WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.111 --> 00:00:13.711 This is California in 5, from CivicFM: the week at the city halls and county boards we cover. 2 00:00:14.711 --> 00:00:30.206 San Diego's City Council votes to swap tiered water rates for one flat rate after a court loss, the Los Angeles City Council passes a ban on new oil drilling, and San Francisco's Board of Supervisors gives final approval to two renter protections. 3 00:00:30.206 --> 00:00:38.511 This episode is made with AI from each government's own show, which reports from the public recordings of its meetings. Sources are in the show notes. 4 00:00:41.989 --> 00:01:02.514 Our top story: water bills in San Diego. On Tuesday, the San Diego City Council voted six to two to replace its tiered single-family water rates with one flat rate per unit of water, after courts ruled, in a lawsuit by high-volume users, that the tiers didn't meet the proof requirements of Proposition two-eighteen. 5 00:01:02.514 --> 00:01:16.939 Staff said the city collects the same total, but the bills shift. They estimated a low-volume single-family customer will pay about five dollars and sixty-two cents more a month, and a high-volume one about nineteen dollars and fifty-two cents less. 6 00:01:16.939 --> 00:01:29.349 The new rates take effect January first, along with a fourteen and a half percent increase adopted earlier, and the council asked the utilities department for a plan to expand help for customers who can't afford them. 7 00:01:32.666 --> 00:01:49.041 Our next story takes us to Los Angeles. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council passed an ordinance that would ban new oil and gas extraction and phase out existing extraction citywide. It passed with thirteen votes and went straight to Mayor Karen Bass for her approval. 8 00:01:49.041 --> 00:01:56.081 Speakers described health harms near drill sites, and several asked the council to shorten what they called a twenty-year phase-out. 9 00:01:56.081 --> 00:02:10.546 The city's earlier ban is already being challenged in federal court by an oil company, and that same day the council voted to reject a settlement in the case. Katy Yaroslavsky, the Fifth District councilmember, said the city expects to be sued over the new ordinance as well. 10 00:02:13.944 --> 00:02:31.889 Our last top story is in San Francisco, where on Tuesday the Board of Supervisors gave final approval, eleven to nothing, to two renter protections. The first will require online rental listings and leases to show the total estimated monthly cost, rent plus any required fees. 11 00:02:31.889 --> 00:02:54.664 Tenants who weren't adequately told will be able to end their leases early without penalty, and landlords will be restricted from evicting them or charging late penalties over fees that weren't adequately disclosed. Under the second, landlords won't be able to evict a tenant for unpaid rent that totals less than the local fair market rent for an equivalent-sized unit, as the federal housing department sets it. 12 00:02:58.141 --> 00:03:19.526 Now a quick trip around the state. The San Diego City Council voted nine to nothing on Tuesday to pause permits for new or expanded data centers citywide for forty-five days while rules are written. Staff said the pause can be extended, but it doesn't reach federal land, including a Navy site near Old Town where news reports described a proposed data center. 13 00:03:19.526 --> 00:03:36.081 Three weeks ago we told you the Los Angeles City Council had taken over review of a police license plate camera pilot with the company Axon. On Tuesday, a council veto of the Police Commission's approval got nine votes, twice, one short of the ten it needed, so the approval stands. 14 00:03:36.081 --> 00:03:48.406 The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday denied neighbors' appeal of a hundred and four homes, sixteen of them affordable, on a former school site in unincorporated Covina, upholding the project's approval. 15 00:03:48.406 --> 00:03:59.741 And on Tuesday the San Jose City Council unanimously renamed its downtown Plaza de César Chávez. After a community survey drew more than ten thousand responses, it's now Plaza de San José. 16 00:04:03.059 --> 00:04:06.539 That's the week around California. See you next time.