SGVCOG Promotes Enlightened Regional Agenda

Given the pressures on local government budgets, what is the value-added role of various COGs in Los Angeles County? What can the COGs do to help? What are the COGs prioritizing?

There's no area in Los Angeles County that exemplifies the benefits that can be achieved by utilizing a Council of Government business model in a local government operating environment better than the San Gabriel Valley.

The San Gabriel Valley spans 375 square miles and is home to 2.3 million people living in 31 incorporated cities and many unincorporated communities. The San Gabriel Valley accounts for approximately 20 percent of L.A. County's population and L.A. County's jobs. It is one of the few areas in Southern California that has a jobs/housing balance. The distinguishing feature of the San Gabriel Valley is the mosaic that constitutes its local government organizations and structure. More than 450,000 of the 2.3 million residents live in unincorporated communities, the largest number of LA County residents living in unincorporated communities. Despite accounting for 20 percent of L.A. County's population, our 31 incorporated cities represent 36 percent of L.A. County's incorporated cities.

When you add all of the other special purpose districts (schools, junior colleges, water, etc.) the valley has over 500 elected officials. For this reason, the San Gabriel Valley is nicknamed the "Valley of Local Control."

The COG is the conduit that enables our cities and unincorporated communities to join together in leveraging limited resources and a desire for local control to achieve the economy of scale needed to compete for "fair share" resources in the regional, state and federal arenas. The SGVCOG is, in many respects, the prototypical 21st century local government agency in California.

What are some of the cooperative regional initiatives being spearheaded and prototyped in the San Gabriel Valley?

Since its founding in 1994, SGVCOG has focused on bringing the federal, state and local dollars needed to expand the valley's deficient transportation infrastructure. Over the last 15 years, we have had considerable success in achieving those goals. After many years of broken promises, in 1998 we saw the passage of state legislation creating the Metro Gold line Construction Authority. In 2003, the 14 mile light rail line connecting L.A. to San Gabriel Valley was opened, on time and on budget. During this same period, the SGVCOG created the Alameda Corridor East Construction Authority (ACE) to address safety and mobility concerns at the valley's 61 grade crossings resulting from the increase train traffic associated with the movement of goods and freight in and out of the L.A./L.B. ports.

Last month, construction began on the six mile segment of the Foothill Metro Gold Line LRT linking Pasadena to Azusa. Service will begin in 2014, if not sooner. At the same time, we are analyzing routes to expand the recently opened Metro Gold Line Eastside extension to communities along the southern side of the San Gabriel Valley, the Gateway cities, and southeast L.A. County. Together these two LRT lines will serve as the valley's rail transportation horseshoe, with Metrolink providing service down the I-10 corridor linking L.A. to the Inland Empire. Finally, we recently won support from Metro to advance the 710 Tunnel Project forward to its next step in its feasibility process-examining the environmental issues associated with implementing this regional transportation project

Over the last three years, the COG has expanded its focus beyond transportation by adding two standing policy committees-Energy, Environment and Natural Resources (EENR) and Housing.

With respect to protecting the valley's environment, the COG is involved in a number of unique partnerships to facilitate energy-related programs. This includes a partnership with Southern California Edison to assist our cities in implementing energy-efficiency retrofit programs in their municipal facilities, as well as an ongoing effort with Los Angeles County to develop a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) loan program that will assist residents in financing energy-efficiency and solar upgrades in their homes. In addition to energy, we are involved in cutting-edge grant programs with various state agencies to address solid waste and watershed protection issues. We are involved in these issues because they have a major impact on our cities, yet require regional implementation of strategies in order to be effective.

A third and most recent initiative is addressing the needs of the valley's homeless population. The COG involvement and approach to the issue serves as an excellent example of the valley's municipal culture of compassion and commitment to supporting the grass roots leadership and our community of faith based organizations. The San Gabriel Valley government leaders had been told that homeless population was growing and needed to be addressed at the city level valleywide. However, there was no agreement as to the extent of the problem, let alone the location and make up of these most vulnerable members of our community.

As part of the COG's homeless initiative, over 500 faith and community-based organizations were identified and surveyed regarding the services being provided to those in need, including efforts funded by both public and private resources. As a result of this valleywide effort, we now have a better understanding of the extent of the problem and how it impacts our residents, businesses and communities. More important, for the first time, the valley's faith- and community-based organization have come together to form an alliance-based umbrella agency that will coordinate service delivery system to address these needs. This new organization, which is the only one of its kind in the nation, will be in partnership with SGVCOG and L.A. County.

