James Johnson, Long Beach City Council

On July 20 the City of Long Beach will have a leadership change.  Two city council seats will have new representatives.  James Johnson won the election for the 7th district, the western part of Long Beach.  James was the speaker at the July meeting of the Long Beach Democratic Club.  Two other Long Beach City Councilmembers, Patrick O’Donnell and Val Lerch were in attendence at the meeting.    James talked about many of the challenges facing Long Beach including the budget.  He mentioned that the budget will require his dedicated attention the first sixty days of his term .  

I found it refreshing that James explained that the budget was going to require some tough choices.  He said that accounting tricks or selling city assets were not the answer.  He acknowledged that hard working middle class families are facing major challenges just to meet living expenses, but he also stated how important public safety and other services are to the city.  He does not wish to increase taxes or fees and he does not want to cut services from the city.  He acknowleged that a combination of increasing revenue for the city and reducing some services must be part of the solution.  He was clear that passing debt to future generations is not the answer and he has the courage to fight for the right answer.   He did not define any specific solutions prior to taking office, but he sent a clear message that he is serious about facing challenge and being honest about what it will take to protect the future of Long Beach. 

3,000 consecutive days of running

Yesterday I completed 3,000 consecutive days of running 30 minutes or more .  I started this effort back on March 7, 2002.  I ran in Turkey 2002, Australia and New Zealand  2003, the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington DC 2005, the Philippines several times, and Tokyo in 2006.   I was committed to do everything I could through my behavior to cut my healthcare cost.  I am careful to complete all my annual physical exams and all preventive health activities.  I support a healthy diet and lifestyle.  I believe we all have a responsibility to our selves and our community to make a reasonable effort to support our health.    

I applied the concept of metrics to my healthcare.  When I started this current running streak I decided to count the consecutive days for motivation.  I used the approach of identifying measurements (# of consecutive days in this case) and tracking the results to define success. I used this approach many times in business.  I also defined metrics and tracked results with my diet.  I track the number of days I that I do not eat specific types of food.  I also track the number of consecutive days that I took a salad to work for lunch.  During my non-running workout I track the number of push-ups, sit-ups, and exercise wheel reps I do.  So far this year I have done over 8,000 push-ups.  Establishing goals and tracking activities that lead to the goal does work.  It creates urgency which leads to successful results.     

I belive we can apply metrics to many things such as advancing causes, supporting government reforms, and helping the environment.  I track the number of consecutive days I walk to the grocery store and take my Polly Dicta re-usable bag to carry the groceries.  You can customize your daily routine so that you track your activities and define success.    

Metrics works for me, what works for you.  I would love to hear your success stories.    

Jim Brandt, Facebook  

Gulf Coast Oil Spill Damage

 After watching Tony Haywood, CEO of British petroleum, walk along the beach with a herd of cameras and reporters following him; it gave one the image of an oil executive running our Gulf Coast.  I must admit that the image is better than the ones over the weekend taken in his lavash office.   Is Tony Haywood in charge of our beaches?  It may sound like a strange question, but when The Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu was asked about the oil spill on the Rachael Maddow show , he said, “I only know what I read in the papers”.  Steven Chu stated that he became aware that applications to drill deeper than 5,000 feet from the surface were pushed through and approved.  These applications were approved even though we have no technology to fix a leak at those depths.   

The Mineral Management Agency is responsible for oversite.  Over the weekend several stories broke about gifts, golf outings, football games, and job offers that were accepted by Mineral Management Agency inspectors who approved oil drilling applications.  Again, I ask, who is in charge?  How can we have confidence in our government when the people assigned to protect us are engaged in conflicts of interest.   After the environment is under control, these conflict of interest issues must be reviewed.  Right now politics and the blame game must wait so we can spend all our resources saving the environment and the people affected by the disaster.  

