CBPA's California Legislative Update 3/1/19
- CBPA BOARD MEETS – ENDORSES HIME FOR SENATE!
- STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN FIVE COUNTIES
- MAINSTREET FAIRNESS - ONLINE SALES TAX – WAYFAIR DECISION
- WATERS OF THE US PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
- INDOOR HEAT ILNESS REGULATIONS
- 2020 SPLIT ROLL MEASURE MUST BE DEFEATED
- CBPA 2019 CALENDAR
CBPA BOARD MEETS – ENDORSES HIME FOR SENATE!
This week the Board of Directors for the California Business Properties Association met in Sacramento for its annual meeting, had lunch with several new legislators to discuss issues important to the commercial, retail, and industrial real estate industry, and heartily endorsed long time President and CEO Rex Hime in his bid to earn the Senate District 1 seat recently vacated.
The CBPA Board joins several other major industry groups in giving Rex their endorsement. Other groups including statewide associations NAIOP California, BOMA California, AIR Commercial Real Estate Association, several local chapters and scores of industry leaders from across the spectrum of our industry have gotten involved in this race.
Rex S. Hime who has been the primary force in California advocating on behalf of California taxpayers who own commercial, industrial, and/or retail private property for over 35 years in his role as President and CEO of California Business Properties Association has answered the call of public service and filed paperwork to fill the seat of the district he has lived in for decades.
Rex has long talked about the importance of people from within the commercial real estate industry stepping-up and getting involved in elective politics. He is putting those words into action.
Former-Governor Pete Wilson, and the Founder and President of the National Tax Limitation Committee Lew Uhler, are serving as Rex’s Campaign Chairs. Rex has also quickly garnered many endorsements including two former Senators who previously held the seat, Senator Tim Leslie (ret.) and current Congressmember John Doolittle, and the California Republican Veterans Association.
Senate District 1 is a massive district stretching all the way from the Eastern part of Sacramento County, to Lake Tahoe, then all the way up to the Oregon border stretching to the middle of the State and back down. The district is known as one of the most conservative areas of the state.
For more information about Rex’s run for California Senate District 1 click here.
GO REX GO!
STATE OF EMERGENCY DECLARED IN FIVE COUNTIES
Fires now floods. As severe winter storms continue across California, Governor Gavin Newsom has issued an emergency proclamation for the counties of Amador, Glenn, Lake, Mendocino and Sonoma to help communities respond to and recover from dangerous flooding, mudslides and damage to critical infrastructure.
On February 21, the Governor previously issued emergency proclamations for the counties of Calaveras, El Dorado, Humboldt, Los Angeles, Marin, Mendocino, Modoc, Mono, Monterey, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Mateo, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Shasta, Tehama, Trinity, Ventura, and Yolo.
The emergency proclamations direct Caltrans to formally request immediate assistance through the Federal Highway Administration’s Emergency Relief Program and the Office of Emergency Services to provide assistance to local governments.
Please do what you can to stay safe.
MAINSTREET FAIRNESS - ONLINE SALES TAX – WAYFAIR DECISION
Legislation clarifying the new rules-of-the-road for collection of online sales tax passed committee earlier this week. Years ago, CBPA was one of the first to support legislation in California that forced online retailers to collect sales tax in the same manner that brick-and-mortar California businesses had to.
California Retailers Association are now taking the lead of a coalition that includes all of our commercial, retail, and industrial real estate groups and is working to clarify how to implement a recent federal decision that requires other states to follow our lead. However, new conforming rules need to be adopted in our state to conform to the decision.
Senator Mike McGuire, Chair of the Senate Committee on Governance and Finance, Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation and California Treasurer Fiona Ma are partnering on AB 147 – which implements the South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc.
AB 147 allows California to correct the competitive advantage out-of-state businesses, who did not collect tax, had over California retailers, who did. This inequity can give a big edge to online retailers over small businesses.
We will keep you posted as the bill moves forward. Click here for more information.
WATERS OF THE US PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers are accepting public comments on proposed revisions to what defines “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under federal law.
The changes are intended to provide clarity as to which bodies of water should be covered by the Clean Water Act. This move replaces an earlier revision announced in 2015 under the Obama administration.
WOTUS is an important issue for the commercial, retail, and industrial real estate industry, since understanding how the federal government regulates wetlands and other waters has long been a complicated, confusing and often costly issue for landowners and developers.
The 2015 rule is law in 22 states. For the remaining 28 states, an earlier version of the rule – which dates back to the late 1980s – is still in place. The new regulation would bring clarity, both by establishing a single, nationwide definition of WOTUS, and by making it easier for developers to determine which waters are under federal jurisdiction.
The public comment period will be open until April 15. Click here to comment.
Elsewhere, the House Budget Committee, now headed up by Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), plans to hold a hearing this week to discuss the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. There were technical mistakes made during the writing of that law that need to be fixed by an act of Congress.
