• Noreen's View: A Productive Year in Sacramento
  
• Your Legislator at Work
• An Eye on Legislation
• An Eye on the Governor
• State Gives Napa Flood Project a Downpayment
• Children's Home Opens in Santa Rosa
• Travis AFB Welcomes Arrival of New C-17 Aircraft

NOREEN'S VIEW: A PRODUCTIVE YEAR IN SACRAMENTO

Day to day business in the legislature is a maze of process and procedures. Ultimately, the product at the end of each legislative session is what counts. I am proud to report that the legislature accomplished fantastic results for the people of California this year.

But don’t take my word for it. The San Francisco Chronicle noted that this was “the most productive legislative session in decades.”

Making progress on the issues that count is why I became a legislator. So, I would like to highlight what I feel are the legislature’s top accomplishments of the year.

• A balanced budget on time for the first time since 2000.
• A $3 billion budget increase for our schools, targeting the money to the lowest-performing schools and to hiring high-quality teachers so schools can reduce class sizes to 25 students in grades 4-12.
• A $250 million budget increase will help our state parks address overdue maintenance needs.
• A package of reform legislation accompanying a large increase in funds to foster care to take care of California’s most vulnerable children.
  
• A new program to cut the cost of prescription drugs by 40 to 60 percent for families that don’t have health care plans that subsidize the cost of prescriptions.
  After two years of vetoes by Governor Schwarzenegger, a boost to the minimum wage to $8 per hour by 2008.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. As your representative, I have worked with my colleagues to be tight with your dollars and be compassionate toward your needs. We can all be proud of the results..

YOUR LEGISLATOR AT WORK

I ushered thirteen bills to the governor this year which, if enacted into law, can help our state become a better place for all Californians. Below is a summary of each bill awaiting action by the governor, on or before September 30th.

EDUCATION:

AB 368 will help schools obtain technical education equipment at bargain prices. It requires the State Department of Education to develop and maintain an Internet registry of career technical education equipment that is listed for sale by school districts. The equipment listed in the registry must first be offered for sale to other school districts and maintained in the registry for a period of no less than 4 months.

HEALTHCARE:

AB 2609 will prevent medication management mistakes that could cost seniors their lives through establishing training requirements for the staff of residential care facilities. Residential care facilities staff are non-medical personnel who are not permitted to administer medications directly. But their duties may involve organizing a complex regiment of medications taken by residents. On average, residents take 4.6 medications per month.

AB 2757 will remove administrative burdens and costly barriers facing community and free clinics by allowing them to streamline their application process for laboratory licensure. This will enable free clinics to provide better services to patients by performing laboratory testing on site.

HOUSING:

AB 2158 will ensure that local land use policies are considered before new housing allocations are assigned to communities by the state. This will help communities protect farmland, open spaces, and other precious community resources. The lack of communication between the state and locals can lead to unrealistic housing allocations. This can overwhelm communities with a limited ability to grow.

PRIVACY PROTECTION:

AB 2251 will help reproductive health providers and patients keep their home addresses, home telephone numbers, and images off of the Internet when it is publicly posted by militant activists seeking to threaten or incite violence against them. It also prohibits the sale, trade or solicitation of this information online with the intent to incite violence or make threats.

AB 2291 will expand privacy protections for California consumers by prohibiting car manufacturers and other key business partners of car dealers from requiring access to personally identifiable information about customers as a condition of doing business with a car dealer. In so doing, it eliminates a loophole in financial and consumer privacy laws.

PROTECTING CHILDREN:

AB 2205 will reduce hunger and improve nutrition among the children of low-income families by coordinating healthcare, food stamp, and school meals programs. This will give the children of poor families a better shot at a good life. Fifty-five percent of Californians eligible to receive food stamps do not receive them, 50% of students eligible to receive school lunches do not receive them, and 82% of students eligible to receive school breakfasts do not receive them. That is the 49th worst participation rate among all states.

AB 2108 will save many children from preventable injury and death through establishing new car passenger safety requirements. Children must ride in booster seats in the back seat until their 8th birthday, unless the child is 4' 9". And, it requires infants to ride in car seats in the back seat facing backward until they are at least 1 year old and at least 20 pounds.

AB 2480 will protect the rights of foster youth in appellate dependency proceedings by requiring judges to appoint counsel for foster youth if the court determines that the child would benefit from counsel. Under current law, foster youth may be represented by counsel in an appellate proceeding only if requested by the child’s trial attorney and only if there is proof of a conflict of interest between the child and county counsel.

LEGAL AND GOVERNMENT REFORM:

AB 1286 provides that the Legislature will review the effectiveness of financing mechanisms used by community college districts to fund energy saving improvements to their facilities. It is a follow up measure to Evans’ AB 1492 (2005) which allowed community college districts to fund these improvements through the use of “intercept” mechanisms to improve the credit rating of lease-revenue bonds.

