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The state Assembly and Senate passed the usual flurry of bills on May 31, the last day for initial-house approval, with some unusual drama that temporarily sidelined a medical-marijuana bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano.

By the time it was all over, several other Ammiano bills passed, a measure by Assemblymember Phil Ting to ease the way for a Warriors arena on the waterfront won approval, and state Sen. Mark Leno got most of his major legislation through.

The pot bill, AB 473, would have established a state regulatory framework for medical cannabis, something that most advocates and providers support. Still, because the subject is marijuana, it was no easy sell — and at first, a lot of members, both Republicans and Democrats, expressed concern that the measure might restrict the ability of local government to ban or limit dispensaries.

Ammiano, in presenting the bill, made it clear that it had no impact on local control, and that was enough to get 38 votes. Typically, when a bill is that close to passage, the chair asks the sponsor if he or she wants to “hold the call” — that is, freeze the vote for a few minutes so supporters can make sure all of their allies are actually on the floor and voting and to try, if necessary, to round up a couple of wobblers.

In this case, though, Speaker Pro Tem Nora Campos, of San Jose, simply gaveled the vote to a close while Ammiano was scrambling to get her to hold it. “That’s very unusual, not good behavior,” one Sacramento insider told me.

Ammiano was more respectful toward Campos, simply calling it a “procedural mistake.” He told us he would be looking for other ways to move the bill. “The door is never fully closed up here,” he said.

However that turns out, the veteran Assemblymember, now in his final term, won a resounding victory with the passage of his Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, AB 241. The bill would give domestic workers some of the same labor rights as other employees, including the right to overtime pay and breaks. “These workers, who are mostly women, keep our households running smoothly, care for our children, and enable people with disabilities to live at home and remain engaged in our communities,” Ammiano said. “Why shouldn’t they have overtime protections like the average barista or gas station attendant?”

An Ammiano bill restricting the ability of prosecutors to use condom possession as evidence in prostitution cases also cleared, as did a bill tightening safety rules on firearms.

Ting’s bill, AB 1273, would allow the state Legislature, not the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, to make a key finding on whether the new area is appropriate for the shoreline. Mayor Ed Lee and the Warriors strongly backed the measure, clearly believing it would make the path to development easier. Ammiano voted against it — showing that the San Francisco delegation is by no means unanimous on this issue.

Leno had a string of significant victories. A bill called the Disclose Act, which would mandate that all campaign ads reveal, in large, readable type, who is actually paying for them, cleared with the precise two-thirds majority needed — and it was a straight party-line vote. Every single Republican was in opposition. “They know that if their ads say “paid for by Chevron and PGE, the won’t work as well,” Leno told us.

He also won approval for a bill that would ease the way for people wrongfully imprisoned for crimes they didn’t commit to receive the modest $100 a day payment the state theoretically owes them. There are 132 people cleared of crimes and released from prison, but the process of applying for the payment is currently so onerous that only 11 have actually gotten a penny. “We victimized these people, and we shouldn’t make them prove their innocence twice,” Leno said.

Bills to better monitor price manipulation by oil companies and to expand the trauma recovery program pioneered by San Francisco General Hospital also cleared the Senate floor.

But Leno had a disappointing loss, too: A bill that would have helped tenants collect on security deposits that landlords wrongfully withheld died with only 12 vote — a sign of how powerful the real-estate industry remains in Sacramento.

Article source: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/06/03/some-wins-some-losses-sacto

For the past two legislative sessions, Mr. Ammiano has sought to close what he and many others see as a loophole in Proposition 13’s treatment of commercial property. Even if an owner sells his entire interest in a piece of commercial real estate, the property is not reassessed if no single entity acquires more than a half-ownership stake. It is easy for corporations to structure deals to avoid a tax increase.

Mr. Ammiano thinks it’s an outrage that companies can skirt the intentions of the law when properties change hands.

“You have very large commercial enterprises, Wells Fargo, Wachovia, with this little sleight of hand in the way they structure ownership,” he said Wednesday in an interview. “It is very, very dishonest.”

Yet the feisty Mr. Ammiano is quiet as a church mouse about altering the residential protections of Proposition 13 — of which he is a signal beneficiary.

Mr. Ammiano, who is also a comedian, pays just $530 a year in taxes on the Bernal Heights home he has owned since 1974. As far as the city and Proposition 13 are concerned, his house is worth $45,600. Zillow estimates its current worth at $645,000. At that value, the tax would be about $7,500.

How good a deal is this? Imagine for a moment that Mr. Ammiano’s house was a car. If he parked the car at a metered space near his Civic Center office, the amount he now contributes each day to the commonweal in the form of property tax would buy just a hair less than 29 minutes, curbside.

Perhaps his next stand-up routine could be built around this theme: San Francisco on $1.45 a Day.

There is nothing illegal about Mr. Ammiano’s good fortune. As long as a property does not change hands, Proposition 13 limits annual increases to 2 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.

And he is hardly alone. The latest Case-Schiller survey for home sales in San Francisco reports a median market price of $760,000. Yet 23,059 of the 139,918 single-family homes in San Francisco are currently assessed at less than $100,000. If these properties were valued at the median, that would yield about $184 million in additional revenues; even valued at $500,000, they would generate an extra $114 million.

Of course, many people simply cannot afford to have their property taxes jump to market rates. Proposition 13 has delivered just what Howard Jarvis, its crusty champion, wanted: Older residents are not getting squeezed out of their homes by rapidly escalating taxes.

But you can make the case that the cost of that benefit has escalated out of all proportion to reason. It certainly looks that way to Anthony Costa, Mr. Ammiano’s next-door neighbor.

Mr. Costa, a City College librarian, bought his house — a mirror image of Mr. Ammiano’s — in 2004. He pays $8,300 in annual property taxes.

While he says he bears his neighbor no ill-will, what Mr. Costa does object to — strenuously — is the reduction in government services he attributes squarely to Proposition 13.

“Prop 13 is a tragedy which has made things in California worse every year since it was passed,” Mr. Costa wrote in an e-mail. “The people of California have to settle for inferior schools, libraries, transit, roads, sewers, parks and other services. I don’t object as much to my personal tax bill, as I do the obscene discrepancy between the great wealth of this state and the relative poverty of our government and public institutions.”

Even Mr. Ammiano agrees that it is unfair that he pays one-sixteenth the property tax of Mr. Costa. “My feeling is, there’s a need for reform, absolutely,” he said.

But that isn’t where he’s expending his energy in Sacramento.

A little defensively, Mr. Ammiano, 69, noted that he had not availed himself of every opportunity to whittle down his property tax bill. “There is a senior-citizen exemption for homeowners tax in San Francisco,” he said, “and I do not take advantage of that.”

Actually, there used to be such a tax break. It was suspended in 2009, according to the city assessor’s office — a victim of state budget cuts.

estevens@baycitizen.org

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/us/03bcstevens.html