• Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R-San Luis Obispo) announced on July 8 that he named Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Santa Barbara County as his district’s nonprofit of the year. “CASA organizations throughout the state do amazing work to help the most vulnerable children in our society,” Cunningham said in a statement. “Throughout the pandemic, the volunteers and staff at CASA of Santa Barbara County helped bring positive change to hundreds of local children. Their great work will have a generational impact on our community, and I am honored to recognize their efforts.” CASA’s trained community volunteers advocate for children who have experienced abuse or neglect, according to Cunningham’s office. “CASA of Santa Barbara County overcame tremendous challenges to continue providing advocacy for children while ensuring the safety of our staff and volunteers over the course of the pandemic. As a result, we served a record-breaking number of children this year, providing advocacy for 544 children ages 0 to 21,” Kim Colby Davis, executive director of CASA of Santa Barbara County, said in the statement. “I want to thank Assemblyman Cunningham for honoring our commitment to local children and highlighting the work being done by our staff and volunteers. I encourage more members of the community to contact us for volunteer opportunities, as we have an incredible need for more volunteers able to work with children.” Past organizations honored by Cunningham for nonprofit of the year include the San Luis Obispo Food Bank in 2020, Tolosa Children’s Dental Center in 2019, RISE in 2018, and Fighting Back Santa Maria Valley in 2017.
• Gov. Gavin Newsom met with scientists and climate change experts on July 9 to discuss California’s climate goals. According the governor’s office, Newsom is calling on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and California Air Resources Board (CARB) to accelerate the state’s progress toward its climate goals. “At the governor’s request, CARB will evaluate pathways for the state to achieve carbon neutrality by 2035—in advance of the 2045 target—including strategies to reduce fossil fuel demand and supply,” according Newsom’s office. “The CPUC will work to establish a more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions target for electricity procurement by 2030, stepping up the state’s pace in achieving zero-carbon electricity. Earlier this year, the governor requested [that] CARB analyze pathways to phase out all oil extraction, focusing on benefits in disadvantaged communities and opportunities for job creation and economic growth.” Marilyn N. Raphael, director of the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and a professor in the geography department at UCLA, was present at the virtual meeting with the governor, which covered both climate change trends and extreme weather events like wildfires. “California has always led the U.S. and, I would also say, the world,” Raphael said, according to the statement. “Not everyone is going to come along at the same time, but people will eventually come because the technology … the scalability, will be there. That it is difficult is a given, but I think it’s doable. We have brilliant minds in this state, we have to find them and put them to work.”
• Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Santa Barbara) wrote in a July 8 Facebook post that California State Parks has released a free new mobile app for park visitors. “It provides real-time updates of on-the-ground conditions, information on parks and trails, guidelines, brochures, points of interest, events, and more,” Bennett wrote. “I encourage you to recreate safely and enjoy the offerings of state parks, 10 of which are in the 37th Assembly District.” Bennett encouraged constituents to go to outerspatial.link/csp on a web browser to download the app.
This article appears in Jul 15-22, 2021.