate a housing shortage that ALL agree requires immediate redress. As we have said from day one of this saga, this is NOT about housing. It’s about singling out one and only one of California’s parks/open-green space activities for differential treatment. If it were about golf playing its part in a shared sacrifice scheme that might actually put some small dent in the state’s acute housing shortage, this would be a very different matter.

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

Thursday, February 10, 2022

As expected, at 9:00 PM Wednesday night Assembly Member Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens) refiled most of the contents of the AB 672 iteration that died in Appropriations just a few weeks ago. The title is the same; however the author is calling it the following: “Incentivize Conversion: Accessible Open Space & Affordable Housing.” We’re still calling it what it is – The Public Golf Endangerment Act. The new number is 1910. To read it online click here. To read a PDF version of it click here.

The author’s title may be very different, but the guts are practically the same. The ONLY “accessible open space” targeted is golf. The Assembly Member’s Tweet on the subject makes that clear. A very large golf ball appears prominently; not open space or housing – a golf ball and little else, a popular name brand no less.

Ms. Garcia’s first two swings at golf’s stake in the parks/recreation/open space/public amenity community were whiffs. Strike one: The February 2021 version failed to make it to Committee. Strike two: The January 2022 revision that the Member tried to rush through as a 2-year bill failed to pass muster at Assembly Appropriations.

AB 1910 is the Member’s 3^rd swing at golf. Given that Ms. Garcia has announced her intention to leave the Assembly at the end of 2022 to pursue California’s 42^nd Congressional District seat, this will be her final swing. Of course, any other member of either the Assembly or Senate is free to pick up where she left off in 2023 with a new version of the same old swing – something that cannot be controlled but can be mitigated to the degree to which this 3^rd swing is another whiff.

Unlike the process the game successfully navigated in January, the AB 1910 process will be the normal order for 1-year bills:

• 30 day posting period during which no action can be taken on the bill;
• Housing & Community Development Committee hearing;
• Local Government Committee hearing;
• Appropriations Committee hearing (May);
• Floor vote;
• Assuming the bill passes through all of the above, over to the Senate, where it will undergo a similarly dilatory process;
• Assuming the bill passes through the same hoops in the Senate, over to the Governor for signature or veto.

“Dilatory” doesn’t mean that the California golf community has the luxury of time; quite the opposite. Golf merely has enough time to accomplish more than it was able to accomplish under the rushed 2-year process it navigated in January. Everything above takes time; that’s just the way these things go. And the clock has started to run.

Outreach is well underway. The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) contemplates next steps first thing tomorrow (Friday) morning. Rank and file golfers and SCGA members will certainly be soon engaged in the way they were during the bill’s 2^nd at-bat. Indeed, they were largely responsible for the whiff!

Here’s a thought. Shouldn’t the “Public Golf Endangerment Act” really be called the “Public Park and Open Space Endangerment Act?” Once incentives are offered to carve up one kind of public park, won’t there be a run on carving up other kinds of parks – one step at a time until there’s precious little green space left? Environmental organizations call what Ms. Garcia is doing here “piecemealing” – the toleration of small insults that in and of themselves don’t rise to the level of environmental harm, but when taken together amount to a level of harm not to be tolerated under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In this case the harm is to parks, open space, and green space.

We have made the following point ad nauseum. But some things bear constant repetition. Public parkland golf courses (municipal) are 22.3% of California’s golf stock; however, for reasons we have outlined in detail many times over the last year, the line from this bill is a straight one to the state’s daily fee and private club facilities. In both cases, it’s all about the land all the three species of course sit atop, and golf’s continuing legitimacy to employ that land as it has for more than a century.

AB 672 (Public Golf Endangerment Act) provides $50 million in developer subsidies to redevelop California’s municipal golf courses into housing complexes. That’s 22% of the state’s golf stock that hosts upwards of 45% of the state’s golf play and roughly 90% of the game’s growth and diversity programs. It singles golf and only golf out for dismemberment; no other park, open space or land preservation use is similarly jeopardized, guaranteeing that golf and only golf will be sacrificed up for redevelopment. Your opinion is the one that counts most with the legislators who will determine whether golf will be sacrificed up or treated the same as every other park and recreation activity in California. Let them know what you think; act today!

