Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Open Board of Directors Meeting
San Bernardino Community College District
114 S. Del Rosa Drive
San Bernardino, CA 92408
Minutes
Present: Dimitrios Alexiou, Don Averill, Deborah Barmack, Peter Barmack, Carole Beswick, Tom Brickley, Rachelle Bussell, Ken Coate, Bill Easley, Ray Gonzales, Scott Hofferber, Mark Kaenel, Ed Kilgore, Lowell King, Ed Lasak, Temetry Lindsey, Sue McKee, John Mirau, Steve PonTell, Bev Powell, John Prentice, Kristine Scott, Larry Sharp, Wendy Strack, Steve von Rajcs, Phil Waller and A.J. Wilson.
Guests: Dennis Gutierrez, Pam Langford, Frank Reyes and George Small
Announcements: 1) The inaugural White Coat Ceremony for the UCR School of Medicine class of 2017 will be held on Friday, August 9, 2013 at 6:00p.m. at the Student Recreation Center. A reception will immediately follow. The traditional White Coat ceremony welcomes incoming students, celebrates their entrance into medical School and formally presents them with their first White Coats.
Dr. Temetry Lindsey introduced Assemblymember Cheryl Brown.
Assemblymember Cheryl Brown was elected in November of 2012 to represent California’s 47th District which includes San Bernardino, Rialto, Fontana, Colton, Grand Terrace, Bloomington and Muscoy.
The Assemblymember expressed appreciation to the Inland Action group for their advocacy on behalf of the Inland Empire. She is honored to serve the people in her district.
Recently the Assemblymember worked on preserving and enhancing the “at risk” California Enterprise Zones. The Enterprise Zones are particularly important to her constituents as virtually the entire cities of Colton and San Bernardino are in designated Enterprise Zones. Many businesses had been able to expand and hire more local employees as was intended, but the introduction and subsequent passing of AB 93 will dramatically alter the Enterprise Zones and eventually phase them out. Assemlymember Brown voted no on AB 93 because of its negative effect on business and job creation in her district. The $750 Million dollar annual budget for the Enterprise Zone program will now be re-directed.
She reluctantly opposed AB 880, a bill that was supposed to curb the practice of large companies forcing employees onto government assisted healthcare. Agreeing that no business should generate profits by subsidizing their employee’ medical care with tax dollars, AB 880 was flawed. She found the bill to be detrimental to both business and employees. As written, it would have deterred employers from hiring workers enrolled in government subsidized healthcare programs and exposed employers to crippling litigation and punitive penalties with an arbitrary formula. Unemployment is extremely high and business growth needs to be promoted. She will continue to work on finding an appropriate and fair solution for which AB 880 was intended.
The city of San Bernardino is struggling and an attitude change must occur. Ms. Brown continues to look for, and encourages, growth of the downtown district and asks that more businesses consider opportunities like the placement of a restaurant near the cinema. These opportunities would be mutually beneficial and encourage overall commerce.
Assemblymember Brown sees a big potential for clean energy employment and job growth in her District. She is interested in further conversations and review of toll lanes but expressed that we already paid to put the roads in place and would not want to see tolls collected here going outside the area.
She would like to see design-build projects reflect more regional hiring. The Assemblymember expressed that she is not looking for preference or a certain percentage, but only fairness.
A Q & A period followed.
The meeting adjourned at 8:30 a.m.