Regional governments and COG's are not constitutionally recognized. How then do you do the job of representing the San Gabriel Valley sub-region without the benefit of status and funding streams from the federal and state?

We tend to lose sight of our scale in Los Angeles and in Southern California in general. If San Gabriel Valley were a state, based on population alone, we would rank 38th in the United States. If you were to attend one of San Gabriel Valley COG monthly meetings, one would find it very similar to any Town Hall event. The discussions would reflect local concerns about local issues. However what is frequently lost on everyone involved in those discussions is the magnitude and scale of what we're addressing. Here in the San Gabriel Valley, "local" is redefined as being within a 374 square-mile area, with 2.3 million people living in 31 incorporated cities and many unincorporated communities. It is analogous to the state of Nevada or Arkansas engaging in a Town Hall meeting.Participants leave those discussions having made decisions with the expectation that something would happen in the near future.

The COG, as a government agency, has limited staffing and financial resources. Unlike other government agencies, it lacks the statutory authority or political mandate to raise fees or tax without the written approval of every single member. However, utilizing an entrepreneurial, 21st century business model that focuses on efficiency, accountability and building networks, SGVCOG has secured more than $3 billion dollars in federal, state, and local funding to support the various initiatives deemed essential to enhancing the quality of life for its residents and businesses. Today this umbrella organization, in partnership with its member agencies, has managed to build a civic and political culture that is rooted in a set of core values that includes the importance of local control, juxtaposed with the recognition that working together for the betterment of the whole is the strategic solution to moving forward. This has become the "San Gabriel Valley Way."

By design, SB 375 involves regional collaboration regarding land use and transportation planning. What is the San Gabriel COG's approach to the implementation of SB 375's land use and transportation linkage?

Our goal has always been to engage or regional and state partners, including SCAG and the ARB, in a very proactive way. All of our cities are preparing to undertake the development of climate action plans for their respective jurisdiction and the valley as a whole. When that planning effort is completed next year, we will be the only sub-regional area in Southern California to have such a regional and local plan.

Elaborate on the San Gabriel Valley COG's plan.

It focuses on transportation If you look at Measure R and its investment in Los Angeles County, the projects that are moving forward at this point in time are the transportation-the light rail into the San Gabriel Valley and the Alameda-East construction project and its grade separation projects. That's over $1 billion worth of investment of public dollars into transportation improvement programs. In addition to that, each one of our cities is developing transit-oriented development strategies focused around transportation infrastructure and other initiatives related to housing. The downtowns in many of our communities are identifying sites for higher density, transit-oriented development. We have four transportation corridors identified that we are moving forward with in joint planning involving multiple agencies, including L.A. County. I am going to a meeting today where the item for discussion is the creation of a city-county redevelopment agency for six cities along this major transportation arterial. This will enable the county and those cities to plan for SB 375 under the auspices of a redevelopment agency.

The San Gabriel Valley COG conspicuously objected to Measure R, even while your cities voted in favor of Measure R. Have you personally changed your mind about the value of Measure R?

We were never opposed to the goal of Measure R and the raising of funds to support needed transportation projects in the valley and the region. The fundamental objection is, and has always been, that the San Gabriel Valley receive our "fair share" of resources. There is a long history of broken promises made to the San Gabriel Valley that support those concerns. A majority of the MTA Board would not agree to our request to state that commitment as part of the ballot measure. Therefore, based on the history of actions by Metro, we opposed the measure.

Is it ironic that the San Gabriel Valley is now in line to receive more than your "fair share" of Measure R funding?

Yes, and San Gabriel Valley leaders are most appreciative of the MTA Board's commitment and support in getting Measure R projects (Gold Line, ACE, and Sound Walls) underway quickly in the valley. In return for their trust, SGVCOG is committed to ensuring each of those projects are accelerated to the extent possible and completed on budget. In addition, we are committed to working with MTA to support their efforts to ensure that all of the projects and the resources identified in Measure R are made available in accordance with the adopted plan and as soon as possible.

TPR and MIR have been reporting on plans for the 710 extension for over 20 years. What is the COG's involvement (given that some of your cities are supportive and some are not) with the current planning process?

We are making substantive progress. The COG and 29 of our member agencies has always been in support of closing that 710 gap. Our history of support for the project goes back prior to the formation of the COG. In terms of this most recent initiative, we supported the continuation of the feasibility study that will evaluate the environmental impacts associated with this transportation improvement project, including constructing the project as an underground tunnel. Once that process is completed, and we hope it will be done in a timely manner sometime in the next two years, the valley and the region will have all of the information needed to determine the costs and benefits associated with applying this technology to solve what is clearly a major regional transportation and environmental bottleneck.

