San Mateo County legislators tackle cost-of-living and new climate crises

But some, like Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Palo Alto, are concerned that ongoing wildfire devastation in the Los Angeles area could have continuing impacts on the states’ economic prospects in ways the proposal could not account for. 

“I think it was a good proposal, or a good starting-off point,” he said. “Unfortunately, the reality is that with the fires in L.A. happening right as the governor was rolling out his budget proposal, I think everything’s going to get a little scrambled by the tragedies.” 

The state has been working to up its response to extreme natural disasters like wildfires in recent years, state Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, maintained. He cited billions put into hazardous fuel reduction efforts, development of the largest aerial firefighting force in the world and an increase in Cal Fire personnel. 

Additionally, the governor’s budget proposal would deploy $2.7 billion of a recently-passed $10 billion climate bond to accelerate both water and wildfire resilience projects, Becker said. He also emphasized the importance of optimizing financial spending, particularly when it comes to preemptive mitigation strategies. 

“I think the key is that we pursue the most cost-effective strategies, right?” he said. “We don’t need to underground 10,000 miles of wires. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not cost-effective.” 

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, said that despite looming uncertainties — like President-elect Donald Trump’s repeated threats to withhold federal aid from California, as well as the wildfires — the state’s budget status this year is much better than last. 

“The budget is approximately balanced, which is great, and really a testament to work we did last year,” he said. “Obviously, we don’t know what Donald Trump is going to try to do to us that could impact the budget significantly, and the wildfires — we’re very, very committed to supporting the people of L.A.” 

In devastating natural disasters like the Southern California fires, there will always be limits to controlling the impact, Wiener said. What the state can do moving forward is ensure up-to-date construction codes for new buildings to protect against wildfires. 

“As people rebuild, really making sure [they] rebuild to current modern building codes that are much more protective against wildfires,” he said. “Buildings built more recently with higher fire safe code standards are more resistant to fire, more likely to survive.” 

Multiple lawmakers, including Wiener, said that housing would remain a priority for them as they worked on affordability and cost-of-living issues — previously designated as a priority for the state Legislature this year.

Assemblymember Catherine Stefani, D-San Francisco, said in a statement that she thought the governor’s budget proposal allocated money to key housing needs. 

“The budget prioritizes reducing housing costs by eliminating barriers to infill development near transit,” she said. “It also addresses development costs by advocating for reforms to mitigate risks and expenses that hinder housing production.” 

Other initiatives laid out in the budget that could benefit average Californians include $7.1 billion for state-subsidized child care, $20 million for three-month supplies of free diapers and $2.4 billion for universal transitional kindergarten and pre-K, Berman said. 

Berman, a longtime advocate for education funding, said he would review the budget proposal to slash funding for public university systems in the state by hundreds of millions. 

“Funding higher education has been a big priority of mine all eight years in the Legislature. In fact, it’s probably the area where I’ve got the most budget increases for things like supporting students with basic needs and helping students transfer,” he said. “I look very cautiously and skeptically at any efforts to cut higher education budgets.” 

“On the legislative front, tackling cost-of-living issues means addressing electricity affordability, said Becker, who was recently appointed to chair the state Senate’s Energy Committee. 

“Number one would be energy affordability,” he said. “Electricity rates, we can’t have the kinds of increases that we’ve had, and we find we need to find a way to actually bring rates down.” 

On his end and at the local level, Wiener said he would remain focused on prioritizing public transportation. Making public transport systems more robust benefits the environment, the economy and residents’ pockets, he said. 

“If we do nothing and allow the status quo to proceed forward with inertia, we’ll see big service cuts by Caltrain, BART, Muni,” he said. “That will be extremely harmful to the Bay Area, harmful to our economy, make traffic congestion much worse, it will absolutely make affordability worse.”