A former California Assembly speaker delivered a dinnertime speech. The state’s legislative analyst offered a bright economic forecast. And rental housing leaders took aim at California’s drought.
These are some of the highlights from the California Apartment Association’s first board meeting of 2014, held Thursday, Feb. 20.
On the eve of the meeting, CAA held its leadership dinner, with former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg as the guest speaker.
Now running for state Senate District 18, Hertzberg provided a boisterous speech that touched on a number of issues, from his own political background to the far-reaching influences of technology to how he’d like government in California to evolve.
“I want to see local government have tremendously more power in the way it works so there’s less volatility in the system and make it work better and people have confidence in government and democracy,” he said. “I think the next 10 year event horizon is going to be very significant.”
The next morning, the CAA board heard from guest speaker Mac Taylor, California’s Legislative Analyst, Mac Taylor said the state is on track to end 2014-15 with a multi-million dollar reserve. He added that it’s vital that California bolster its reserves in good economic years so that it can weather the inevitable economic cycles.
Taylor also discussed the state’s heavy reliance on personal income tax revenue and how the state’s budget is impacted greatly by how the top 2 percent of income earners in California fare on an annual basis. Tayor pointed out that the top 2 percent of tax-paying Californians pay 70 percent- plus of all state income tax.
Also at the board meeting, newly sworn-in President Ron Granville created a task force to help the rental housing industry deal with California’s drought.
Frazier Crawford, ConAm, will chair the Water Conservation Task Force, joined by John Eudy, Essex, Adam Goldfarb, MancoAbbott and Kellie Meier, Prometheus.
Other board activity included legislative and legal updates, reports on political contributions and presentations on membership and marketing.
The meeting also included Granville taking over as board president, following Laura Khouri’s two years at the helm.
Granville thanked Khouri for her generous and productive two years as president and presented her with a plaque in appreciation.