SQS on CalOptima Audit, Vets Cemetery, & the right to go to the Bathroom!

[Mark Daniels’ timeless photo catches the Silvas from the point of view of our donkey mascot.]

We had two special guests at the Anaheim Democrats Club meeting last Thursday – Santa Ana Vice-Mayor Jessie Lopez, who is under threat of recall for bogus reasons, and longtime North-County Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva. Sharon said a lot of interesting things and answered a lot of good questions, and I thought I’d share some of what she said here. Well, I should say, I AM going to share some of it here. And if you’re reading this, then I DID. First I THOUGHT that, then I did it. Because I don’t mess around. That’s how things work. You can watch the whole meeting here, Sharon starts at 13:15, but here are some excerpts:

On the CalOptima Audit (39:38)

Our community members who are most impoverished in this County SHOULD have access to some kind of medical services, and this is where OC’s CalOptima system comes in. It’s very unique compared to the rest of the state, the way it was designed. But the only way somebody’s gonna be enrolled into CalOptima is if they’re out there in the Community.

So, CalOptima first came to my attention a few years ago when I was working with Judge David Carter – they should have some kind of role relating to homelessness, because as we know, people who are homeless have many many health issues and chronic conditions, and what the Judge told CalOptima 4-5 years ago was “You ARE gonna be part of this,” and they immediately responded that they were gonna put SIXTY MILLION DOLLARS into this, that they were gonna get STREET MEDICINE people out there, and that lasted about two minutes. The moment he got off them then they stopped doing that.

So, over these last few years, there’ve been many people who came to me and said, “You know, there’s just something not right about what’s going on at CalOptima.” (I’m not gonna tell you who, but many anonymous people.) So, we did an audit. Audits are very powerful in California. And the results of that audit will be due in April – this month we should see them.

We’ve already seen change though, because of that audit. Supervisor Andrew Do resigned from that Board [applause] We’ve seen many changes. But THIS is what really bothers me probably the most: the new CEO [Michael Hunn, right] is making $850,000 a year. And MANY of the employees are making $500K, $300K, Supervisor Do’s staffer is making – most staffers make between $40k to $70k because you’re a government employee – HIS staffer moved to CalOptima and is now making $300K.

This to me is outrageous, these are public tax dollars that are meant to be used for our most needy people, and they justify it by saying “Well, we can’t recruit other people.” And this happens also in all of our CSU’s, UC’s, where we’re paying college presidents $300K, $400K.. the college president at Cal State Fullerton is making at least $300K plus a home in the hills of Fullerton and, I believe, a car. (Not sure about the car.) And this is a PUBLIC UNIVERSITY.

And it’s always “Well we can’t attract somebody from the East Coast.” Well, why do we need someone from the East Coast. If YOU GUYS WANNA WRITE SOMETHING (looking at Vern and Greg) this is like … and we have all these agencies in OC – Vector Control, Sanitation, all of these, and people are making HUGE amounts of money off of public service, don’t get me started on this, because Democrats are always being called the “big spenders,” but who’s doing this?

On Rent Caps for Mobile Home Parks

The bill that I ran, that got signed by the Governor and is in place right now, specifically affects only Rancho La Paz Mobile Home Park [applause]… which sits in both Fullerton and Anaheim – what we had to do to get the bill passed [was to really narrow it down.] …. The chair at the time wouldn’t hear the bill unless we narrowed it down to parks that cover two cities, and there are only two parks like that, I think the other one’s in Garden Grove.

Now there’s a new chair, they’re gonna hear [Muratsuchi’s AB 1035], I don’t know it it will get all the way through, [GSMOL, the conservative mobile home owners’ group] is still opposing it like they did my bill.

But if it does pass, then it’s in essence rent control for mobile homes, like AB 1482 for apartments, where they can’t raise rents more than 5% a year – which is still a lot, if you’re on a fixed income, but imagine 20% – but if it goes statewide that’d be a big win.

