Contact Us

President
Jim Ferrin
ferrin.james7@gmail.com

Past President
Kevin Heaney
kheaney@scga.org

Government Relations
Craig Kessler
ckessler@scga.org

Donor Relations
Emmy Moore Minister
EmmyPGA@aol.com

California Alliance for Golf
3333 Concours St. Ontario, CA, 91764
info@cagolf.org

Recent News

CAG Public Affairs Newsletter (September 2024)

September 23, 2024

THE WAITING GAME September is the month when we learn which among the many bills sent to Governor Newsom in unified form by both houses of the state legislature become law, which are directly vetoed, and which are pocket vetoed. Governor Newsom has signed thirteen (13) bills that purport to make it easier to build... Read More
When Golf Organizes and Advocates it Wins

September 19, 2024

September 18, 2024 Article provided by SCGA Public Affairs Team Sacramento September is when we find out which among the thousands of bills that legislators filed at the beginning of the year are signed into law by the governor. Just as the Assembly and Senate were under a firm deadline (August 31) to approve identical... Read More
August 26, 2024

August 26, 2024

PUBLIC AFFAIRS NEWSLETTER Where Golf and Public Policy Intersect [August 2024] ========================================================================= IT ALWAYS COMES BACK TO WATER Three things of long-term significance for the California golf community occurred last week, all of them involving water: 1. The Assembly and Senate performed their second and final “great culling” of 2024 by moving some bills off... Read More
“JUNK FEE” LAW SET TO GO INTO EFFECT JULY 1 MAY NOT APPLY TO GOLF COURSE RESTAURANT AND F/B OPERATION

June 14, 2024

June 10, 2024 Article Provided by SCGA SB 478 (Dodd; D-Napa) sailed through the legislature last year with nary a mention from SCGA Public Affairs, because it was common knowledge, or at least the “commons” thought it was common knowledge, that no aspect of a golf operation, public or private, would be affected by its passage.... Read More
CALIFORNIA’S WATER SUPPLY

May 21, 2024

Tuesday, May 14, 2024 Article provided by SCGA Public Affairs It isn’t often that one bill can highlight all that separates one side of California’s great water divide from the other – from those interests fixated on conservation as the focus of future supply and those intent on pursuing a more diversified portfolio – from... Read More
GOLF’S STOCK CONTINUES TO RISE IN SACRAMENTO

April 19, 2024

Wednesday, April 17, 2024 Article provided by SCGA When introduced by Assembly Member Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) February 16, AB 3192 contained a provision that would have banned the use of all nonorganic pesticides and fertilizers on golf resorts in California’s Coastal Zone. The bill defined “golf resorts” as golf courses attached by ownership/management to resorts with at... Read More
IT’S STILL THE LAND, STUPID

April 16, 2024

Wednesday, April 10, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA A cautionary tale from semi-rural Santa Barbara County to remind you that the pressure to repurpose golf courses is not just a phenomenon in California’s densely packed urban cores. Glen Annie Golf Club in an area of unincorporated Santa Barbara County close to UC Santa Barbara has long been... Read More
TEE TIME BROKERS

April 16, 2024

Wednesday, April 10, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA The National Golf Course Owners Association’s (NGCOA) Harvey Silverman may have characterized the City of Los Angeles’ uncommonly quick reaction to intense media scrutiny (five separate Los Angeles Times stories including a Sunday lead editorial) of the depredations of tee time brokering with his quip in... Read More
NEWS BRIEFS

April 16, 2024

Wednesday, April 10, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA AB 3192 – Rest in Peace Maybe Every year there seems to be one bill filed in one house of the California Legislature that keeps the California golf community up at night. This year’s version is AB 3192 (Muratsuchi; D-Torrance). Among many other things AB 3192 places a... Read More
TEE TIME BROKERS: THERE’S MORE

March 26, 2024

Monday, March 25, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA One of the standards in the American songbook is a song written not by an American but by a Mexican. Its English title – “What a Difference a Day Makes.” It’s an old song made famous in 1959 (in America, that is) by Dinah Washington and... Read More
TEE TIME BROKERS

March 26, 2024

Monday, March 18, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA The more things change, the more they stay the same, albeit as the technology improves the same things come in different packages. With respect to the furor over tee time brokers making it nearly impossible for Los Angeles Basin’s public golfers to secure tee times at... Read More
SWRCB REVERSES COURSE WITH REVISED RULE TO EFFECTUATE GOVERNOR’S EXECUTIVE ORDER