More Information

What attracted to working with the GCSAA?

I started working in the golf industry in 1994 with Golf Enterprises and then proceeded to work for American Golf, KSL, Black Mountain Golf & Country Club and OB Sports before leaving the golf business for 6 years to run the day-to-day operations of a marketing and public relations firm. 

When GCSAA advertised the position, they were looking for someone with golf experience and public policy experience, so the fit was pretty natural, and I was looking to get back into the golf industry. Having some familiarity with GCSAA was a big factor and CEO Rhett Evans had a mission and vision that I truly believed in, so I went through a lengthy process and was hired for the position five months after I applied.    

How long have you been with the GCSAA, and what is your role and primary responsibilities?

I have been with the GCSAA for nearly 10 years and my primary role is to serve as a liaison between the 10 GCSAA affiliated chapters in the Southwest Region and our corporate headquarters.  My responsibilities include working with our chapter executives and boards to assist them in the operation of their chapters, provide government advocacy and public policy services, work with allied golf associations to address challenges and grow the game, provide education via speaking engagements and to assist members with various aspects of their membership experience. 

In addition to California, you serve three other states. How many golf and sports turf facilities are located within the SW Region?

There are approximately 1,350 courses located in the GCSAA Southwest Region encompassing Arizona, California, Hawaii and Nevada.  There are 10 chapters in the region. 

What is a typical day for you?

The best thing about the position is there is no typical day.In a normal year, I spend approximately 110-120 days/nights on the road attending chapter functions, board meetings, allied golf events, speaking engagements, golf tournaments as well as site visits to golf courses.In between the travel, I spend a lot of my time working on issues related to government advocacy, addressing member issues, promoting GCSAA products and initiatives and working with all of our great partners throughout the Southwest.And of course, a lot of meetings!!

As part of your work assignment, besides CAG what other organizations do you work/collaborate with on a regular basis?

The Arizona Golf Alliance, Nevada Golf Alliance, Coachella Valley Golf Industry Water Task Force, Cactus and Pine GCSA Water Task Force, California Turfgrass and Landscape Foundation, California Golf Course Owners Association, various PGA chapters, numerous state, regional and local government entities and state legislatures.  I am probably most closely associated with the Southern California Golf Association and their Government Affairs team of Craig Kessler and Kevin Fitzgerald.  Our two organizations are joined at the hip in regard to fighting many of golf’s battles throughout California. 

What do you view as the greatest challenge/s facing the golf and turf maintenance industry?

From an overall perspective, I think perception is a huge challenge facing the golf industry moving forward.  We have long been seen as a white, old, rich, elitist game and it has been exacerbated in today’s political climate.  It is a message that needs to be taken seriously and addressed properly. 

From a maintenance perspective, water and labor are the two greatest challenges in my opinion.  Water sources in the western United States are overallocated and we are facing longer periods of drought than in the past.  Less supply and rising costs are a bad combination, and as an industry, we need to look into partnerships and efforts that reduce potable water use.

Labor will continue to be an issue moving forward as it is in most industries.  Golf is facing challenges with not only finding hourly help, but finding the next generation of qualified superintendents, assistants, and equipment managers.  Facilities will need to pay more competitive wages, provide better benefits and provide a better work/life balance for their employees.  One of GCSAA’s main functions will be recruitment to the turfgrass industry as well as diversity in the workplace.  Additionally, we are going to have to look at some non-traditional pathways to becoming an assistant or a superintendent.     

The GCSAA is committed to sustainability, what is it doing to reduce, reuse and recycle?

As of Dec. 31, 2020, each of the 50 states now has established state specific Best Management Practices (BMPs) featuring agronomic practices that support environmental stewardship. This program launched in 2017 and took nearly four years to complete.The BMPs are a blueprint for managing a golf facility in a sustainable manner and cover key areas such as water management, integrated pest management, energy, cultural practices, maintenance operations and pollinator protection. A PDF of the California golf industries BMP is available at https://www.gcsaa.org/environment/best-management-practices/state-bmp-guides. 