I believe the Obama administration acted quickly and deployed resources to the region in a responsible way.  However, the events of the past few days have left me with the feeling that the administration is hiding behind the fact that they do not have the knowledge or resources to fix the problem so they are relying on BP to drive the solution.  We need the politics to be put aside.  In stead of seeing Tony Haywood walking along the beach in the news broadcasts, I would like to see our leaders driving the effort.  It was not that long ago that the oil companies drove prices to mid $4 per gallon level making life difficult for many Americans while oil company profits hit record levels.  The oil company explanation was that they had to spend so much money on R&D and their risks were very high.  Well, oil spills are one of their risks.  We had to pay the high prices then, I think all the companies oil companies should take a much more direct role to apply the resources necessary to do the right thing.  I want to see our government take the leadership role and put the pressure on the entire oil industry.   

We will have plenty of time to find blame, now we need leadership.  Let me know what you think.  

Jim Brandt, Facebook

Sarah Palin

After watching a news clip from Fox News from Sunday, May 23, I could not believe what Sarah Palin said.  She actually suggested that there was a connection between President Obama’s campaign contributions from gas & oil companies and his approach to the oil disaster in the gulf.  Wasn’t Sarah Palin the one who said “drill baby drill” during the 2008 campaign?  

According to USA Today dated May 24, candidate Obama’s contributions from oil and gas companies was $900,000 while candidate McCain collected $2.4 million.  

I remember candidate Obama suggesting an excess profit tax for the oil companies when the oil companies raised their prices to record levels.  Either Sarah Palin has completely lost her ability to link one fact to another or she is just trying to promote herself and her books. 

The greater point here is that too many people have something to sell and the facts fall victim to their overall goal.  I am not happy with the way the Obama administration is handling the oil disaster.  It seems like they are more concerned with not getting blamed than they are about taking care of the problem.   I believe they should take charge and reach out to the other oil companies for more help.  It is in the interest of the other oil companies to fix this problem quickly or they will all suffer.  I think it is good that the administration acknowledges that they do not have the resources to do the cleanup themselves, but the people are entitled to oversight and we are not seeing enough of it.   This is an environmental disaster which deserves a focused effort with urgency, not a political approach that is more concerned about blame than the long-term outlook.  

I will watch the administration very closely and if I do not see more urgency I will continue to write about it, but I am not going to let the BP off the hook or mis represent facts.  Please let me know your thoughts. 

Jim Brandt,  Facebook

California State Senator Allan Lowenthal

 I attended the Democratic Women’s Study Club meeting recently.  The guest speaker was California Assembly Member Warren Furutani from the 55th Assembly District in California.   Assembly Member Furutani gave a good summary of current legislation in California.  Then he answered questions.  Most of the questions had to do with the budget, the governor, and changing the requirement for two-thirds vote to approve  tax increases.   An interesting part of the meeting was that California State Senator Allan Lowenthal attended the meeting as a member.   Senator Lowenthal listened to the questions and then spoke for a few minutes about his assessment of the challenges facing the legislatures at all levels.  He talked about the lack of oversite at the federal and state level.  He said, too often we vote for candidates based on their issue positions and not the candidate’s ability to represent the district, including the ability to provide oversight.   The voters depend on their elected officials to help protect them by keeping the organizations that impact their daily lives honest.      

I was moved by the wisdom expressed by Senator Lowenthal.  Providing good oversight requires specific abilities and a willingness to work hard to discover detail leading to judgements that affect all of us.  That is one reason why the character of the candidate is important.  The willingness to work as hard as it takes to understand the details of legislation and the future impact to everyone, not just the special interests with money.      

Retired State Senator Betty Karnette was leading the meeting.  She agreed with Senator Lowenthal about the importance of oversight.  We need leaders who have the attention to detail to learn for themselves, not rely on lobbyists and others to define solutions.      

Small groups conducted the real work in the halls free from Robert’s rules of order and the treasurer’s report.  People were tired of all the process and just wanted to talk about their passion.  I understood that, especially when the economy affected so many of the delegates.  The cost of parking was a major topic during the entire three days.  A fair number of the delegates sat through the speeches and expressed excitement  when Speaker Pelosi and Senator Boxer spoke; but the real democracy took place in the small groups.  Healthcare and the economy dominated all the discussion I observed.  This group of people wanted to get excited and definitely felt a need to do something with the economic and healthcare woes of recent times; but I did not see a major candidate or topic that brought them together. 

