Capitol visitor’s center postponed + CFA unveils social justice plan + A new redistricting commission

Fourth of July weekend approaches! Have a safe and sane holiday weekend, and we’ll see you next week.

POSTPONED

Two years ago, before the coronavirus catapulted California into a deep recession that could last for years, California lawmakers began a $755 million project to bulldoze and rebuild the Capitol annex.

Construction blueprints for the remodeling of the warren of offices attached to the east side of the building call for a 200,000 square-foot annex expansion, a new parking garage and a modern visitors center.

In case of fiscal emergency, such as the one we’re experiencing today, Assemblyman Ken Cooley, a Rancho Cordova Democrat who’s spearheading the project, created a Plan B that would pay for the project by selling bonds and then repaying investors over time.

The backup plan might need a backup plan.

Cooley told The Sacramento Bee Tuesday that the visitor’s center, which the rest of the project architecturally relies on, has been postponed.

Groundbreaking on the visitor’s center was supposed to happen this spring, Cooley said. But with COVID-19 came a delay in plans, and a reprioritization of fiscal attention.

The entire project is still scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, said Cooley, adding that the visitor’s center is an imperative part. It is designed to help free congestion through the Capitol, he explained, which was a major reason for needing to gut the building to begin with.

“From a functional standpoint, it is extremely vital to the whole,” Cooley said. “It’s a point where people can gather. You can find it easily on the west side, you’re able to come in and have some classroom space, two small classroom areas to accommodate two school groups simultaneously. There’s an exhibit area that would allow you to do your civics and state government education.”

Without the center, Cooley said, the entire project would need to be recalibrated. The project currently relies on tourists entering through the center on the west side of the Capitol and then into the building. Without that space, the plans would need to be redrawn to create a ramping system on the north and south sides to meet ADA compliance.

Lawmakers are still expected in the fall of next year to move out of the annex and relocate temporarily into a government building currently under construction just a couple of blocks away from the Capitol.

So for Cooley, there’s still time to make sure the People’s House gets its visitor’s center.

“All planning is continuing,” he said.

CFA UNVEILS SOCIAL JUSTICE AGENDA

The California Faculty Association on Wednesday unveiled a new social justice agenda that it will pursue within the California State University’s 23 campuses.

The group said that the death of George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes “shocked the system for CFA and its members” but that it did not come as a surprise.

“The US is a racialized society based on white supremacy where opportunities, resources, power and human rights are structured by race to privilege whiteness,” CFA Vice President Sharon Elise said in a statement. “One where race structures disadvantages such as poverty, barriers to opportunity and power, and failure to recognize humanity, resulting in a racial hierarchy.”

Five key takeaways from the plan?

First, the CFA is calling for a ban on armed police on college campuses, saying they represent “a real threat to Black Lives.”

“Militarized state police should not be deployed daily on our campuses given the low and incidence of violent crime; this police presence strikes terror and fear in the Black campus community,” the CFA said in a statement.

Second, the CFA is backing AB 1460, a bill that would make taking an ethnic studies course a mandatory graduation requirement. The CFA is calling on CSU Chancellor Timothy White to endorse the bill, which is currently awaiting a final vote in the Assembly.

Third, the CFA is calling on the CSU to create Black and Africana studies departments and provide them with resources and tenure-track faculty positions to study “the story of Afrodescendant peoples and culture, their conditions, experiences and contributions.”

Fourth, the CFA is calling on the CSU system to provide free tuition to Black and indigenous students to reverse the trend of declining enrollments among those ethnicities.

Fifth and finally, the CFA wants to see better racial representation among CSU leadership, from the chancellor’s office on down.

FORMING THE REDISTRICTING COMMISSION

It’s that time again.

With California preparing to re-draw its districts, from Congressional on down, it’s time to begin forming the independent 14-member 2020 Citizens Redistricting Commission.

To that end, California State Auditor Elaine Howle, will randomly draw eight names on Thursday morning from a pool of 35 candidates vetted by state lawmakers.

To insure balance on the commission, Howle will randomly draw three Democratic names, three Republican names and two names from neither of those parties.

Those eight will then go on to select six more members, in order to fully form the commission by Aug. 15.

This is only the second time California has gone through this process, which went into effect in 2008.

Want to watch history be made? The whole thing will be broadcast via Zoom. The event begins at 10:30 a.m., and you can watch by visiting here. The password is 184098 (we checked, it’s a public event).

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Wearing a mask is a sign of toughness. Of resolve. A sign of someone who gives a damn. Who wants to solve a problem. Who takes responsibility. I think that’s a beautiful thing.”

- Gov. Gavin Newsom, via Twitter.

Best of the Bee:

• California lawmakers on Wednesday called the state prison system’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic a “fiasco” and criticized a “horribly botched transfer” of inmates to San Quentin that appears to have sparked the state’s most explosive outbreak, via Jason Pohl.

• The strategy outlined in California’s latest budget, which carves out a total of $1.3 billion for housing and homelessness, turns Project Roomkey — an emergency hotel and motel lease effort to house California’s most vulnerable homeless — into a permanent housing plan dubbed Project Homekey, via Mackenzie Hawkins.