On Tuesday, the Brentwood City Council agreed to look into the idea of becoming a charter city in an effort to retain more local control.
With council direction, in a 5-0 vote, the next steps are to create an ad-hoc committee to investigate the pros/cons of a general law city vs, a charter city. Due to the many steps in the process to change the governing structure of a city, the item would not reach voters until the 2026 general election at the earliest.
The future agenda item request was brought forward by Vice Mayor Susannah Meyer and Councilmember Jovita Mendoza and should it hit the ballot in 2026, using today’s cost estimates, it could cost between $105k to $168k to be placed on the ballot.
It was clarified Tuesday that moving towards a charter city was not only due to housing and land use issues (SB9) being imposed by the state, but rather to retain more local control in other areas as well. For example, such as zoning for certain types of businesses. Although a charter city may be immune from some California laws, it does not immune them from all laws.
Councilmemebr Jovita Mendoza shared why the item was brought forward and said it would be a lot of work.
“This is a big undertaking,” said Councilmember Jovita Mendoza. “I want to explore the idea of becoming a charter city. People think it’s just land use, it isn’t just land use to become a charter city, there are a lot of benefits.”
Mendoza took issue with those who said it would give the city council more money, she argued it wasn’t true because Brentwood has a cap of $500 donations to candidates running for office—something she would want written into the city charter.
“There are more benefits than land use, everybody thinks its just land use thing. There is more flexibility in how we run our city when it comes to issues that we have. We decide how deep we want to go on issues, how light we want to go no issues. We don’t have to be at the whim of the State,” explained Mendoza. “It will give us more stability.”
She highlighted that when the state creates a new bill, the city could push back against it if they don’t agree with it.
“I’ve been calling a lot of people who are charter cities, and they say the stability of not having to jump and spend staff time and money every time there is a new mandate or new bill that is not statewide concern is one of the biggest benefits,” said Mendoza. “We would write our own constitution of what we want, we would take the bills we want to take forward.”
She continued by highlighting state legislators are not writing bills for the people of California, but rather for special interest donors saying in 2007-08 that 40% of the bills in the Assembly and 30% in the Senate were written by special interest. In the latest round of bills, over 50% are written by campaign donors and special interest.
“What we are seeing is a bunch of bills that have nothing to do with us, and everything to do with profit,” said Mendoza. “I am just done spending all this money with unfunded mandates that we cannot do anything about because we would have to go to court every time.”
She suggested they create an ad-hoc committee to explore the pro’s and con’s and bring it to council. If council thinks it is beneficial and they can move forward with a public process—but would not go to voters until 2026.
Vice Mayor Susannah Meyer agreed that this discussion was bigger than Senate Bill 9 but the recent court ruling could cause more cities to consider moving to charter cities. She added that 125 cities are now charter cities.
“El Cerrito is considering it not for the sake of land use, but for the sake of having control over taxation, not that I think that is what we want to do, but I actually compare this to the redistricting process where we have a committee set up by community members,” explained Meyer who added they would have no say until the final decisions have to be made.
Meyer said it was worth a discussion and liked the idea of an ad-hoc committee to explore the ramifications. She agreed it would not work by 2024 and would be at a future election.
Meyer, who already announced she was running for mayor this November, urged voters to pay attention to candidates.
“It is imperative that residents are aware of who they elect. Pay attention to what their standards are, their voting history if they have been on before, what they believe and what they support and what they are willing to fight for. Even more so in a case like this, it’s something to think about,” said Meyer.
Councilmember PA’Tanisha Pierson highlighted several errors in the Pleasant Weekly Article by Ruth Roberts where she clarified that becoming a charter city does not give local municipalities complete control and can override state laws.
“It doesn’t override state laws, its not the wild, wild west,” said Pierson. “I am okay with us looking into it.”
Mayor Joel Bryant agreed.
“Anything we can do to retain as much local control as possible is absolutely worth looking into,” said Bryant. “We have less and less local control. I can only envision that the effort at the state level is going to continue. In every aspect, it seems like they want to reduce local control… I also agree this is worth looking into.”
The council provided direction and made a motion to dedicate staff time to look into becoming a charter city in a 5-0 vote.
Steps towards Charter City:
In order to make the change, the city must do the following:
- Ad-hoc committee
- Council agrees to move forward (possible creation of another committee)
- Drafting a Charter
- CEQA Review
- At least two public hearings
- Voters must agree to moving from a general law city to a charter city (2026 at earliest)
Brentwood City Council Meeting
Staff Report – click here
Related Stories:
Oct 1, 2023 – Coalition Speaks Out Against Attorney General’s False and Misleading Title and Summary”
“Bonta’s claim that our initiative would ‘automatically override’ affordable housing laws is clearly and provably false,” Brentwood City Councilmember and initiative proponent Jovita Mendoza said. “Our initiative would allow cities to choose where and how new housing projects get built, instead of forcing them to comply with blanket mandates from Sacramento that give for-profit developers a blank check to gentrify and destroy our communities.”
May 17, 2023 – Cal Cities Urges Court to Rule that SB 9 Unconstitutionally Interferes with Charter City Home Rule Authority
Charter City Background
- UC Berkley Law: General Law City v. Charter City – click here
- El Cerrito Charter City – click here
- Pinole March 2019 Power Point – click here
- CalCities: Charter Cities: A Quick Summary for the Press and Researchers – click here
SB9 Background
Votes:
- State Assembly: 45-19
- State Senate: 28-7
Locally
- Yes – Grayson, Skinner, Wicks
- No – Bauer-Kahan, Frazier, Glazer
SB 9, it would make it easier to increase housing density in existing neighborhoods which are mostly single-family housing by allowing to create a streamlined process to split lots and convert homes into duplexes and possibly up to four units.
SB 9 streamlines a homeowner’s ability to build a duplex or split their current residential lot, allowing for a maximum of four units on a single-family parcel. The bill ensures homeowners, not investors, would benefit by requiring the owner to live in one of the units for a minimum of three years after getting approval for a lot split and prohibiting ministerial lot splits on adjacent parcels by the same individual. It strikes a balance between granting flexibility to homeowners and protecting local control, historic neighborhoods, and environmentally sensitive areas. One of the critical aspects of SB 9 is that it would allow more families to build intergenerational wealth—a currency that is key to combating inequity and creating social mobility. The bill also protects existing renters by excluding properties where a tenant has resided in the past three years. Working families would be able to find rentals in more neighborhoods, opening up stable housing and resources to them and cutting back on long commutes for workers.
4 comments
Not a good idea, Brentwood does not need to follow the model of San Francisco and Oakland.
Could not agree more Susannah Meyer when she says residents need to be aware of who they vote into office. You and Jovita Mendoza must be thrown out of office in November. Both of you jackasses continue to do things that create unintended consequences down the road. This is no different. You get a bunch of crazy people voted into office and within a year you turn into San Francisco and Oakland. No thanks.
The only people to blame here are the ones who voted to expand Brentwood. They said- Hey, build more houses and let’s bring people in. They also see what is going on and Brentwood residents still want more…lets add more houses here, lets add another restaurant over there, lets add another store next to it. Well, you got what you wanted. The warning signs were lit up 2009.
Just a matter of time Brentioch, just a matter of time.