Assemblyman Ken Cooley is serving from the District 3 and Carmichael Residents are his constituents. He has had a long illustrious career after graduating from UCB and McGeorge Law School. Then he worked for the State Farm Insurance company for many years.

He is known for the great job he did as a first council member of Rancho Cordova and Mayor of Rancho Cordova (2005 and in 2010) and since being elected to the California State Assembly (2012) is the Chairman of the powerful Assembly Committee on Rules.

Ken has been a frequent visitor to our Crab Feeds and a friend to many in our Club.

Ken said that he wanted to talk about bipartisanship and collegiality and noted that this month is Rotary’s Peace and Conflict Resolution. It’s probably an understatement that there has been a lot of conflict in the last 12 months. In the legislature, you should have a high value for people and a fidelity to the constitution. You swear to the oath to have true faith and allegiance to the constitution (both state and federal). He said that each elected member should be a true champion for their constituents and be a part of a team to get things done. He has collaborated on a book on Oversight for the legislature. He said that in the legislature oversight is very much a bipartisan issue. Ken has collaborated on a “Oversight Book” which he showed to us on the screen and another entitled “Western Legislative Oversight Handbook”, in which he has been a leader in oversight in the western states.  He said that the class of the 2021 assembly will be the most experience legislative body that we have had in four decades. It takes time to develop the skill sets needed to do a good job in the legislature. Ken mentioned something I did not know but state lawmakers do not get a pension, other than their own 401Ks etc. He said that he believes in pruning back regulations and is a fiscal conservative. Tomorrow Ken will be at an oversight committee meeting investigating the EDD scandal – that should be interesting. President David mentioned to Ken that it was very enjoyable having our own legislative representative here today to listen and talk to – so in honor of his visit, a book will be donated to the Carmichael Library (subsidiary of the Sacramento Public Library.

 

 

Eleven representatives of the Carmichael Rotary Club traveled to the Rise Against Hunger warehouse in Sacramento and along with Jim Quinney, Community engagement Manager and another volunteer from the local Presbyterian Church Scott Olsen, filled over 1200 meals to be sent overseas to hungry people in crisis. Each packet consists of a nutritious rice-soy fortified meal that will serve four meals. We each took our station and weighed scooped amounts of the ingredients into clear plastic bags. We weighed, sealed and labeled them (batch number) and packed them in boxes for shipping.

There was music accompanying us and tapping out toes, and swaying to and fro, we accomplished our mission in a little over an hours time. It was fun..