• Lompoc City Manager Jim Throop announced that he appointed Capt. Joseph Mariani as the new chief of the Lompoc Police Department. Mariani was sworn in on March 5 during the Lompoc City Council meeting. He will be the department’s first Latino and bilingual police chief. In September 2015, Mariani came out of retirement from a 34-year career with the Los Angeles Police Department to serve as a captain with the Lompoc PD.
• On Feb. 26, U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal chaired the Transportation and Infrastructure (T and I) Committee’s first climate-change-focused hearing of the 116th Congress. Carbajal is the committee’s vice chair. The committee explored the transportation sector’s role in climate change and heard from individuals in the public and private sectors who have developed “pragmatic solutions” for reducing carbon emissions, according to a press release from Carbajal’s office. “I’m encouraged to see the T and I Committee take a long, hard look at innovative solutions to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector,” Carbajal said in the release. “The Central Coast deserves infrastructure they can rely on even in a changing environment. Our experts affirmed today that bold investments to reduce emissions don’t just help mitigate climate change impacts, they also make economic sense.” The release stated that there was bipartisan support to federally fund infrastructure in a way that takes into account resiliency over its expected service life—including the ability to withstand extreme weather events.
• Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R-San Luis Obispo) announced the introduction of four pieces of legislation during the last week of February. On Feb. 26, the Assembly member’s office sent out press releases about two anti human-trafficking bills and the Future of Eavesdropping Act. AB 662 attempts to breathe life into a little-used statute that could be helpful in closing down trafficking locations by simplifying current law, and AB 663 would establish mandatory minimum fines for convicted pimps, traffickers, and johns. The Future of Eavesdropping Act, AB 1395, would prohibit smart speaker manufacturers from storing data-mining voice recordings made with smart speakers. AB 1395 is part of the Your Data Your Way policy package introduced by Republican Assembly members in January. On Feb. 28, Cunningham announced the introduction of AB 1087, which would require high school students to take classes on financial literacy in order to graduate. “Too many students are leaving high school without the ability to cope with or understand real-world financial situations,” Cunningham said in a press release. “Making sure that high school graduates take some classes on basic financial literacy will help them set up for financial success.” AB 1087 would add financial literacy components to the already-existing economics course curriculum.
• State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) joined California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Feb. 25 to announce legislation that will address impediments to the implementation of the California Consumer Privacy Act, which was passed last year. Its passage followed a series of reports about Americans who had their personal information collected, sold, or compromised without their knowledge or permission. The recently introduced SB 561 would remove requirements in the act to provide legal opinions directly to any business or third party and to provide a 30-day notice before taking action. “Our constitutional right to privacy continues to face unprecedented assault. Our locations, relationships, and interests are being tracked without our knowledge, bought and sold by corporate interests for their own economic gain, and conducted in order to manipulate us,” Jackson said in a press release. “SB 561 will ensure that the most significant privacy protections in the nation are effectively and robustly enforced.”
Note: This column was edited to correct Jordan Cunningham’s party affiliation.
This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2019.