AB 1553 eliminates the need for a plaintiff to initiate duplicate proceedings – one through arbitration and one in court – on the same claim, which is an inefficient and costly use of our judicial system. Under this legislation, if a plaintiff has filed suit in court and the court decides that the issue is subject to arbitration, the plaintiff will still have the opportunity to pursue the issue through arbitration because the statute of limitations for arbitration will pause until such a determination is made by the court.

AB 2469 will help counties with populations of up to 250,000 to provide in-home supportive services programs to seniors through enabling these counties to receive accelerated payment for the state’s share care services costs. It will help 33 smaller counties – including Napa County – who may not have other revenues to cover these costs until repayment is received.

AB 2992 will prevent the subcontracting of unqualified contractors on public works projects out for bid by the California State University by requiring the Trustees of the California State University system to pre-qualify all subcontractors listed on a winning bid if the project exceeds $1,000,000.

Further information about this legislation is available online at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov. If you wish to contact the governor about these or any other piece of legislation, his contact information is:

The Honorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
Governor of California
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-445-4633

To send an Electronic Mail please visit: http://www.govmail.ca.gov.

AN EYE ON LEGISLATION

ACTIVITIES:

On August 31st, the Governor issued a statement commending the Legislature for passing a prescription drug discount program that he agreed to sign into law. This program will benefit millions of low-income and uninsured Californians who pay the most for their prescription drugs but can least afford them.

On August 28th, the governor signed Senate Bill 1390 which requires the California Department of Justice to publish data regarding identity theft arrests in its annual report of crime statistics.

On August 26th, the Governor announced support for a plan pushed by legislators to raise California's minimum wage by $1.25 over the next year and a half-reaching $8.00 an hour by January 2008.

On August 23rd, Governor Schwarzenegger announced the creation of a new position of Advisor for Military Affairs, which will help coordinate and develop policy impacting California’s relationship with the U.S. Military, including personnel and their families.

For further information about the Governor, please visit www.governor.ca.gov.

AN EYE ON THE GOVERNOR

ACTIVITIES:

On June 30, the Governor signed the state budget for California.

On June 26, the Governor called a special session of the state legislature, starting on June 27th, to address prison crowding and recidivism.

On June 22, the Governor signed an executive order to expand state wide firefighter efforts and to protect local communities from wildland fires.

On June 6, the Governor declared a state of emergency in the coastal counties of Northern California due to restrictive new federal regulations put in place on the commercial salmon industry.

On June 1, the Governor reached an agreement with President Bush to send 1,000 California National Guard troops to support the President’s deployment of the guard to the United States/Mexico border. The deployment will last from July 15, 2006 to December 31, 2008.

For further information about the Governor, please visit www.governor.ca.gov.

STATE GIVES NAPA FLOOD PROJECT A DOWNPAYMENT

I love it when a plan comes together! At the beginning of the year, local officials in Napa and I set out to secure state funds for the Napa River-Napa Creek Flood Protection Project. With the help of Mayor Jill Techel, Supervisor Bill Dodd, and many others, I’m pleased to say that Napa’s flood district recently received a check for $10 million!

Absent these funds, which is only a small portion of what is owed by the state to Napa, our flood control project would have come to a screeching halt. And, only the state would stand to blame. That possible outcome was simply unacceptable.

The New Years’ flood was evidence of what can happen with an uncompleted flood protection system in Napa. After touring the damage to homes, businesses and agricultural lands with Governor Schwarzenegger by my side, I pressed the Governor to give Napa priority in the budget for local flood projects.

Further information about the Napa flood project is available online at http://www.napaflooddistrict.org.

CHILDREN’S HOME OPENS IN SANTA ROSA

A new concept in foster care opened in Santa Rosa. The Children’s Village opened to much fanfare on August 24th when the community was invited to tour the new facility.

The Children's Village is a two-million-dollar housing complex where foster youth can live without being moved around and separated from their siblings. Typically, 80% of foster youth grow up without their siblings because the foster family can't take them all, and nearly half of foster placements collapse within a year. The Village will help address that problem. Currently, the Village can house 24 children. But when the Village is completed it will house up to 48 children.

I applaud the efforts of so many people in the community that worked hard to get this project completed. The Children’s Village creates a community that will help these kids in need. Further information is available at http://www.thechildrensvillage.com.

TRAVIS AFB WELCOMES ARRIVAL OF NEW C-17 AIRCRAFT

Over 2,000 spectators gathered at Travis Air Force Base on August 8 to welcome the arrival of the new C-17 aircraft named the “Spirit of Solano.” The aircraft arrived during a ceremonial flyover with the other major airframes now based at Travis.

The new arrival makes Travis the first and only base to have all three aircraft on hand. Travis handles more cargo and passengers than any other military air terminal in the United States, and adding the C-17 to the inventory means adding more capacity.

The C-17 can carry 170,000 pounds internationally and is able to land in rough terrain on significantly smaller airfields than its contemporaries.

The "Spirit of Solano" tail number 66154 is the first of 13 new C-17 aircraft to be delivered to Travis AFB. The new aircraft will be flown by the 301st and 21st Airlift Squadrons in cargo airlift and medical evacuation missions around the world.