City staff brief committee on new California Local Government Climate Alliance and paid lobbyist

City staff described a newly formed Local Government Climate Alliance (LGCA) designed to pool resources and coordinate state-level climate advocacy for California cities and counties.

Alola Pimento (presenter) said the alliance aims to amplify local governments’ influence on state climate, energy affordability and housing policy by combining joint advocacy, knowledge sharing and a coordinated platform. Staff framed the alliance as a response to recent state legislation that limited some local reach-code authority and as a way to scale local experience into statewide influence.

Pimento said the alliance has already hired a lobbyist, the DeVoe Berg Group, at a cost of $61,000 a year, and that the City of Santa Barbara is serving as the fiscal sponsor while membership dues are established. Early participating jurisdictions include Cupertino, Mountain View, San Francisco, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz and Santa Monica, and the counties of San Mateo and Santa Cruz. Staff said other cities are in the process of joining as budgets and approvals are completed.

The alliance’s near-term focus will be energy affordability, interconnection reform and workforce development to support electrification. "We can't even build it," Pimento said of distributed clean-energy projects, emphasizing interconnection as a critical barrier. Staff said the lobbyist will produce a monthly, lay-language digest of tracked legislation as a membership deliverable, and staff discussed plans for local outreach and training, including a potential local-level lobby day for elected leaders.

Committee members asked about trainings for elected officials and expressed support for the model; staff said membership dues are scaled by jurisdiction population and that the fiscal-sponsorship arrangement is intended as a temporary solution while the alliance grows its own staffing capacity.

No formal action was taken at the meeting; staff will continue outreach to recruit additional members and provide monthly digests to participating local governments.