On the Progress toward an OC Veterans’ Cemetery

Veterans Cemetery – I’ve been working on THAT for ten years! We are close, we are as close as we’ve been. Right NOW they are doing the study – so finally they’re studying Gypsum Canyon – We were desperately trying to get them to be done by this May, so that we could apply for this federal grant in July, but they’re NOT gonna be done, so that means we’ll have to wait another year.

But in the meantime, the County is putting in the infrastructure, because there’s gonna be a PUBLIC side to it – not on the same line, it’ll be divided. So I REALLY feel like it’s gonna happen. When will the first internments be done? I think we’re looking at 2025 at the earliest.

On the Right to Go to the Bathroom!

[At around 22:00 she talks about homelessness and housing, emphasizing how that is really ONE issue. She has had over fifty bills signed into law by the governor related to housing. Then at 25:00 she brings up a topic you don’t hear politicians talk much about…] What are the basic needs people have? Food, clothing, shelter, and, bottom line, A PLACE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM. Have you noticed, you can’t even find a public bathroom open any more? Since the pandemic, when restaurants, fast food places, public parks, libraries, they’ve all closed down and are doing very little to open.

Matter of fact, we have a bill that we’ve tried to run THREE times, this is our third time running it, the first two times it went through all the committees and then got stuck in Appropriations, meaning that Appropriations chair on the Senate side didn’t want to move it, it was called Right to Restrooms. And those bills that we ran twice, they woulda just said, if you already have a public bathroom, whether it’s in a library, community center, park, that those restrooms have to be open and clean. NOT that you have to build new restrooms.

This bill that we’re running this time because we were not successful is even more narrow, and it says, at least do an INVENTORY of where public bathrooms are in the counties and cities, and that we can place it on a website. And it’s not just for people who are homeless, it’s for parents who have toddlers, seniors… How many of you have gone to a park, and there’s just no place to go? So that’s the kind of stuff I work on…

Vern here. I call that a lawmaker who deals with real life. Other high points were when Kenneth Batiste talked about Mary’s Kitchen (49:00) and she told us how she confronted the city of Orange over their closing of that vital place, and they told her “Mind your own business,” and she snapped back, “This IS my business – I’m the Chair of the Select Committee on OC Homelessness. And they had put in their Housing Plan that Mary’s Kitchen is part of their services, and then all the while they’re trying to close it down.”

It’s really all worth hearing. Around 47:00 Greg Diamond mentions the latest Anaheim outrage, with Councilwoman Natalie Meeks and possibly others threatening to keep the results of Anaheim’s corruption investigation secret. Sharon responds that she’s heard about this, and that after spending $1.5 million of public money on the investigation, to bury the report would be outrageous, and that might be occasion for another audit, this time of the City of Anaheim.

Around 48:00 Kenneth expresses his experience and concerns with the safety of OC homeless shelters, and she responds by mentioning a new bill he should look at, the Shelter Safety Bill – “except maybe it’s just not being enforced. We get lots of good bills passed, and then they’re just not enforced.” Yes, that is true – we’ve seen it particularly with AB 1482, the rent control bill.

There were several times that she invited us to send in our ideas for bills. At 31:30 Jeanine Robbins of the People’s Homeless Task Force, after hearing that $10 million had been granted to the undependable Illumination Foundation, wanted to be sure that there would be some oversight over how the nonprofit spent that $10 million, and Sharon re-assured her that there is, and that they haven’t gotten the money yet. Then Jeanine asked if there could be a state law requiring each city to have an OMBUDSMAN for homelessness issues and other issues, and Sharon thought that was a great idea, and “Please send us this idea, a lot of our bills come from ideas from citizens like you.”

After the meeting, Sharon wrote me to thank me for letting her come and speak to the Anaheim Democrats Club, and included some very kind words: “Your group is actually DOING something, unlike [certain other Democrat Clubs I won’t name] that are just old and tired.” Thank you, Sharon!