Community Voices and the Governor

Hey hey hey.

Summer is still in full swing and so is Community Voices.

On July 9th, Community Voices and Children's Defense Fund worked to close down the state's switchboard to demand that the Governor and the Legislature sign a decent budget and now. Thousands of folks called in. I know. That is amazing! And while the budget still has not been signed, we know that the word is out to get this thing over with.

Of course, now the latest is to focus on the fact that the state workers will be laid off or will have to take pay cuts until the budget is signed. I have to say that I am really pissy about this because the cuts that they are talking about would still leave many state employees making more than our parents and providers and state employees have access to resources (like credit unions, etc.) and state workers will get reimbursed by the state once this blows over. Our people don't have those luxuries. But I digress......

If you want to get upset, check out this article on how the state is playing the state on this media matter. Uh, how many of us are living on this already?????

Well, there was a statewide call to action to call the legislature on the 30th to talk (again) about this budget deadlock madness. But you know we at Community Voices did one better. We met with the Governor down here in Los Angeles.

We met with on of the Governor's Senior Policy staff folks and talked about the issue. Who we are (meaning Community Voices), our various stories:

• Louis Wright talked about not being able to qualify for child care subsidies because he makes $48 over the limit (talk about someone being impacted by the SMI being frozen at too low levels).
• Mike Alley and his wife talked about struggling to pay the bills while only one of them is working and needing other programs (food pantry) and not being able to afford child care. Ahem. Mike is taking care of the children and they could not even afford child care in order to make the meeting. Ahem.
• Jackie Fowler talked about being a licensed provider who takes care of 14 little ones. She presented pictures created by her little ones to the Governor's people and shared the story about how the last image was done by a child who will no longer be at the center because her mom has gone into $2300 debt trying to pay for child care ever since she got married and no longer qualified for subsidized care. Ouch!!!
• Kim Schaaf talked about using child care services over 20 years ago and testified that is because of the service that she was able to go back to school, climb the employment ladder, and get her son ready for school (he's now in college). So there!!!

We heard the party line about the budget, the infighting, the Governor's proposal, etc. We ended on some high notes. And before I talk about the high notes, I want to say that the reason why we ended on the high notes is because we have some jammin', slammin' Community Voices members who were persistent in their questions and responses and demands and would settle for no less than some commitments.

So, now for the high notes:
1. We have another meeting scheduled with folks in the Governor's office and the Department of Finance to talk about how to keep money into our child care funding "bank".
2. We also got a commitment from the Governor's office to tour our sites and meet more of our members.

So, not bad for the first meeting!!!!!

On another note, we have been working with the Equal Voice Campaign to gear up for their September convention. Here is a link. We are working to see how to get our folks registered because we NEED TO BE THERE!!!!!! I have heard from folks from across the state who have been saying, "I heard that CV will be at the convention." "I heard that over 200 of your folks have signed up to go." So word about CV is spreading already!!! Let's keep the fire lit. Let's gets prepared for the follow-up with the Governor.