June 28th is the day the Assembly Committee will consider bill. Please take action NOW!
73,
Don Milbury, W6YN
------------------------------------------------- SB-1714: Letters Needed!
By Jim Maxwell, W6CF, Director, Pacific Division, ARRL w6cf@arrl.org
You may know that SB-1714, which is our first step toward restraining local jurisdictions from regulating Amateur service antennas out of existence, passed the California Senate 39-0 on May 30. From there it has gone to the Assembly for consideration. On June 6 SB-1714 was assigned to the Local Government Committee of the California Assembly. The members of the committee are Assembly members Longville (Chair), Pacheco (Vice-chair), Corbett, Kaloogian, Kuehl, Thompson, Torlakson and Wiggins. The present text of the bill may still be found at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov; click on "bills" and search on "1714" (no quotes). We have just been informed that the SB-1714 will be considered in the Local Government Committee on Wednesday, June 28. Preparations are in progress right now for a small group to appear before the Committee in support of the bill. The makeup of our group is in a state of flux at the moment, but current plans are for our group to be led by Vice Director Vallio, W6RGG, ably supported by Sacramento Valley Section Manager Jerry Boyd, K6BZ, and possibly Volunteer Counsel Coordinator Harry Styron, K6HS. I will be out of the country on that date, so will not be able to attend. We do not have a sponsor in the Assembly, so we need to be more active in support than was necessary in the Senate, where we had the minority leader carrying the bill. We continue to face opposition to any meaningful bill from the California League of Cities and other lobbying organizations concerned with land use and real estate. You should express your opinion (hopefully supportive) to your individual Assembly member and to the members of the Local Government Committee and/or to the committee staff. At this point please do not suggest changes to the bill, because any amendment in the Assembly would effectively kill it for this year. In its present form it doesn't hurt, and it will permit us to work with the Governor's Office of Planning and Research to get (hopefully) something next year that will really help. You may find your Assembly member's name in the government pages of the telephone directory or on the web by going to http://www.assembly.ca.gov and using the zip code finders that can be found off those pages. Every Assembly member may be contacted by mail addressed to him or her by name at P. O. Box 942849, Sacramento, CA 94249-0001. Every Assembly member may be contacted by email at an address constructed as assemblymember.<name>@assembly.ca.gov, where <name> is the last name of the Assembly member. For example, Assemblyman Sam Aanestad of the 3rd district has email address assemblymenber.aanestad@assembly.ca.gov. Each member of the Assembly has individual office, telephone and fax numbers in their district and in Sacramento. Local offices are listed in the government section of your phone directory. A great deal of information about each member can be found off of the http://www.assembly.ca.gov page. The Local Government Committee is more primitive, for they have no email address. Their snail-mail address is 1020 "N" Street, Room 157, Sacramento, CA 95814. Their telephone number is 1-916-319-3958 and their fax number is 1-916-319-3959. You should send them a copy of every letter addressed to your Assembly member or to the Assembly members of the Local Government Committee. In the Senate we got a very misleading support count in the legislative analysts' comments, because few of our letters went to the committee staff. They said we only had six letters in support, which is only the count of letters that went to the staff itself - they apparently did not see the many letters addressed to individual Senators. It is sufficient just to write or telephone to say "I am an Amateur Radio Service licensee and I support SB- 1714." Staff at each level simply keeps a count for and against for the member. The Assembly member generally will not see the individual letters, only the count. Please at least tell me and our Pacific Division Volunteer Counsel Coordinator Harry Styron, K6HS, (hlstyron@ wcrklaw.com) that you have written, to whom you have written, and if your letter was for or against the bill. This way we can keep a count for when we appear before the Committee. Harry, K6HS, has also created a SB-1714 mail list. The list contains periodic updates and alerts related to SB-1714. If you wish to subscribe, send email to 1714- info-request@contra-costa.net with the word "subscribe" (no quotes) in the subject line. Thanks to Harry Styron, K6HS and Mike Mitchell, W6RW, for most of the information provided above. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Amateur Radio: If you're not having fun, you are not doing it right!
ARRL, Santa Barbara Section
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Donald L Milbury