The next step in the BMP process is to have individual facilities adopt their state specific BMP guide and edit it to fit the needs of their facility. The guide is free of charge for golf course facilities and the goal in California is to have over 300 facilities adopt the guide.

The guide will play an integral part in showcasing golf’s commitment to environmental sustainability and will be a tool that we can use to communicate with golfers, media, and our regulators and lawmakers. 

Article Provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA

We have reached the point in the 2021 legislative calendar where bills have to have passed their house of origin in order to remain active.  That means they have to have passed muster with whatever committee or committees to which they were referred and passed on a full floor vote.  Those bills that successfully traverse the same process in the other house by September 10 are then sent forward to the Governor for signature or veto.  Upon signature, bills become law, most on January 1 of the following year, a few immediately through an emergency process containing stricter thresholds. 

The California golf community “watched” a lot of bills but dealt directly with only two this year – AB 672 (Garcia; D-Bell Gardens) and AB 1346 (Berman; D-Menlo Park and Gonzalez; D-San Diego).  Here’s how they stand in the process.

AB 672 DIES IN COMMITTEE

To be more specific, AB 672 never got placed on the agenda of either of the Assembly Committees to which it was referred.  Since today was the deadline for bills to pass through committee and advance in the 2021 session, that means that no further action can be taken on AB 672 the remainder of 2021, although many of its particulars are amenable to incorporation into one of the many housing bills very much alive this session.  However, the bill’s author (Garcia; D-Bell Gardens) has made clear her intention to resurrect it in January 2022.  AB 672 is on mere hiatus, not dead, albeit failure to get heard in committee is never an encouraging sign for a bill author.    

AB 672 was the very definition of legislative overreach.  Its failure to gain traction this year was in part due to that but in larger part due to the reaction the bill engendered from so many of the state’s individual golfers who took the time to write, call and E-mail their legislators.  Formal opposition from SCGA, NCGA, CAG, PGA Sections, GCSAA Sections, First Tee Chapters, and myriad other golf organizations mattered to be sure.  But nothing ever matters more than real live constituents who take the time to contact their elected leaders.  Those who did take the time should take satisfaction that their efforts mattered.  Those who didn’t should be grateful to those who did and perhaps consider joining them when this bill goes live again in 8 months.

For those whose memories require refreshing, AB 672 proposed to facilitate the development of California’s municipal golf courses (22% of the total courses in the state) as “affordable” housing tracts by:

• Removing them from the protections of the Public Park Preservation Act (Public Resources Code Section 5400-5409).
• Providing certain exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
• Mandating a one-size-fits-all zoning element.
• Singling golf as the ONLY open space/recreational activity for which these exemptions and facilitations apply, literally targeting them for development to the exclusion of all other open space/recreational activities.

The percentage of California golf courses that are municipally owned may only be 22%, but roughly 45% of golf play every day is on that 22%, and roughly 90% of golf’s myriad junior/family/developmental programs takes place on that 22%.  The municipal sector has served as the growth and sustenance engine of the game for more than 100 years – its base as it were.  The base fails, and the rest shrinks over time. 

The bill may have taken direct aim at California’s publicly owned golf courses (22% of the total), but its passage would have put golf’s blood in the water in such a way as to jeopardize the position of golf’s private sector clubs as well.  Just as the Public Park Preservation Act is the public game’s backstop against residential/commercial development, ARTICLE XIII, Section 10 of California’s Constitution establishing “open space” as the property tax basis for private golf clubs is the private sector’s backstop against residential/commercial development.

The Public Park Preservation Act is not just parkland golf’s backstop against commercial development; it is every parkland amenity’s bulwark against development.  Golf is just the canary more deeply positioned in this proverbial coal mine.  Soccer, baseball, bike paths, hiking trails, swimming pools, equestrian centers, nature centers, tennis courts, pickleball, and land trusts/conservancies are very much in the mine with us whether they all know it or not.  Their park departments know it.  Some of them are coming to know it.  Golf cannot tolerate being separated from this much greater recreational community, and this much greater recreational community has a powerful interest in keeping us in the fold.

