ACA 1 / ACA 10 (Aguiar Curry)
Supporting HWG Members: California YIMBY
ACA 1 will lower the necessary voter threshold from a two-thirds supermajority to 55 percent to approve local general obligation (GO) bonds for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects.
This will give communities a stronger tool for creating LOCAL solutions to LOCAL problems, crafted for LOCAL housing and infrastructure needs.
ACA 1 will empower local governments and their communities to invest in desperately needed affordable housing and infrastructure by creating long-term, community-supported opportunities for financing it.
This could create a TRILLION dollars to invest in our communities over the next 20 years, this is not a small tool!
Right, now many local funding measures fail even though they have majority support from the community because the ⅔ voter threshold gives a small minority the ability to block funding measures.
That’s hundreds of millions of dollars that local communities needed but couldn’t get approved.
ACA 1 passed last year and will be on the November ballot, but is going through some clean up in the form of ACA 10 (passed today) and AB 2813 (up for vote Monday) – the measure will now be known as ACA 10
ACA 1 was the fourth time the policy/bill was run, and the first time it made it on the ballot, so we want to ensure it passes.
In the interest of neutralizing the opposition and giving the measure a better chance of passing, a few concessions were made. These aren’t ideal but it’s really important to remove opposition so the bill passes.
ACA 10 will lower the voter threshold for local bonds for affordable housing, first time home buyer and downpayment assistance programs, plus the infrastructure necessary to support more housing.
Special taxes have been removed but accountability measures remain!
The ASK: the campaign needs community organizations and local partners across the state to help get the message out about how important and valuable the measure is.
It is local leaders, neighbors, communities, etc. advocating for the measure in their own community that will make the difference.
They need you. The one thing they articulated that they have learned this year through polling and focus groups is that it is all of you communicating to your neighbors that matters. People want to know that it is real local folks that are running these initiatives, real local folks working with their elected officials that are going to be deciding what the right solutions are on the ground. You are so important to that effort.
They hope that everyone around the state that does the work you do will help communicate the key messages about the measure: they resonate most when coming from you. Your networks need to hear from you how important this is to their communities.
The campaign is working on a toolkit to help you get these important messages out, to share this call to support with your communities. They are developing this now and will share as much as they can as soon as they can with this group.
Reach out to Brooke (California YIMBY Legislative Advocate, brooke.pritchard@cayimby.org) to connect with the Majority Leader’s office and the ACA 10 campaign – whether to ask questions or to learn more about how to support!!