One such error is the treatment of Qualified Improvement Property. However, the hearing is expected to focus on other topics, perhaps including corporate tax rates.
INDOOR HEAT ILLNESS REGULATIONS
Our industry has submitted comments on new regulations the state is drafting regarding Indoor Heat Illness.
In 2005, California became the first state—and still the only state in the nation—to adopt a heat illness prevention standard to protect outdoor workers (California Code of Regulations, Title 8, Section 3395). The outdoor heat illness prevention standard requires employers to provide outdoor workers with water, shade, rest breaks, and training. Known as the high heat provisions, additional requirements apply when the outdoor temperature exceeds 95 degrees.
In 2016, CalChamber and a large coalition of businesses opposed SB 1167, which sought to establish a regulation to prevent heat illness for indoor workers. The coalition maintained that a specific regulation is unnecessary because current regulations (Title 8, Section 3203 Illness and Injury Prevention Program) require employers to identify and address workplace hazards, including the risk of heat illness in indoor workplaces.
In 2017, Cal/OSHA convened two stakeholder advisory committees to tackle the challenge of reaching consensus among interested parties from industry, labor, management and academia on how to regulate the prevention of heat illness for indoor workers. To date, Cal/OSHA has provided draft rules and a formal rulemaking has begun. These draft rules propose to regulate all indoor workplaces for these purposes.
Believe it or not, defining an indoor workplace, as opposed to an outdoor workplace, has proven to be challenging, including determining when vehicles and equipment are indoor or outdoor. Many employers have both outdoor and indoor workplaces, with some or all employees transitioning between both.
These questions of scope require industry input to provide Cal/OSHA the most rational and complete understanding of operations and risks, as well as rational, feasible policies to address those identified risks.
We are partnered with the CalChamber and have submitted a fourth set of comments on a fourth draft of the Cal/OSHA proposed draft indoor heat illness rule as it will ultimately have an impact on you.
Click here for more information from the CalChamber about the large coalition of employers that are working together to make sure these rules can be implemented in a way that makes sense and minimizes unnecessary costs.
2020 SPLIT ROLL MEASURE MUST BE DEFEATED
(Note: we are re-running this story because its importance cannot be overstated.)
Rex S. Hime, President & CEO California Business Properties Association, has penned the following op/ed regarding the ongoing battle to protect Proposition 13. You are highly encouraged to share this article and/or run it in your own publications:
Proposition 13 has been protecting taxpayers in California since 1978. This measure created by Howard Jarvis is one of the only protections that you have against unimpeded increased in your property taxes – and now it is under serious threat.
Californians are some of the most heavily tax-burdened in the country. Now, special interests want to raise taxes by another $11 billion through this measure, despite record-high revenue, record-high per-pupil spending and $17 billion in budget reserves. A split roll property tax increase isn’t needed and will just make it more difficult to do business in California.
For years public employee unions and far-left wing advocacy groups have wanted to dismantle Proposition 13 in hopes of increasing your taxes to increase revenue for their members and pet spending projects. Those groups have gathered enough signatures to place a measure on the ballot in November 2020.
One of the ONLY protections property owners in this state has is under serious threat and for thirty years – and now -- I remain one of the primary people standing to fight back against this outrageous tax increase.
Under the 2020 proposal, Prop. 13 will be undone by mandating that all non-residential properties be reassessed to 2020 values and be reassessed every three years thereafter. Commercial property will lose certainty about future tax liabilities and one can only imagine the impact and cost to long time property owners that will see massive adjustments.
The proponents of this effort have stated that dismantling Prop 13 will result in an $11 billion tax increase on California’s property owners and employers.
Aside from the direct impact on properties, the State’s own Legislative Analyst’s office has warned that the proposal will introduce volatility into the state’s funding stream that puts everything from school funding to support and health programs for the elderly at risk.
Property taxes have been a reliably predictable revenue source for the state since prop 13 passed which allows for some predictability in budgeting and a reliable revenue stream. The greediness of those that want to transfer property tax revenue to their own pockets threatens a system that has worked for more than 40 years!
As one of the longest standing taxpayer advocates in the state, I am coordinating an effort by taxpayer advocates and business groups alike to implement a statewide strategy and defeat this measure. The campaign will be very costly and will take the efforts of many, but the costs of this tax are much greater. Split roll inflicts a mortal wound on Prop 13 protections for all property owners and must be stopped.
Rex S. Hime has been protecting CA taxpayers his entire career. He has served as the President & CEO of California Business Properties Association for 35 years.
CBPA 2019 CALENDAR
March 28, 2019
CBPA Industrywide Leg Meeting
June 11 – 12, 2019
California Commercial Real Estate Summit
Sacramento
December 5 – 6, 2019
Strategic Issues Conference
Napa Valley
