SACRAMENTO – The California State Senate voted 31-0 Monday to approve Senate Bill 1023, which would allow local agency formation commissions (LAFCOs) to convert local resort improvement districts and selected municipal improvement districts into community services districts, without substantive changes to the districts’ powers, duties, financing, or service areas.

The legislation is by North Coast Senator Patricia Wiggins (D-Santa Rosa).

The Wiggins bill, which next heads to the Assembly for further consideration, also creates an accelerated procedure for converting the Tahoe Paradise Resort Improvement District into a recreation and park district.

SB 1023 is co-authored by Assemblywoman Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa) and sponsored by Napa County.

LAFCOs control the formation, boundaries, and dissolution of cities and most special districts within their respective counties.

SB 1023 creates a new boundary change procedure, called an "expedited reorganization," and allows LAFCOs to convert resort improvement districts (RIDs) and three specified municipal improvement districts (MIDs) – Montalvo, Bethel Island and Embarcadero – into community services districts (CSDs).

The Wiggins measure also creates a new accelerated reorganization to specifically allow the El Dorado County LAFCO to convert the Tahoe Paradise RID into a recreation and park district.

California's 3,400 special districts deliver the public facilities and services that their communities want, matching community services to community needs. To help the districts remain responsive to their residents and property owners, the Legislature has rewritten a half-dozen of their principal acts to reflect more recent constitutional and statutory trends.

However, the statewide law that applies to the few remaining resort improvement districts and the municipal improvement districts' special acts is not up-to-date.

“MIDs and RIDs are so similar in concept to community services districts that some local officials want to convert them,” Wiggins says. “This bill allows RIDs and MIDs to convert into CSDs more quickly, without changing boundaries, altering duties, raising costs, or eroding anyone's constitutional rights. If they use these voluntary procedures, district officials can gain access to modern laws that help them serve their communities.”