The tall, affable Senator had a friendly and receptive crowd of mostly Tea Party members held at the Veterans Administration building Wedesday evening, April 20th. Also in attendance were Supervisors Sullivan, Finnigen, McClure and Hemmingsen, as well as District Attorney Jon Alexander, Mayor Slert, and City Council members Schellong and Westfall.
During the two hour meeting, the Senator gave a background of his life as a rice farmer and living in Central California in a town of 250 people. His message was mixed with common sense, business sense and political sense. While he can’t be credited with being an avid environmentalist, that fact was no more evident than wanting to spend the money to build dams to bring water to the Central Valley to grow the food in order to create more jobs (instead of saving a little fish).
Members of the audience were allowed to submit questions on index cards and half-way through his presentation he answered some of the following topics;
* How to get rid of the California Coastal Commission
· Secretary of State Deborah Bowen’s lack of addressing complaints about the problems with vote counting and not just in our County indicating that she’s
far more interested in running for Congress
· The problems with solar and wind energy being too expensive to be affordable
· The multi-million $ rail system that no one wants or can afford
· Illegal’s burdening our social systems through taking advantage of benefits
· When the Republican’s expect to come out with their budget proposals.
LaMalfa understands the tax and spend mentality that helped bring our great State to the brink of depression. He understands the red tape so prevalent in this State that it drives away business and industry, and hinders businesses from starting up and staying in business. Part of his solution is to encourage business and watch us rebuild this state’s budget.
In response to complaints, repeatedly the Senator would ask, “Do you want me to write a bill? Or do you want to get rid of the bad legislators in order to make changes.”
Locals Jaime Yarbrough and Bob Berkowitz asked similar questions, “What can we do to help you do your job more effectively?” Before ending the meeting, others in the audience had a chance to “rapid fire” questions of the Senator.
Senator’s office is open for business in Mason Mall. He expects to be answerable to his constituents. His staff was friendly and receptive. His office will be manned by Scott Feller. Let them know what you have on your mind. He’s of the opinion that in contrast to common thought of, ‘We oughta have a law,” there should be a routine clean-up of outdated, antiquated, unnecessary laws and sponsored the first ever, “We ought NOT to have a law” contest. The winner, Lorna Livingtree, was present.
He can’t be accused of side-stepping any issues brought up. It was refreshing to have a politician speak candidly about the problems and while a lot of this was the same topics . . . just a different city, overall it was two hours well spent.
NOTE: After the meeting, a constituent asked the Senator about his rice operation. The senator replied that he does not use rice that is one of Monsanto’s GMOs (genetically modified organisms).
