Tuesday, March 15, 2022 Meeting via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Megan Barajas, Deborah Barmack, Carole Beswick, Greg Bradbard, Mike Burrows, Ken Coate, Kevin Dyerly, Randel Josserand, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Pam Langford, Bill Lemann, Darcy McNaboe, Jacquelyn Mercado, Thomas Mone, Victoria Ostermann, Bansree Parikh, Catherine Pritchett, Thomas Rice, Michael Rivera, Dan Roberts, Dan Schenkel, Kristine Scott, Eric Ustation, Mihcael Wells, Ray Wolfe, Marisa Yeager, and Frank Zabaleta.
Announcements: 1) Staff announced that Committees are scheduled to meet again by Zoom on March 22 to discuss Sacramento issues and that issue papers are due the following Friday on March 25.
Lowell King, Chair presiding.
Lowell King indicated that the federal advocacy meetings went very well, even though we were not able to do meetings in Washington. The membership did an exception job in presenting issues, and he thanked all members who participated in the meetings for their attendance and professionalism. Inland Action met personally via Zoom with seven legislators (Aguilar, Calvert, Chu, Obernolte, Takano, Torrez, Ruiz), as well as with staff of both Senators (Feinstein, Padilla) and staff of Congresswoman Napolitano. Chairman King also thanked staff for their good work in getting appointments and making the advocacy meetings a success.
Members commented on the following points:
- The briefing by Letitia White, Innovative Federal Strategies, and her staff were valuable.
- Lowell King did an excellent job in organizing/leading members through the issues and ensuring that items were discussed in accordance with legislators’ committee assignments and interests.
- Members should review legislators’ web pages and specific areas of interest prior to the meetings.
- Redistricting will impact representation of the Inland Region, so we should begin early in planning for those changes.
- We should not forget that, in addition to discussing issues with legislators, we also need to provide legislative staff with the information and support necessary to make their work for us as easy as possible.
- Staff has already sent thank you letters for the meetings and is following up on open items.
- Staff is thankful for San Bernardino International Airport’s offer to provide support during the year in monitoring high priority legislation. Staff will be meeting with them shortly to discuss the possibilities.
Members broke out into committee meetings to discuss Sacramento advocacy issues.
The meeting adjourned at 8:35 a.m.