Bringing Ideas Home from the League of California Cities Annual Conference

Last week I spent three days in Anaheim at the 2026 League of California Cities Annual Conference and Expo, joining city councilmembers, mayors, city staff, and other local government leaders from across California.

The conference is an opportunity to learn what other cities are doing, discuss some of the biggest issues facing local government, build relationships with leaders from around the state, and participate directly in setting policy priorities for California cities.

For me, several topics had particularly strong connections to issues we are dealing with in Redondo Beach.

Starting With Ethics and Good Government

My first session was Understanding Public Service Ethics Laws and Principles, the AB 1234 ethics training required of local elected officials every two years.

Ethics training may not be the most exciting part of a conference, but it is important. Local elected officials operate under a wide range of rules governing conflicts of interest, gifts, use of public resources, transparency, and other aspects of public service.

Later in the conference, I attended Campaign Season and City Hall: Staying Legal, Ethical, and Out of Trouble. With election activity occurring around us, this was particularly timely. The session examined the sometimes complicated line between an elected official’s political activities and official city responsibilities, including the Political Reform Act, Brown Act, city communications, social media, and prohibitions against using public resources for campaign purposes.

These are good reminders that public officials have an obligation not only to follow the law, but to maintain a clear distinction between the resources entrusted to us as elected officials and our personal political activities.

E-Bikes: Cities Need Better Tools

One of the sessions most directly connected to concerns I hear in Redondo Beach was E-Bikes at a Crossroads: What California Cities Can Do Now.

The panel included Carlsbad Police Lt. Jason Arnotti, Sonoma State University Associate Professor Kevin Fang, and Chula Vista Councilmember Michael Inzunza. In a fun coincidence, I discovered that Michael is the neighbor of a good friend of mine, which gave us an opportunity to connect after the session and continue the conversation.

The issues discussed will sound familiar to many Redondo Beach residents: young riders, excessive speeds, enforcement difficulties, conflicts between e-bikes and pedestrians or vehicles, and rapidly evolving technology that has moved faster than some of our laws.

My biggest takeaway was that cities need better tools from Sacramento.

Education and enforcement both have important roles, but I believe California should seriously consider additional statewide requirements involving age restrictions, registration, and some form of license plate or other identification system for e-bikes.

This has become a strong point I raise with candidates seeking my endorsement for State Assembly and State Senate. I want our representatives in Sacramento to understand the problems cities are experiencing firsthand and to give local law enforcement and communities practical tools to address unsafe behavior while preserving e-bikes as a useful transportation option.

E-bikes aren’t going away, nor should they. The goal should be making sure our laws, infrastructure, education, and enforcement keep pace with the technology.

Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work for Cities

Another particularly relevant session for me was Artificial Intelligence Strategies and Case Studies.

AI in government is quickly moving beyond theoretical discussions. Cities are already examining practical applications including predictive maintenance, smart dispatching, asset management, analysis of information, synthesizing public input, and improving internal workflows.

We also heard about cities working collaboratively, including the San José GovAI Coalition, rather than having every public agency independently reinvent the wheel.

The question is increasingly not whether cities will use AI, but where it actually provides value and how we use it responsibly.

There is enormous potential to improve efficiency, analyze information more effectively, and provide better services. At the same time, cities need appropriate policies concerning transparency, privacy, safeguards, and human accountability.

One of the greatest benefits of a statewide conference is being able to see what other cities are already trying, what is working, and what lessons we can bring home rather than starting from scratch.

Speaking Up for Local Control

The most significant policy work I participated in during the conference involved housing, zoning, and local land-use authority.

As a member of the League’s Housing, Community, and Economic Development Policy Committee, I participated in consideration of a resolution originally submitted by the City of Murrieta concerning the continuing erosion of local authority over housing and land-use decisions.

The resolution went through the League’s policy process before reaching the Resolutions Committee during the conference. The Resolutions Committee brings together representatives from the League’s policy committees, regional divisions, municipal departments, and diversity caucuses before resolutions proceed to the General Assembly. Resolutions ultimately approved by the General Assembly become official League of California Cities policy.