March 26, 2024

Wednesday, March 13, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA Our 1st Public Affairs Update of 2024 reported that the State Legislative Analyst’s (LAO) official take on the State Water Resources Control Board’s (SWRCB) Proposed Rule to effectuate the Governor’s “Making Conservation a California Way of Life” Executive Order was aligned with the criticisms issued by the state’s water agencies/providers. Specifically, the LAO... Read More
OF BILLS AND SNOWPACKS

March 26, 2024

Monday, March 11, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA Today we update you on two (2) topics of ongoing interest: 1) 2024 legislation, and 2) the two snowpacks (Sierra Nevada & Colorado Rockies) that determine Southern California’s import allocations. # # # # # # # # # # # First up, where things stand... Read More
AB 3192 [Muratsuchi; D-Torrance]

March 26, 2024

Monday, February 26, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA We picked up this late entry into the 2024 Assembly pile just before we sent out last Wednesday’s Public Affairs Update – a report that was mostly about the way in which Mother Nature and the California Legislature had given us a breather “to focus less... Read More
MOTHER NATURE & THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE MAY BE GIVING US AN OPPORTUNITY TO FOCUS ON THE LONG TERM

March 26, 2024

Tuesday, February 20, 2024 Article provided by the SCGA Last Friday was the deadline for the filing of 2024 bills. Because 2024 is the second year of California’s two-year legislative session as well as a presidential election year, there were fewer bills filed this year than last. But that doesn’t mean that there weren’t a... Read More
Of Water, State Budgets, and “Entertainment” Golf

March 26, 2024

Wednesday, January 24, 2024 Article provided by Craig Kessler It’s that time of year when we start to pay close heed to the status of the Sierra snowpack upon which so much of Southern California’s water needs continue to depend – a dependence that the region is busy working to reduce in favor of local supplies –... Read More
STATE’S LEGISLATIVE ANALYST ECHOES WATER PROVIDERS’ CRITICISMS OF SWRCB’S PROPOSED RULES

January 9, 2024

Wednesday, December 27, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler Back in early October we reported that the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) was set to hold its first public hearing on the Proposed Rule it published August 18 to effectuate what the Governor and others had termed “Making Conservation a California Way of Life.”... Read More
HOLIDAY MESSAGE

January 9, 2024

Wednesday, December 27, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler When asked what we do, our standard response is that we operate in all the places where the game of golf and public policy intersect. That’s a lot of places, many of them filled with interests and issues that aren’t always warm to golf’s cause. Because... Read More
CALIFORNIA ALLIANCE FOR GOLF ANNOUNCES ITS 2024 BOARD OFFICERS

January 9, 2024

DECEMBER 18, 2023 The California Alliance for Golf (CAG), the “United Voice for Golf” in the Golden State, recently held its 2023 general membership meeting with representation from nearly all major allied golf organizations within the state. Election of CAG board officers was held, and by unanimous vote the following individuals were re-elected to serve... Read More
SPEAKER RIVAS MAKES HIS APPOINTMENTS

November 29, 2023

Monday, November 27, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Last week new Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) issued next term’s committee assignments, including the chairs of each respective committee. While much has been written about who is in, who is out, and what it all portends for the 2024 legislative term and beyond to... Read More
DIRECT POTABLE REUSE GOOD FOR THE COLLECTIVE, A CHALLENGE FOR GOLF

October 31, 2023

Monday, October 20, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA he Director penned an article in SCGA’s hard copy magazine FORE entitled, “The Era of Recycled Water May be Drawing to a Close.” The kind of recycled water used for outdoor irrigation, that is – nonpotable reuse. The reason: The effluent used to produce that traditional form... Read More
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

October 20, 2023

Tuesday, October 17, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Often attributed to Albert Einstein, who many say wrote it on a blackboard in his Princeton office, its origin is much older than that. However, in this exact form, it appeared in a seminal sociology textbook in 1963 and has been quoted repeatedly since to... Read More
“MAKING CONSERVATION A CALIFORNIA WAY OF LIFE”

