Tuesday, April 21, 2020
Member/Alternates Only Meeting
Virtual meeting via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Patti Arlt, Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Mike Burrows, Rachelle Bussell, Chris Carrillo, Mark Cloud, Ken Coate, LaDonna DiCamillo, Kevin Dyerly, Louis Goodwin, Otis Greer, Fran Inman, Mark Kaenel, Bill Lemann, Dan Little, P.T. McEwen, John Mirau, Catherine Pritchett, Brian Reider, Thomas Rice, Dan Roberts, Elizabeth Romero, Dan Schenkel, Kristine Scott, Paul Shimoff, Pete Van Helden, Kim Wilcox and Ray Wolfe.
Announcements: Zoom meetings will continue. Supervisor Curt Hagman will discuss the counties recovery task force and its goals at our next meeting on April 28, 2020. On May 5, 2020 Sheriff John McMahan will discuss law enforcement and the effects of the COVID-19 virus.
M/S/P: Minutes from April 14, 2020.
Louis Goodwin, Chair presiding. Ken Coate introduced Felipe Fuentes, Partner, The Apex Group, Sacramento based lobbyists. Felipe Fuentes is a former member of the California State Assembly and former L.A. City Council Member. His early work has allowed him to establish a wide network of allies, operatives, and experts across California.
The state of California has been highly responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic with effective coordination between counties and cities. The legislature acted quickly on March 16th and allocated $1.1Billion to enable the Governor to respond rapidly.
Governor Newsom, who has given daily televised updates, now has a compact with the states of Oregon and Washington to coordinate recovery. The Governor’s decision to modify the California stay-at-home order and reopen the economy will be based on six factors, including the ability to widely test and trace people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. Social distancing will remain in place during the transition. To that end, Governor Newsom has brought together an 80-member Task Force to address business and jobs recovery. The Task Force includes business, labor, health care and community leaders. They will work to develop action plans for government and business to help California recover quickly and as safely from the COVID-19 induced recession. Headed by business and civic leader Tom Steyer it will be co-chaired by the Governor’s Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary. Weekly reports will be given by the Task Force, which will use best management practices. The Governor has repeatedly indicated that recovery will likely occur in multiple levels with the implementation and cadence decided by local city and county governments. This is an opportunity for our local voices to be heard by legislators and the Governor on what we need to get the economy up and running.
Advocates for slow growth/no building have been very aggressive to lodge their concerns and see the advantage of changing the status quo going forward. Requests for regulatory relief, or at a minimum a pause ,have not been approved. There is speculation that this is an opportunity to re-engineer and change social injustice in the “new” economy. Certainly, there is opportunity, but the priority must be to get back citizens to work.
The Legislature began oversight hearings last week and will be slowly back in action. They are expected to have a two-part budget process this year with approval of a “bare bones” budget mid-June then a second budget sometime after taxes are collected (July 15, 2020). The focus will be righting the budget and preparing for wildfire season.
Most of the population wants to get back to “normal” but polls indicate a majority are not ready until there is more proven containment of the virus. The Governor stated they are getting close to their testing goal of 25,000 per day by month end with plans to exponentially increase testing in May and June. The state has over 400 labs that can process these critical tests.
A Q & A period followed.
Members were asked to approve Alternate for Fifth Third Bank-Sol Teh, Senior Vice President
M/S/P: Sol Teh, Senior Vice President, Fifth Third Bank will serve as Alternate
Meeting adjourned at 8:50 a.m.