1 BEFORE THE CALIFORNIA STATE BOARD OF EQUALIZATION 2 450 N STREET 3 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 4 5 6 7 8 REPORTER'S TRANSCRIPT 9 MARCH 27, 2018 10 11 12 ITEM C 13 PUBLIC HEARING 14 C1 15 PROPOSED AMENDMENTS TO PROPERTY TAX RULE 51, 16 AGREEMENTS QUALIFYING LAND FOR ASSESSMENT AS 17 OPEN-SPACE LANDS 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 REPORTED BY: Jillian M. Sumner 28 CSR NO. 13619 1 1 P R E S E N T 2 3 For the Board Honorable George Runner of Equalization: Chairman 4 Honorable Fiona Ma 5 CPA, Vice Chair 6 Honorable Jerome Horton Third District 7 Honorable Diane L. Harkey 8 Fourth District 9 Yvette Stowers Appearing for Betty T. 10 Yee, State Controller (per Government Code 11 Section 7.9) 12 Joann Richmond Chief 13 Board Proceedings Division 14 15 For Board of Equalization Staff: Richard Moon 16 Legal Department 17 Henry Nanjo Chief Counsel 18 Dean Kinnee 19 Executive Director 20 21 22 ---oOo--- 23 24 25 26 27 28 2 1 450 N STREET 2 SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 3 MARCH 27, 2018 4 ---oOo--- 5 MS. RICHMOND: Good morning, Members. 6 Our first item on this morning's agenda is 7 item C, Public Hearing, Item C1, Proposed Amendments 8 to Property Tax Rule 51, Agreements Qualifying Land 9 for Assessment as Open-Space Lands. 10 MR. RUNNER: Mr. Moon, welcome. 11 MR. MOON: Good Morning, Chairman Runner, 12 Members of the Board. My name is Richard Moon. I'm 13 with the Legal Department. And I'm here to request 14 the Board vote to adopt the proposed amendments to 15 Rule 51, which is titled, Agreements Qualifying Land 16 for Assessment as Open-Space Lands. 17 And this rule sets forth requirements that 18 are pre-1969 Williamson Act contract has to have to 19 qualify for evaluation as open-space lands, and the 20 amendments for place of reference to a repealed rule 21 with a reference to the statute that was the basis 22 for the repealed rule. 23 Thank you. 24 MR. RUNNER: Okay. 25 Members, question. 26 MR. HORTON: Yes, Mr. Runner. 27 MR. RUNNER: Yes, Member Horton. 28 MR. HORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chair. 3 1 Thank you for bringing this forward, and 2 particularly bringing about clarification as it 3 relates to the Williams Act and the Legislation and 4 so forth. 5 How does this rule and other rules or 6 guidance we provide affect the agricultural 7 open-space land transfers? 8 MR. MOON: Well, this particular rule 9 applies only to pre-1969 contracts. 10 MR. HORTON: Mm-hm. 11 MR. MOON: So it has a very limited scope. 12 We did contact the Department of Conservation and 13 some of the assessors, and we were able to find out 14 that they do, in fact, exist, these pre-1969 15 contracts. But we were not able to get an idea of 16 how many of them exist. 17 And so we thought the prudent thing to do 18 would be to go ahead and amend this rule just in case 19 somebody were looking for that information. 20 MR. HORTON: What would happen if the heirs 21 decided they didn't want to cancel their contract? 22 MR. MOON: It would -- it would just go -- 23 go on. 24 MR. HORTON: Discontinue? 25 MR. MOON: Yeah -- yes. 26 MR. HORTON: Okay. All right. Thank you. 27 MR. RUNNER: Okay. Any other questions, 28 Members? 4 1 MS. STOWERS: Do we have any public 2 comments? 3 MR. RUNNER: I have no public -- 4 MS. RICHMOND: No. 5 MR. RUNNER: -- no cards or anything for 6 public comments. 7 MS. RICHMOND: No. 8 MR. RUNNER: Ms. Stowers, do you have a 9 comment? Just checking? 10 MS. STOWERS: Just checking. Just 11 clarifying. 12 MR. HORTON: Mr. Chair, that brings up a 13 question. 14 How do we -- are we soliciting, notifying 15 folks about the hearings? 