At the Resolutions Committee meeting, I spoke in favor of restoring the stronger approach contained in Murrieta’s original resolution.

That proposal called for exploring a state constitutional amendment or other legislative, policy, or ballot-based strategies to restore and strengthen local authority over housing and land-use decisions.

The concept was not that the State should have no role in housing. The State has legitimate responsibilities for establishing broad housing objectives and enforcing constitutional protections, civil rights, fair housing requirements, building and life-safety standards, and environmental laws.

The question is how much authority individual communities should retain over how statewide housing objectives are implemented based on local conditions and community priorities.

I argued for the stronger original approach. That effort was unsuccessful, and the specific reference to exploring a constitutional amendment was removed.

But the broader effort moved forward.

The Resolutions Committee advanced the revised resolution, and on Friday, delegates at the General Assembly overwhelmingly approved it. The adopted resolution calls for a statewide working group to explore ways to strengthen cities’ authority over local housing, zoning, and land-use decisions.

Under the League’s process, approval by the General Assembly makes the resolution official Cal Cities policy.

I would have preferred the stronger original language, but the final vote was still significant. Cities from across California came together behind the idea that the current state-local balance deserves another look and that local communities should have a meaningful role in decisions about how they grow.

I was proud to have Redondo Beach represented in that discussion.

Leadership in a Changing World

The conference also included two very different keynote presentations.

Stephanie Chung’s opening keynote, You Are the Change: BrainHacking Your Leadership for the Evolving Workplace, looked at leadership through brain science and the challenges of leading organizations and communities through rapid change.

Urbanist and futurist Greg Lindsay approached change from a very different perspective in Where Will You Live in 2050? His presentation examined climate science, demographics, artificial intelligence, and how changing climate risks could affect where people live and which communities prove more resilient in the decades ahead.

Both presentations reinforced a broader theme running through much of the conference: local government is operating in an environment that is changing very quickly. Technology, demographics, climate, housing, transportation, and the expectations of residents are all evolving. Cities have to evolve with them.

A Coastal Perspective

I also participated in the Coastal Cities Group Annual Business Meeting, an especially relevant forum for a community like Redondo Beach.

The discussion included coastal erosion, land use, and California Coastal Commission issues. This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act and the modern California Coastal Commission.

Coastal cities face challenges that are sometimes very different from those confronting inland communities. Maintaining an organized voice among coastal cities gives communities like ours another way to share experiences and engage on policies that directly affect our coastline, property, infrastructure, and land-use decisions.

Relationships Across California

Not everything valuable at a conference happens in a formal session.

One of the highlights was catching up with my longtime friend Dianna MacDonald, who now serves on the Santa Rosa City Council.

Dianna and I served together for years at California State PTA, including the two years she served as California State PTA President, when I served on her Board of Directors as Vice President for Communications.

Years later, we have both found ourselves continuing public service in another capacity, now as city councilmembers at opposite ends of California.

Those relationships matter. Talking with officials from other cities provides an opportunity to compare problems, find out what other communities have tried, and sometimes discover that someone hundreds of miles away is wrestling with exactly the same issue we are.

Bringing It Back to Redondo Beach

That’s ultimately how I measure the value of attending a conference like this.

The objective isn’t simply to attend sessions. It’s to come home with information, relationships, ideas, and potential solutions that can make us better at the work residents elected us to do.

For me, some of the clearest takeaways from this year’s conference are already connected to work underway at home: advocating for better statewide tools to address e-bike safety, exploring responsible and useful applications of AI, participating in the statewide debate over housing and local land-use authority, and learning from other coastal communities confronting many of the same challenges as Redondo Beach.

There were also plenty of conversations in hallways, over meals, and throughout the Expo with people representing communities large and small from across California.

We don’t have to agree on every issue to learn from one another.

And when I find a good idea that another city has already tested, I’d much rather bring it home to Redondo Beach than reinvent the wheel.