Town Council holding special meeting today
PARADISE » The Paradise Town Council is going to have a special meeting at 2 p.m. today to discuss whether to hire a lobbying firm and consider writing a letter in opposition to the state Department of Public Health regarding a proposed change in the syringe exchange program.
According to the agenda, the council will consider hiring Broad and Guseman to provide state advocacy and lobbying services to the town for about $4,000 a month.
Since the Camp Fire struck Paradise, the town has contracted with the Ferguson Group for those services at no cost.
According to the agenda, the town recently reached out to Broad and Gusman to ask for a proposal to represent the town at the state level.
The group already works with the Paradise Irrigation District for which Town Manager Kevin Phillips was district manager before joining the town staff in August.
That previous relationship Phillips says in a staff report in the agenda, gives them, “extensive knowledge of the issues associated with the rebuild of Paradise.”
He said the company provided PID with comprehensive support to receive two years of backfill funding from the 2019 California budget.
Phillips points out that much of the state’s legislative process and lobbying is conducted outside of public meetings and prior to formal legislative hearings, so it’s very important that the town has a voice in the early drafting of bills and a place at interim committees.
Bills that are critical to the town’s future, according to Phillips include the passing of Assembly Bill 36, obtaining COVID-19 funding, building code changes, and other legislation covering local funding, grants and disaster recovery support. Phillips says that Broad and Gusman have built an excellent reputation with both sides of the political aisle and have a great working relationship with the town’s state representatives.
Letter to state
The council will vote on whether the send a letter to the state opposing the California Department of Public Health’s potential rule change to the California Syringe Exchange Program.
The letter from Mayor Steve Crowder states that it is a local government’s job to use land-use policy and ordinances to regulate programs that have proven to be a public nuisance to the citizens it is sworn to protect.
He argues that it is not in the public interest for state agencies far removed to inject themselves into that area of government. He calls it a “broad and egregious overreach to do so without any input, control, or regulation by the very local government agencies closest to the communities affected.”
In fact, he calls the idea that the rule change will provide consistency a “deceptive excuse to usurp local control over land-use decisions.”
He also argued that the CDPH is trying to use Health and Safety Code Section 121349 to exempt the syringe program from conforming to any and all laws, regardless of scope or intent.