Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes the Office of Emergency Services within the Governor’s office under the supervision of the Director of Emergency Services and makes the office responsible for the state’s emergency and disaster response services for natural, technological, or man-made disasters and emergencies. Existing law sets forth various provisions on fairgrounds owned or operated by a district agricultural association, the California Exposition and State Fair, county fairs, and citrus fruit fairs.

This bill would, upon an appropriation by the Legislature for this purpose, require the Office of Emergency Services to establish a grant program on or before January 1, 2024, to provide fairs with grant funding for purposes of building and upgrading broadband communication infrastructure on fairgrounds. The bill would require the office to establish standards to determine how fairs receive grant funding based on the fairgrounds’ need for broadband capabilities in order to service an emergency response operation. In regard to the standards, the bill would require that fairs eligible for funding meet certain criteria, including being capable of providing publicly available broadband access to the fair’s broadband network throughout the year. The bill also would authorize the office to prioritize the order of grant disbursements based on specified criteria, including the frequency in which fairgrounds are used as an emergency staging area, evacuation center, community resilience center, or other relevant emergency response site. The bill would require the office to consult with the Department of Technology and the Department of Food and Agriculture to coordinate the statewide deployment of broadband communication infrastructure on fairgrounds. For purposes of the grant program, the bill would define “fair” to mean a district agricultural association, the California Exposition and State Fair, a county fair, or a citrus fruit fair.