Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer’s State of the County Address was last night. Kelly Davis does an excellent job recapping it in the SDUT: In defiant speech, Lawson-Remer calls for bigger county spending, unity against federal cuts
The SDUT reporting notwithstanding, we feel obliged to add some fun nuances to bits of the news, as well as to a few key Lawson-Remer comments. Italicized comments are our additions.
“In her State of the County speech, the acting Board of Supervisors chair called for a ballot measure to boost funding and urged her colleagues — two of whom weren’t present to hear they were being urged, as they weren’t invited — to free up reserves for vital programs.”
“And she called on her fellow supervisors to support an immediate change to the policy on how much cash the county holds in reserve — currently $100 million more than what fiscal experts recommend. Neither acting vice-chair of the Board Joel Anderson nor his colleague Jim Desmond were on hand to hear they were being called on to change the reserve policy, as they weren’t invited to the speech.”
“‘We believe in a society that’s not every person for themself, but all of us standing together — well, not really ALL of us — to defend and fight for our highest ideals,’ she said. ‘The work will not be easy. Leon Williams knew that, and we know it too.’ When the late Leon Williams, also a Democrat, was chair of the Board in 1985 and 1990, his Republican colleagues were included in the State of the County address.”
On an additional side note, when Democrats Nathan Fletcher and Nora Vargas chaired the Board of Supervisors in recent years, all their colleagues were invited to the State of the County. Prior to that, with decades of Republican chairs, all Supervisors were included, regardless of partisanship.
Is this Lawson-Remer’s vision of inclusiveness and statesmanship? (Ok, statespersonship.) Republicans need not apply?
Ending question: Was last night’s Lawson-Remer by-limited-invite-only State of the County Address paid for by the public?
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Added note:
Some are saying the Brown Act stood in the way of having a majority in attendance.
Majorities have attended for decades. Years and decades of prior examples, yet now suddenly County Counsel is citing a problem?
One means to achieving this, as done by thousands of jurisdictions over the years, is to post it as a public meeting. But that would mean allowing the public to attend.
We were able to confirm with both Anderson’s and Desmond’s offices they were not invited.