April 12, 2019 -- A 2016 law authored by Santa Monica Assemblymember Richard Bloom that makes accessory dwelling units (ADU), or "granny flats," easier to build is headed for some updates.
On Wednesday, AB 881, which clarifies key provisions of the existing law, passed out of the Assembly Local Government Committee and is headed to the Appropriations Committee.
Several major cities are now considering a so-called “congestion” tax, on the heels of New York approving the controversial first-in-the-nation fee on downtown drivers in a bid to ease gridlock.
In a quiet neighborhood on the outskirts of south Sacramento, the property looks like any other on the block: a single-story house that could use a new paint job, a large front yard that could use a little tidying, a chain-link fence surrounding the lot.
The tenants inside have no complaints—they have a good relationship with the property manager, and broken things get fixed on time. But like millions of renters in this increasingly costly state, they say that if their landlord raised the rent, they couldn’t afford to stay.
When Fluffy and Fido need surgery or transfusions, their humans have other worries besides where the blood comes from.
But state lawmakers are doing the worrying for them, trying to sort out exactly which canines should be allowed to donate blood and which shouldn’t.
Currently, most blood products used in veterinary medicine come from California, where dueling doggie blood bank bills have emerged to confront “closed colonies,” where animals are kept confined and bled at regular intervals before they are put up for adoption.
A bill to streamline construction of small backyard homes passed a key committee earlier this week.
Assemblymember Richard Bloom introduced A.B. 881, which passed out of the Assembly Local Government Committee Wednesday on a 7-0 vote, to remove barriers to constructing accessory dwelling units (ADUs). Bloom has heralded ADUs as a way to solve California’s housing crisis and passed a bill in 2016 designed to ease local and statewide roadblocks to building what are sometimes called back houses or granny flats. The bill now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
April 10, 2019 -- Assemblymember Richard Bloom's bill taxing sugary drinks was approved by the Health Committee Tuesday, nearly four years after the same committee soundly defeated a similar measure by the former Santa Monica mayor.
Bloom's AB 138 -- which would levy a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary drinks to address California’s diabetes and obesity crisis -- would be the first such state tax approved in the country.
California lawmakers have shelved a measure to outlaw “Big Gulp”-style sodas to avoid dragging down the rest of a package of bills that sponsors say is aimed at reducing obesity, including a soda tax and health warning labels on sugary drinks.
SACRAMENTO – Today, the Assembly Health Committee passed a measure to levy a 2 cent/fluid ounce fee on sugary drinks, the revenues of which would be used to address California’s diabetes and obesity crisis. If passed into law, AB 138, authored by Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica) could make California the first state in the United States to pass a statewide sugary drink tax.
SACRAMENTO – Legislation to ban certain “rat poisons”, or rodenticides, due to the unintended destructive downstream consequences on people, animals and wildlife passed the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee late Tuesday afternoon. The bill, AB 1788, by Assemblymember Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), would ban Second General Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs) for use in