October 11, 2023

Monday, October 2, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is set this Wednesday to open its first public hearing on the Proposed Rule it published August 18 to effectuate what the Governor and others have termed “Making Conservation a California Way of Life.” The Board will open... Read More
2023 LEGISLATIVE SESSION TELLS US MUCH ABOUT DIRECTION OF CALIFORNIA WATER LAW

September 19, 2023

Monday, September 18, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA The 2023 session of the California Legislature closed in the waning hours of Thursday night. While some of 2023’s bills have already been passed on to the Governor and signed into law, many more are now on the Governor’s desk for signature or veto, among... Read More
SACRAMENTO UPDATE

September 5, 2023

Tuesday, September 5, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA As the legislature races to the finish of a session complicated by a budget deficit that cannot be known until the Franchise Tax Board receives Californians’ tax returns in mid-October, here is what we can report now about those bills the golf community has supported... Read More
HEEDING LABOR’S ROAR

August 16, 2023

Monday, August 14, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Anyone over a certain age, and even those below a certain age, know something of Yogi Berra’s caveat about predictions – “predictions are a dangerous thing, particularly about the future.” But if one accepts the wisdom contained in Edmund Burke’s dictum about “society being a... Read More
INTERREGNUM

July 27, 2023

Thursday, July 27, 2023 Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA The Legislature is on summer vacation. The members return August 14 and adjourn for the year 31 days later on September 14. Bills that pass through both houses by that date move to the Governor for signature or veto. Before they go to their respective... Read More
THOSE WHO THOUGHT IT WOULD BE ABOUT THE US OPEN LAST WEEK WERE REMINDED OTHERWISE BY THE LA TIMES

June 20, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA June 20, 2023 An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times during US Open week captured the attention of the golf and non-golf worlds. Its title: “The PGA Tour-LIV Golf merger isn’t the problem; Golf is.” Its author: A law professor from the Midwest whose magnum opus on golf is... Read More
HALFTIME HAS ARRIVED IN SACRAMENTO

June 20, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA June 6, 2023 Last Friday was the last day of the 2023 session for bills to pass their houses of origin and move to the other house for consideration. Those bills that did make it over now go through the same policy committee, appropriations, and floor vote processes that... Read More
SACRAMENTO WATCH

May 11, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA May 11, 2023 The “suspense” round of legislative Appropriations hearings is scheduled for next week. That is when the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees speed through hundreds of bills that have cleared their committees of reference to see which among them move to their respective floors and which are... Read More
THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

April 27, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Monday, April 24, 2023 To live in Southern California is not only to understand how it is possible to be on flood watch and drought watch at the same time, it is to understand also how it is possible to live during the greatest growth period in the game’s... Read More
Colorado Basin: What’s going On?

April 27, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Thursday, April 13, 2023 A glance at the front page of Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times tells you all you need to know about where California stands with respect to water. The lead headline was “Deep snow adds months of flood risk.” The headline just below and to its side was “Water... Read More
RECENT EVENTS ALLOW FOR REGROUPING NOT RESTING

March 27, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Monday, March 27, 2023 Mother Nature may be blessing us, and the state legislature may be giving us a rest, but the fundamentals that make the surcease so welcome remain firmly in place. First up, Mother Nature. With the Northern Sierra snowpack at near record levels and likely to... Read More
California Alliance for Golf Receives 2023 NGCOA Champion Award

March 2, 2023

The California Alliance for Golf (CAG) is pleased to announce the organization wasnamed recipient of the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA) ChampionAward. This award is bestowed upon individuals or entities who’ve succeeded in working onbehalf of a group of owners – locally, regionally, nationally, or internationally – and havegarnered significant victory for the golf... Read More
2023 LEGISLATIVE SESSION – THE EARLY RETURNS

February 22, 2023

Article provided by Craig Kessler, SCGA Tuesday, February 21, 2023 Not all of the 19th Century rules governing the rhythms of California’s legislative session are without value. The one requiring that bills must sit idle for a minimum of 30 days after filing is one of them. This gives everyone plenty of time to sift through... Read More
Stay Informed With California Legislative Information

July 13, 2022

The California Legislative Information website offers the general public the full text of bills, resolutions, and constitutional amendments, and their status, history, votes, analyses, and veto messages if applicable. The website is updated every day at 4:00am and 9:00pm. Please click here to continue staying informed. Read More