Special District Transparency

The act makes various changes to statutory provisions to promote transparency for special districts. Specifically:

• Under current law, the designated election official is required to provide notice by publication of a call for nominations for a regular local government election. Except for metropolitan districts organized after January 1, 2000, the act requires that notice be made exclusively by publication and by any one of 4 additional means.
• In the case of any metropolitan district that was organized after January 1, 2000, the act requires the notice of the call for nominations to be made by emailing the notice to each active registered elector of the metropolitan district as specified in the registration list provided by the county clerk and recorder as of the date that is 150 days prior to the date of the regular local government election. Where the active registered elector does not have an e-mail address on file for such purpose with the county clerk and recorder as of that date, the public notice must be made by mailing the notice, at the lowest cost option, to each address at which one or more active registered electors of the metropolitan district resides as specified in the registration list provided by the county clerk and recorder as of that date.
• In addition to the means of providing public notice of the call for nominations that is required under the act, the designated election official must also provide public notice by any one of 4 alternate means specified in the act;
• The act exempts inactive special districts from new requirements under the act concerning maintenance of a district's website and a district's annual report;
• The act requires a metropolitan district, by a certain date, to establish, maintain, and annually update an official website in a form that is readily accessible to the public that contains information that is specified in the act;
• The act adds to existing statutory requirements regarding the annual report to be filed by a special district and, among other things, supplements the type of information to be included in the annual report;
• The act prohibits a metropolitan district from exercising its power of dominant eminent domain within a municipality or the unincorporated area of a county, other than within the boundaries of the jurisdiction that approved its service plan, without a written resolution approving the exercise of dominant eminent domain by the governing body of the municipality in connection with property that is located within an incorporated area or by the board of county commissioners of the county in connection with property that is located within an unincorporated area; and
• The act requires, on and after January 1, 2022, each owner of real property that sells real property that includes a newly constructed residence that is located within a metropolitan district, concurrently with or prior to the execution of a contract to sell the property, to provide to the purchaser of the property certain information or statements specified in the act relating to the finances of the metropolitan district, including information about the debt obligations of the district and an estimate of property taxes applicable to the property at the time of the sale.
  (Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)