16 MR. MOON: Yeah, we -- we do notify about 17 the hearings. We publish a notice that goes out at 18 least 45 days before this public hearing. Prior to 19 that, we issue a version of the rules that's proposed 20 that the public has the ability to comment on. 21 And in this case, we did both of those 22 things. And the only comment we got back was a 23 letter from the County of LA in support of the 24 amendments. 25 MS. STOWERS: So, Chief Counsel, when he -- 26 when you say we do a public notice, who is on that 27 list of public notice? 28 MR. NANJO: It goes on our Web site, and 5 1 it's also sent out to those who requested 2 notification of any rule changes and things of that 3 nature. 4 MS. STOWERS: Is there any reach out to -- 5 thank you -- any reach out to the media who may have 6 a broader span reaching out to the general public? 7 MR. NANJO: Generally, the media is -- is -- 8 they monitor our Web sites. I know this particular 9 item was on the CalTax newsletter. So it does get 10 out. 11 In this particular case -- 12 MS. STOWERS: But do we reach -- directly 13 reach out to the media? Not assuming that the media 14 is monitoring our Web site, but are we doing some 15 kind of contact to the varied media outlets and 16 saying that we have this issue coming up, please 17 reach out to the public? 18 I know the Controller's Office, we do -- 19 when we do our media outreach, we're not passive 20 about it. We expect for -- we -- back up. We reach 21 out to the media directly so they know what's going 22 on. 23 Are we doing that here? 24 MR. NANJO: I don't believe we're doing any 25 kind of special reaching out on this particular rule. 26 Especially -- but, um -- yeah. So -- 27 MS. STOWERS: I think it would be a service 28 to this Board to have a direct contact to the media 6 1 outlets in general. Not just for this issue, but all 2 issues dealing with property tax. Anything that -- 3 MR. RUNNER: So the question leads to -- I 4 think I'm understanding it -- is that right now as we 5 make an announcement about a rule-making procedure in 6 terms of our normal con -- our normal interested 7 parties contacts that we would have and targeted 8 issues and things like that, the media -- and I'm not 9 sure how sometimes to define that or who to reach out 10 to exactly -- but the point would be the media then 11 ends up learning about it secondhand through either 12 what's on the agenda or -- or through one of these 13 other agencies. 14 Is that what the concern is? 15 MS. STOWERS: The concern -- I think we 16 should be more proactive with the media. 17 MR. RUNNER: How -- let me just ask -- I 18 mean, I don't have any issue with that. I think 19 it's -- I mean, I think the more the better, and I 20 don't have any issue. I just don't know how to 21 define -- how to reach out to the me -- how -- what 22 is your thought in regards how to -- how to target a 23 group or -- 24 MS. STOWERS: I actually think that -- thank 25 you, our Director Officer. 26 Go ahead. 27 MR. KINNEE: Dean Kinnee, Executive 28 Director. 7 1 Typically on a project, say we were updating 2 the Vessel handbook -- 3 MR. RUNNER: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. 4 MR. KINNEE: -- a general vessel. You know, 5 we announce it with our letter to assessors that 6 there's over 3,000 subscribers. So it's out there 7 and it's posted. But we kind of go through and try 8 to identify groups, affiliations in the vessel 9 community. So that's how we approach it. 10 So like when we updated the agricultural 11 handbook, we made sure we hit farm bureaus -- 12 MR. RUNNER: Okay. 13 MR. KINNEE: Department of Agriculture. So 14 we -- we develop an interested parties list and send 15 it out. 16 MR. NANJO: Yeah. On this particular 17 matter -- I understand what Deputy Controller is 18 saying. But on this particular matter, we've done an 19 interested parties meeting that occurred on 20 September 8th, 2016. 