We need people to accept leadership and advance causes that will lift the people’s spirit and improve their way of life.  In my book, “Polly Dicta – giving real democracy a voice” I talked about spheres within a person’s life.  The more you can get your sphere’s to intersect so you are working on more than one at the same time, the more likely you will move your life in the direction you wish to go.  Right now we need good jobs in California.  That was the main topic by large margin.  I decided to study transportation projects because they produce high paying jobs yet advances the other major issues of energy, the environment, and healthcare.  If we are going to spend taxpayer money to increase jobs, then we should create something that will improve our way of life for many decades.  I am going to work hard to find the right project that the Polly Dicta subscribers support and work as hard as I can to make it happen.  I will be addressing citizen involvement in infrastructure projects in future blog postings.  I would appreciate your comments on the subject. 

Overall I thought the convention was very good.  It was not driven by candidates, but rather by the delegates.  I felt differently at this one than I did for the previous ten.  I felt good about the discussions and even the heated debates.  I think more talk and work with less process and formal speeches will encourage more participation and lead us to a higher quality of life.  Let me know what you think.

As you might expect, most of the speeches told the audience what they wanted to hear.  In many cases the questions showed a personal side of the candidate.  Fifteen local Democratic Party clubs organized the event.  I was impressed that 15 clubs could share resources and work together to promote the event.   The candidate reaction to the questions gave a glimpse into the candidate’s problem solving process and the candidate’s approach to communicating with the citizens.

The audience reaction was much more interesting and revealing than the speeches of the candidates.  When the candidates were speaking the audience was focussed; yet between speeches the audience engaged in conversations and debates about their reaction to the messages presented.  There truly was interaction between the candidates and the audience as well as among the audience themselves. 

People giving up a couple of hours during their Saturday to learn more about the people campaigning to represent them was much impressive than the messages presented by the candidates.  If more people would attend events like this one, the voters would have opportunities to see more than sound bites from TV ads.  A quick look at the character of the candidate is possible.  We need more people to organize and promote the events and we need more citizens willing to spend a Saturday afternoon interacting with their future leaders.  We need to make the effort to learn about our future leaders if we are going to influence the direction of our communities and country.  Selecting candidates that will support the citizens, not the big money and special interests begins with learning as much as possible about the people seeking the leadership positions.  We must learn as much as we can about our future leaders and then work to support the candidates we belive will represent us. 

I belive we need more grassroot events.  Please click on the comment below and let me know what you think.

As the discussion began to lose any sense of direction, Senator Karnette showed that leadership she demonstrated so many times in the legislature.  She began to speak while the rest of the people in the room sat and listened.  Senator Karnette made the point that California needs high paying  jobs that will address serious challenges that affect the state for decades to come.   Transportation is one of the major challenges facing California for now and in the forseeable future.  She explained that both the chairperson of the California Senate Transportation Committee and the chairperson of the California Assembly Transportation Committee are local and that both legislators are very approachable.  Senator Karnette said that we need to work with both legislators to advance major construction projects that will bring high paying jobs that will last many years and the projects will improve the quality of life for the people of California.  The energy of the people in the room and the people they represent need  to focus on an effort that will help the economy and improve the future of California at the same time.   

I am sharing this story with you for two reasons.  First, I agree with Senator Karnette that we need to face our challenges and work on the economy at the same time.  My second reasons is that we need to share success stories about our elected leaders current or retired.  We do have honest leaders who have the leadership skills to help us move in the direction we wish to go.   Maybe you think there are other projects that have more priority than transportation.  That is a debate worth having.  I would love to consider the merits of several projects that could make America a better place to live while defining spending priorities.  Recently, all we hear is personal attacks instead of the  benefits and negative points of valid proposals.  Please send me your comments about the economy,leadership, or any other subject.