A few weeks before the end of this year’s legislative session, the South Bay’s two representatives in Sacramento reported on some of the successes and failures from each’s first term in state office at the State of Business in California event hosted by the Manhattan Beach Chamber of Commerce on Aug. 12.
Senator Ben Allen and Assemblymember David Hadley touched on a hodgepodge of topics, from funding the Air Force Base in El Segundo to the minimum wage. One of the few topics they both directly addressed was SB 350, the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015, on which their views differed. The bill, which calls for various measures, such as a 50 percent reduction in cars’ petroleum use by 2030, has passed through the senate and was scheduled for a vote in the assembly on Aug. 19, after which it will go to the governor.
The topic was introduced by an audience member, who told Allen, a Democrat and former lecturer at the UCLA law school, that he was “concerned that it places an undue economic burden on those who can least afford it.”
“People are driving further to find housing they can afford,” said the man, echoing an earlier comment by Allen that because of Los Angeles’s housing-to-salary ratio, people were “having to live further out and commute.”
Allen, who voted in favor of the bill, responded by reiterating the need to repair roads which he had discussed earlier. He observed that SB 350, which intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions to levels 40 percent below those of 1990 and includes a requirement that half the state’s electricity come from renewable resources by 2030, is “not that prescriptive–it has a goal.”
“The challenge is how to find a way to grow and be fair and provide a range of energy sources to use,” Allen said from under a tent in the Chevron Employees Park. He also noted that one of the bill’s authors was Kevin de Leon, who represents some areas in LA that are not well off.
When Hadley’s turn came to speak, the assemblymember, a Republican and founder of an investment banking business, had a different perspective on the bill, which he voted against.
“There’s nothing in it but a mandate,” he said. “It hands unlimited power to the California Air Resources Board,” he said. “If they want to ration gas, they can. If they want to levy a $10 gas tax, they can. If they want to reduce PCH to one lane, they can.”
He described it as a done deal, “unless some brave Democrats vote against” it.
Hadley went on to talk about his bill to allow communities to create their own school districts, a goal he had described while campaigning for office.
“The defining aspect of the South Bay is the public schools,” he said, noting that he represented six school districts and that his family moved to Manhattan Beach for the public schools.
“I believe the residents of Gardena and Lomita have the same right to control their educational destiny as the residents of Palos Verdes” and the other cities with their own school districts, he said.
“The reason we have so many involved parents and businesses is because they believe they can move the needle,” he said.
He noted that the fate of his bill, which was not passed, was “not a success story,” but he pledged to continue pursuing the issue as long as he was in office.
Allen, a former board president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, discussed his bill to help fund the Southern California Regional Occupational Center in Torrance, a career training school.
The bill has been through several committees, but still has to have two more readings before it can go onto the governor.
“I’m a very strong believer in career and technical education,” said Allen. “There are a lot of great jobs that won’t require a college degree and sometimes pay better.”
The school, which he described as being like a “Richard Scarry book” of the working world, had been caught in a funding gap, he said. His bill, SB 786, amends the education code to address that.
The center “provides wonderful opportunities to young people in so many different careers,” he said. ER