AB 672 may be an overreach thrown into a legislative hopper stuffed to the gills with well-conceived and artfully crafted competitors in the housing space, and as a result a non-starter in 2021.  But today’s Codes are full of bills that started out just as clumsily but got refined over time into laws capable of eliciting widespread support.  As important or arguably more important than the grisly details of AB 672 is the thinking behind it – thinking that posits the notion that golf is no longer a legitimate component of urban parkland systems – a disfavored activity replete with its own legislative finding of such. 

That thinking isn’t going away any time soon.  As long as that remains the case, golf can expect the animus underlying AB 672’s predicate to come back in the form of other bills, other regulations, and other policies, some of which may be artfully and narrowly crafted.  If golf uses AB 672’s temporary demise as the breathing space necessary to replenish its resolve and restock its arsenal of advocacy tools, it will have learned the right lesson.  If golf luxuriates in some kind of “victory dance,” it will have learned the wrong lesson.

When we termed AB 672 the most consequential bill re golf to be filed in a generation, we weren’t exercising our capacities for exaggeration; we were dead serious.  And we hope the allied California golf community remains dead serious too. 

AB 1346 Passes Assembly

AB 1346 (Berman; D-Menlo Park and Gonzalez; D-San Diego), a bill that would require all new small off-road engines (SORE) sold in the marketplace to be zero-emission by 2024 or whenever the California Air Resources Board (CARB) determines is feasible, has made it through the Assembly committee/floor process successfully and moved forward to the Senate, where the golf community anticipates it will also find success before being sent forward to Governor Newsom, who is highly likely to sign it into law. 

Gas powered SORE equipment is of direct interest to the golf industry because the SORE category includes products such as lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and other tools the golf industry routinely uses to maintain golf courses.   Battery powered equivalents are simply not commercially available at this time if one defines “equivalents” as machinery fit for intended use.  The California golf industry has a long history of substituting electric powered equipment for gas powered equipment as battery powered technologies capable of performing to industry standards/needs become commercially available.  And incurring healthy costs to do so.    

The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) has taken a position on the bill almost identical to the following comments drawn from the Legislative Analyst’s formal comments on the subject:

Within lawn and garden equipment, there is wide variation in the availability and utility of zero-emission equipment depending on the use. For residential uses, rechargeable electric lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and string trimmers have been available for years and have significant market share. For commercial uses, there is very little market for zero-emission equipment as today’s technology is relatively expensive and requires multiple batteries and/or frequent recharging and replacement.

In other applications, such as pumps, generators, and chainsaws, current zero-emission SORE technology may be inadequate even if money is no object, particularly when used in rural areas without convenient access to recharging.

Banning sales of new combustion engines under 25 horsepower could have a few unintended consequences. As long as there are no statewide registration requirements or use restrictions for SORE equipment, banning new engines may lead to prolonged use of older, dirtier engines, increased manufacture, and sale of engines over 25 horsepower, and purchase of non-compliant engines out of state for use in California.

Much of the discussion that suffused consideration of the bill vote focused on these feasibility issues.  This gives us optimism that when all is said and done re AB 1346, the legislature will direct CARB to adopt a Rule that doesn’t put consumers of this equipment in the position of having to choose between neglecting their golf course or being non-compliant with a CARB regulation.  In other words, adopt a Rule that coordinates the phase-out of one technology with the commercial availability of a viable alternative. 

Members of CAG’s Legislative Committee did meet with Assembly Member Berman’s Office to emphasize the importance of keeping language in the bill directing CARB to proceed with a rule-making process that is sufficiently flexible to incorporate feasibility and cost into any final rule cutting off the sale of equipment prior to its commercial availability.  That Office concurred.  That language is in the bill as it moves to the Senate for consideration.  CAG and GCSAA have already submitted comments along that line to CARB, which the industry believes was well received.  Both will continue to do their best to ensure that this language makes it all the way to the Gubernatorial finish line in September.

Note:  The envisaged Rule sets a date certain when the sale of SORE equipment is no longer permitted; it does not proscribe its use past that date.