The SGVCOG recently held a workshop with 30 of your jurisdictions regarding the locally controlled congestion mitigation fee, or development impact fee. Do you see this self-help measure as a way, in the future, of providing local funding for cities to create their transportation project that they desire?

When Metro first raised this program, recognizing that it would have to be overlaid to 88 cities and recognizing the history of how these things often don't work done from the top down, we stepped forward and said, "Hey, we volunteer to be the guinea pig. Let's go through an analytical exercise where you engage every one of our cities to identify the projects and requirements that enable us to better understand what such a program could do, how much money it would need, and how it would it be applied and administered." We've been doing that for about two years. If you talk to people at Metro, they're shocked that everybody has learned a lot about the complexities of how it would work in the different cities, given the sophistication and variety of projects out there. Our cities have learned that this is an opportunity that, if applied in the right framework and in the right format, could enable them to get resources to address or leverage with other resources to get projects done.

How are the cities learning to meet their sub-regional transportation needs through this pilot project?

First and foremost is that we never asked the cities to put together projects, as fundamental as that sounds. They do it for their own cities, but those are usually tied to capital improvements related to the city infrastructure. We've never taken a step back and said, "Now tell us how that is going to fit into the regional transportation network and do that in increments of five years-not today but tomorrow." That itself is a different approach. Metro will tell you that when we did that-and keep in mind we're serving 32 different jurisdictions, including L.A. County-we got some wild answers, from freeways to stoplights. One of the things we're doing, and that was that workshop a couple weeks ago, is to say, "Here is the list; here is the magnitude of what we're taking about. We have freeways in the middle of this, and we also have left-hand turning lanes." We've got to refine this into a framework that works for everybody without blowing the budget of the whole thing. Our cities have learned how to think, how to critically analyze transportation, how to tie it to future land use and future population growth, and then put it in the framework of what we can do and what we can't do.

If you were writing a memo about how the COGs can play a positive role with their cities in making this program work, what would you say?

Patience! Make sure that these cities have all the information and then work with them to understand and apply it within their boundaries. We are asking them to engage in activities that they've never done before. That means that there's going to be a lot assistance provided to them, working with them, refining it, and doing it in a way that doesn't scold them or belittle them for not getting to where you want to be on the first try.

Metro, in working with our cities, has been very flexible. One size does not fit all, and that includes in the San Gabriel Valley and outside the San Gabriel Valley. I don't think a fee program is going to be universal in the county.

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What can you say, given your working relationship with these 30 cities in the San Gabriel Valley, about what's happening in the housing markets in these cities and what's happening to retain and attract jobs to this "38th largest state in the country"?

One of things that we promote, first and foremost, is that every city has an adopted housing element. We encourage our cities to make sure that they are in full compliance. We were one of the first jurisdictions within SCAG, going back to the 2004 regional housing allocation program, to volunteer for sub-delegated authority that linked all of our 31 cities, plus the county, into a regional housing allocation program for low and moderate housing and then to distribute that allocation amongst our jurisdictions. All of our jurisdictions are working on housing solutions the best they can with the resources that they have. Not all of our cities have redevelopment agencies and some work through the county; they're not on entitlement. But we are actively working with each of our cities to identify housing opportunities and to ensure that growth projections are accurate. The last thing we did this year was to work with SCAG to go through the Regional Transportation Plan to dive into the financial model they had, down to the COG level, to identify population centers and projections. We got every city in the valley to sign off on those projections.

The current issue of TPR includes an interview with the energy project manager of Huntington Beach. From the viewpoint of the COG and the cities you relate to, what's on the cutting edge for your cities and the COG on energy efficiency, energy management, AB 32, etc.?

That's perhaps the biggest issue right now in the COG. If you go back to just four years ago, we did not have an energy and environment committee in the COG. Today we have it, and it's our largest committee. We just won a grant through the Southern California Edison partnership program, where we will develop climate action plans to help our cities comply with AB 32, develop city plans for each of the cities, and develop a valleywide plan that meshes into the city plans. One of the areas that we're also exploring is L.A. County's Property Assessed Clean Energy Program (PACE) program. We are hoping to supplement that program will additional federal funding that we've applied for ito allow our cities to market transformation and get homeowners engaged in the energy efficiency movement and undertaking energy retrofit projects.