There is no need to have yet another layer of government in the Bay Area.

The folks that want to form the JPA
were elected in their individual cities not to regional office.
We already have county, state district and state level electeds representing us !

I agree one hundred percent with anon1234. What are the real motives behind this drive to create a new agency that could go against municipalities. Is this power play a paper tiger? Are the supporters of JPA trying to insulate the group from litigation. Sign arbitration agreements and drop this fatuous game.

I’m inclined to agree with @Anon1234 above, who’s concerned a JPA adds a new layer of government overhead and accountability-diffusion, without clarity on what the corresponding new value to Palo Altans would be.

JPA’s are typically established for complex public-works projects where multiple local governments must make an expensive joint investment that benefits them all - infrastructure on the San Francisquito Creek, for example. The group can’t have the uncertainty that one of them reverses its financial and regulatory commitments later on, so they cede some of that authority to the JPA. The participants essentially give up some control over their own voters, in exchange for mitigating those risks.

Here there is no such project and risk; in fact, the objectives seem pretty vague. In acknowledgement of that, the proponents sensibly propose to amend the fiscal entailments; yet without those, most of the point of having a JPA in the first place comes into question. It starts to feel like a Solution looking for a Problem.

As for liability, the article mentions a specific legal circumstance which came before Council a year or two ago. I defer to the City’s professional Attorney staff, but I recall thinking at the time that had a JPA been in place (the idea had already been floating around), it would have actually limited the City’s ability to do the right thing, not enhanced it.

So I think the Council should tread with considerable caution here. To justify a JPA, it must be unequivocally clear that its benefits outweigh its costs (and especially relative to whatever the next-best alternative is). That’s not the case here; it feels more like, “let’s do a JPA, and we’ll figure out what to do with it later.” If that's an accurate read, then it’s backwards from how governments should operate.

"The Cities Association is operating now, and has traditionally operated as, a non-governmental, unincorporated organization. However, there are restrictions to what such a body can do (for example, an unincorporated organization’s revenue cannot exceed $5,000.00 per year). Structural change will ensure compliance with state and federal regulations and
allow CASCC to continue to grow." Web Link

The real question is, what are the penalties invoived in running an organization that is not in compliance with state and federal laws? Imagine the tax bill to the feds would be nice. And why do our cities think they are above the law to run an organization for 30 years?