By Roel Godinez
On Friday, October 4th, the Vista Chamber of Commerce hosted a ‘Meet the Leaders’ dinner at the Rancho Buena Vista Adobe. The evening brought together over one hundred of North County’s business people and city officials to encourage a dialogue between new and longtime leaders. Following a cocktail hour, all attendees shared a dinner while four guest speakers, including Congressman Mike Levin of the 49th District, spoke about current issues that faces North County.
“The Chamber of Commerce has hosted a ‘Meet the Leaders’ event in the past, but we haven’t had one since 2017,” said Rachel Beld, who is the new CEO of the Vista Chamber of Commerce. “When I came on as CEO in March, I was trying to think of a way that we could incorporate our newly elected officials while also allowing the Chamber to understand these positions. Tonights’ speakers represented each level of government: we have a State Assembly Member, our County Supervisor, a State Senator, and our local Congressman. These speakers came out to talk about specific issues that touch us every single day.”
The representatives who spoke were District Supervisor Jim Desmond, State Senator Patricia Bates, State Assemblywoman Tasha Boerner Horvath, and Congressman Mike Levin. Each not only addressed specific issues that face this region, but also detailed some recent successes.
Jim Desmond, the first to speak, brought a light, humorous energy to the cool night air. “Hello Vista Chamber of Commerce! Thank you so much for having me here, I have a lot that I’m very excited to share with you tonight,” he said as he opened. “How many of you took the 78 to get here?” he asked, “and who loved it?” to which he received a laugh. He went on to announce that enough funding has been allocated to improve the Highway 78 corridor. With more than $70 million at county disposal, there is enough money to plan for renovations that were promised in 2004. Although this is only about half of what’s needed to complete construction, the process will begin.
Desmond also announced that further improvements to public transit are in motion and CCE has been passed by the County. CCE stands for Community Choice Energy and allows consumers to choose between renewable or nonrenewable home energy.
Following Desmond, Patricia Bates took the podium to report on legislation that is being pushed around in the State Capitol. “It’s been a very busy year,” she said, “actually, the busiest in the past six years. We had 2,576 bills introduced with 1,799 in the Assembly and 777 in the Senate. The Governor has signed 508 bills as of today, vetoed 23, and is yet to look at 506 more that must be signed before October 13th.” Bates herself has two bills waiting to be signed, one that would require the Department of Education to develop a uniform program for conducting age and grade appropriate lockdown drills and another that would prohibit an operator of an addiction treatment facility from providing any misleading marketing information to a client. Bates also addressed several approved bills that create an insurance fund for California fires, support homelessness recovery, and put limits on rising rent prices.
After Bates, Tasha Boerner Horvath spoke. “It’s an honor to be here and serve you in the State Assembly,” she said, “Thank you to Senator Bates for highlighting how much bipartisan work we do in Sacramento. I think it’s too often that you hear about the controversies and the differences. We know that there is so much more that we have in common than we have different. I think one of the important things as we approach 2020 is that when we hear about a lot of these controversies, we as leaders in the Vista community need to keep in mind what we have in common.”
Horvath continued and detailed her three political motivations: sustainability, opportunity, and equality/equity. Based on these values, she has worked to push for legislation that tackles issues like recycling plastics, unsafe railroad crossings, eroding beaches, small business struggles, veterans housing, and wage equality.
Finally, Congressman Mike Levin took the stand. “Thank you very much everybody,” he said, “it’s great to be with you tonight and it’s great to be back in the district after this crazy week in Washington. One thing that I want everybody to go home with tonight is that the Washington that you see on cable television, it doesn’t matter which network, is not reflective of what we do on a daily basis. We are working hard within our committees to protect and serve our districts.”
Levin touched on several topics that he feels are of most importance. He is the Chair of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs and has already passed two substantial bipartisan bills past. The first allows vets to refinance mortgage loans more quickly and the second extends the GI bill, allowing vets to become more involved in the science and engineering fields. Levin was an environmental attorney and focused much of his political career on protecting environment cleanliness and renewable energy. He discussed in detail how the San Onofre Power Plant is in the decommissioning process while the issue of nuclear waste disposal is perpetuated by congress’ inability to find a permanent repository. He also spoke about the overuse of fossil fuels and the need for a transition from fuel burning vehicles to electric ones. “It’s not about tourism,” he said, “it’s not about recreation, it’s about safety.”
With the closing of Levins’ speech, the ‘Meet the Leaders’ night came to an end. However, the celebration of democracy, bipartisanship, and progress lives on.
