State real property: City of Imperial.

Senator Padilla frames a targeted disposition of the California Highway Patrol El Centro Area Office property in Imperial County to the City of Imperial, authorizing the Director of General Services to sell, exchange, or lease the site on terms the state determines are in its best interests. The measure creates a carve-out from the ordinary surplus-land disposition process for this specific property and provides a California Environmental Quality Act exemption for the conveyance.

Key mechanisms include directing that issuer-related and trustee-related costs tied to any bond review, defeasance, or bond counsel be paid from the sale or lease proceeds, and specifying that net proceeds be deposited in a framework established for disposition proceeds under the Government Code. The bill also incorporates findings asserting that Imperial’s unique circumstances—most notably the city’s lack of a police department building and the property’s continued alignment with a law-enforcement purpose—necessitate a special statute.

Implementation details position the Director to determine terms, with the bill indicating the conveyance may proceed notwithstanding the usual statutory procedures for surplus state lands. The measure includes a two-thirds majority requirement for enactment and an appropriation component related to the disposition, while the exact path of net proceeds relies on the broader disposition framework referenced in the bill.

In context, the bill introduces a single-property carve-out that alters how this CHP facility may be transferred, with potential implications for local policing capacity and for the state’s handling of bond-related obligations and designated funds. Stakeholders include the City of Imperial, the Department of General Services (as the disposer), bondholders and taxpayers, and local authorities in Imperial County, each affected by the exemption from CEQA, the allocation of sale proceeds to debt service or related funds, and the absence of standard local-review processes for this transaction. The finding section explicitly supports a tailored statute to address Imperial’s unique circumstances, while leaving the long-term use and oversight of the property to terms set by the DGS.