SAN BERNARDINO >> Mayor Carey Davis and Councilwoman Virginia Marquez joined with legislative allies in Sacramento Tuesday to lobby Gov. Jerry Brown’s office for his help.
And although there were no concrete promises on the six issues on which they had asked for his action — including a request that Brown force Cal Fire to bid to provide fire services for the city — they had a productive 45-minute meeting with Tom Dyer, chief deputy legislative affairs director and local government adviser, Davis said.
“We were very well received,” he said. “I thought they felt that we were well-prepared. (Dyer) was not able to make any promises, but (he) understands our need to hear back as soon as possible as we move forward with our Plan of Adjustment.”
That plan, the city’s proposal to exit bankruptcy, was filed with U.S. Bankruptcy Court late Friday.
Davis had laid the groundwork for a meeting with a five-page letter to Brown and the four legislators who represent parts of the city — Senators Connie Leyva and Mike Morrell and Assembly members Cheryl Brown and Marc Steinorth — signed by himself, City Manager Allen Parker, City Attorney Gary Saenz and six of the seven City Council members.
Councilman John Valdivia was out of town when the letter was signed, but said Tuesday he supports only some of its requests and objects to “the negative statements conveyed about Cal Fire in the letter.”
Valdivia added that city officials should be focused on “basics of government” and not look for outside help.
Cal Fire has consistently rejected San Bernardino’s attempts to have the state agency prepare an estimate of what it would cost to provide fire services for the city, citing the city’s financial instability “and the difference in staffing models between Cal Fire and the City.” But the letter says elected state officials have authority over the agency and they should demand a proposal.
“We will not speculate on the real reasons Cal Fire has not granted us a proposal, but its unwillingness to do so has limited our options and is very hard to reconcile given the other cities they serve,” the letter says. “... We would respectfully suggest that if Cal Fire cannot give serious consideration to serving a city in dire need, like San Bernardino, via contract, it should not be in the contracting business at all.”
Requests for comment from a Cal Fire spokesman and Brown’s office were not returned Tuesday.
The letter confirms for the first time that two entities responded to the city’s request for proposals, San Bernardino County and the private firm Centerra, and says “both indicate that significant efficiencies are available.”
The city’s Plan of Adjustment counts on saving $7 million a year or more by outsourcing fire services.
That was just one portion of the meeting, said Steinorth, R-Rancho Cucamonga, who attended the meeting along with his chief of staff and the chief of staff for Morrell, R-Rancho Cucamonga.
“The idea of the meeting today was to engage the governor’s office and the office of the mayor and council to determine what resources are available to our city to help during this transitional period,” Steinorth said. “They were very receptive, very astute. You could tell they paid very close attention. The mayor and the council members were very prepared and had all the supporting documentation to help them with their discussion and their request.”
The letter also lists five other ways San Bernardino officials think the state can help its poorest large city, all of which Davis said were discussed Tuesday.
1. Reverse a penalty of $2 million the city agreed to in its settlement with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. “We dispute the justification for this,” the letter says, “given CalPERS’ self-asserted role as a ‘conduit.’”
2. Remove the cash hold and threat to decertify the San Bernardino Employment and Training Agency. With unemployment near 9 percent, San Bernardino asks for help to keep SBETA operational and put people back to work.
3. Give the city access to the California Infrastructure Bank, IBank. The city has remained current on its loans from IBank and asks for future loans to be reserved for “a critical seismic retrofit of City Hall (the building is a collapse hazard), significant street rehabilitation projects, sewer collection repairs and line replacement and the City’s Clean Water Factory (recycled water project).”
4. To facilitate a possible contract with the San Bernardino County Fire Department, support AB 868, which the city believes would help transfer assets and liabilities from CalPERS to the San Bernardino County Employees’ Retirement Association.
“If the City selects the County as its fire and emergency services provider, we believe this legislation provides the City and our fire service employees an important opportunity to seamlessly transfer retirement benefits from CalPERS to SBCERA without triggering withdrawal liability by CalPERS by also transferring all associated liabilities for the accrued benefits.”
The bill has already been passed in the Assembly and is waiting for a hearing in the Senate, according to the letter.
5. Assist the city with the dissolution of its redevelopment agency.
6. Help the city receive a greater tax benefit from the two Amazon e-commerce facilities in the city — totaling more than 1.5 million square feet. The city now receives no sales tax benefit from having those in the city, with online sales processed through the facilities distributed instead through a statewide tax pool.
“Through discussions with the (Board of Equalization) and Amazon, we understood that Amazon was considering some changes to its sales transaction structure that could benefit cities that host their e-commerce facilities,” the letter says. “Unfortunately, we have been unable to ascertain the status of this effort and would ask for your assistance in working towards the equitable objective of ensuring that communities hosting these large statewide e-commerce centers receive a fair-share portion of the local 1% of sales and use tax to offset their community impacts.”