21 I think my understanding is we try to be a 22 little selective, if you will. This is more of a 23 routine change. This was done just to kind of take 24 out a reference that was repealed and put in a 25 reference that was -- basically the law changed, the 26 reference needed to be updated. This is more of an 27 update, more routine in that matter. So we didn't go 28 through anything specific. But in this case we still 8 1 did an interested parties meeting. 2 If the Deputy Controller would like to share 3 with me kind of the methodology that the State 4 Controller's Office uses to reach out to media, I'd 5 be more than happy to look at it and see if we can 6 implement that for future rule-makings. 7 MS. STOWERS: I will. I just think that 8 everyone needs to be -- 9 MR. RUNNER: Mm-hm. 10 MS. STOWERS: I know I -- I respect, you 11 know, it's kind of a -- for this particular issue, 12 it's very -- a small universe. But I want to make 13 sure the public is aware of the various changes that 14 this Board is adopting so that they can voice their 15 opinion. 16 MR. RUNNER: Well, and I think -- sometimes 17 I think the challenges of what we may see as a small 18 adjustment may be very important to somebody else. 19 MS. STOWERS: Exactly. 20 MR. RUNNER: And then also, if I -- I guess 21 if it's not a part of our regular procedure, then 22 there's a decision in there to decide when it is -- 23 when it is appropriate to deal with the media and 24 when it isn't. And I'm not sure that's a good safe 25 place to be either. 26 MR. HORTON: Yeah. Members -- 27 MR. RUNNER: Yeah, Mr. Horton. 28 MR. HORTON: Mr. Runner. 9 1 I don't know if the media is the outlet in 2 general. Because it depends on whether or not it's 3 newsworthy. 4 In this case, the Williamson Act is a broad 5 act -- 6 MR. RUNNER: Mm-hm. 7 MR. HORTON: -- you know, that affects a lot 8 of people. And particularly those in rural 9 California more so than anyone else. 10 And so when you began to tweak with 11 something, you all of the sudden develop interest 12 that may actually be insightful as to other areas 13 that may need some sort of adjustment. Or even in 14 this specific case as it relates to the individuals 15 who this would apply to. 16 And this is one of those issues that's kind 17 of been -- the Legislature's looked at it and dealt 18 with it. And the Board has looked at it and dealt 19 with it. A number of individuals have come before 20 the Board and expressed concerns about it. And so -- 21 not necessarily with the specific change, but in 22 general how this would affect them. 23 So I, too, would encourage it. 24 MR. RUNNER: Okay. So what we have with the 25 issue before us, we need to take a vote on. And then 26 I think what we understand is that, and through the 27 discussion, is that Member Stowers will work with the 28 staff in regards to develop some kind of a process 10 1 possibly that we might want to think about in regards 2 to broadening the communications in regards to the 3 rule-making process. 4 MS. STOWERS: Exactly. Thank you. 5 MR. RUNNER: Okay. Okay. 6 Is there a motion? 7 MR. HORTON: Move adoption. 8 MR. RUNNER: A second? 9 MS. MA: Second. 10 MR. RUNNER: Okay. 11 Any objection? 12 Okay. Motion passes. 13 MR. MOON: Thank you. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 11 1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE 2 3 State of California ) 4 ) ss 5 County of Sacramento ) 6 7 I, Jillian Sumner, Hearing Reporter for 8 the California State Board of Equalization certify 9 that on March 27, 2018 I recorded verbatim, in 10 shorthand, to the best of my ability, the 11 proceedings in the above-entitled hearing; that I 12 transcribed the shorthand writing into typewriting; 13 and that the preceding pages 1 through 12 14 constitute a complete and accurate transcription of 15 the shorthand writing. 16 17 Dated: April 18, 2018 18 19 20 ____________________________ 21 JILLIAN SUMNER, CSR #13619 22 Hearing Reporter 23 24 25 26 27 28 12