• On May 22, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the launch of California Connected, a contact tracing program and public awareness campaign. The program will connect public health workers across the state with individuals who test positive for COVID-19 to ensure that those they’ve been in contact with have access to confidential testing and medical care. The program is in collaboration with the California Department of Public Health, local public health departments, and the University of California San Francisco and Los Angeles. “We are all eager to get back to work and play, and that’s why we’re asking Californians to answer the call when they see their local public health department reaching out by phone, email, or text,” Newsom said in a press release. “That simple action of answering the call could save lives and help keep our families and communities healthy.”
• On May 26, Assemblymember Jordan Cunningham (R-San Luis Obispo) spoke on the Assembly Floor in opposition to recent budget cuts made by Gov. Gavin Newsom. According to a press release from Cunningham’s office, the governor’s May Revise proposes an overall cut to K-14 Proposition 98 funding by 14.3 percent. “If education is truly our top priority, it should be the first thing we fund and the last thing we cut. Period,” Cunningham said, according to the press release. The governor’s revised budget, submitted on May 14, intends “to close a budget gap of more than $54 billion brought on swiftly by the COVID-19 recession,” according to a release from Newsom’s office. Cunningham’s May 26 speech also addressed what he called the reversal of hard-fought wins for Career Technical Education (CTE). “[CTE] is a lifeline for people. It is their pathway to a skilled profession where they can make a great living and provide for their family,” Cunningham said.
• U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) announced in a May 27 Facebook post that he was in Washington, D.C., “to vote to protect Americans’ privacy and make major fixes to the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).” The House will soon vote on changes to the small business loan program intended to give affected companies more flexibility, according to a USA Today article Carbajal linked to in his post. The bill would extend the June 30 deadline for businesses to rehire employees as well as extend the loan forgiveness period, the article states. “As lawmakers, we must do everything we can to protect our citizens and mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus,” Carbajal wrote.
• State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) wrote in a May 27 Facebook post that Senate Bill 1069, a bill she wrote to address emergency warning communications, passed with a 10-2 vote out of the Senate Energy, Utility, and Communications Committee on May 26. “After the experiences of the people of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in the Thomas Fire and the lack of consistent communications with the public, I authored SB 1069 to require communication service providers to share information about outages and the performance of emergency alerts on their networks as well as coordinate with emergency managers during a disaster,” Jackson stated in her post. “This bill is critical to ensuring residents are given effective and clear early warnings of pending fires and other potential disastrous conditions so they can take steps to save their lives and their property.”
This article appears in Jun 4-11, 2020.