• State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) recently announced a new bill she authored that would expand unpaid leave for working parents who have been affected by school and child care closures during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under existing law, job-protected unpaid leave is limited to people who work for companies with 25 people or more and is capped at 40 hours per year. According to a news release from Jackson’s office, this proposed legislation—Senate Bill 1383—would extend unpaid leave in cases where schools have closed as a result of an emergency declaration by a federal, state, or local government agency through the duration of the emergency. “Working parents throughout the state are facing the unique challenge of balancing child care, distance learning, and work responsibilities amid the COVID-19 school closures,” Jackson said in the news release. “Without adequate job-protected leave, too many parents are forced to choose between caring for their children and keeping their job.”
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) and a group of California members of Congress sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom urging the governor to provide COVID-19 relief funding to small and mid-size counties. According to a news release from Carbajal’s office, the federally approved Coronavirus Aid, Relief, And Economy Security Act—known as the CARES Act—allocated $15.3 billion in funding to the state of California. The state has only outlined how counties with populations of at least 500,000 people can access their share of the funding, which was not the intent of Congress with this bill, according to the release. In the letter, the Congress members asked Newsom when and how small and mid-size counties will receive this aid. “Local governments on the Central Coast and across California have not had access to key coronavirus relief funding within the CARES Act,” Carbajal said in the news release. “While future relief funding is important, it’s imperative that the governor release the already allocated funding to our local communities that did not receive direct funding so they can maintain essential services.”
• Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on May 8 that requires all county election officials in the state to send vote-by-mail ballots for the general election in November to all registered voters in their counties. According to a news release from his office, Californians who may need to vote in person, such as those with disabilities or experiencing homelessness, will be able to do so. The news release states that the governor’s office will continue to work with the state Legislature and the Secretary of State’s office to determine how the November election will be carried out while not threatening the health of the public during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “Elections and the right to vote are foundational to our democracy,” Newsom said in the news release. “No Californian should be forced to risk their health in order to exercise their right to vote.”
On May 6, the Central Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board announced dates for virtual public workshops over a proposed agricultural order the agency released in February. This is the fourth iteration of this order that the board first put in place in 2004, and it’s used to record data on water quality conditions and impose regulations on farmers. Some agricultural groups have pushed back on the draft order, claiming the regulations are too stringent and infeasible. The agency is hosting three workshops that’ll take place through the online video conference platform Zoom, with each meeting focused on a different part of the region. The meeting for Santa Barbara County is scheduled for June 4 at 9 a.m.
This article appears in May 14-21, 2020.