At The State Capitol

[Ayatollahgondola]

I've been worming my way into the action little by little at the capitol, and today it was through a committee meeting. This one was only slightly connected to our agenda, but it was an issue that near and dear to my life these days, and it gave me a chance to get involved and heard. Consider it practice.
This particular meeting was chaired by one of our arch-enemies, Gil Cedillo of One-Bill-Gil fame. Gotta say that as long as he's not prostelythizing for illegals, he actually makes some sense, so it at least gives some answers as to why he keeps getting elected. It was a two hour tour, with a bunch of stuffed shirts trying to tell other stuffed shirts...and blouses...why they are millions over budget, projected to be billions over budget soon, and two years late on delivering what it was supposed to. The legislative analyst spoke at length, and still got drilled on something that she didn't provide, which was what would happen if the whole deal was scrapped. Several legislators sit on this committee, including my own, who bailed before the end anyway.
This accused boondoggle is the court case management system that is already somewhat functioning up here in guineapig land (sac), but is being resisted in counties like LA which has their own good buddy contract. Don't know how much their system costs now, because they are not required to report to the audit committee; that pesky separation of powers thing....

Anyway; I spoke after the show was mostly over, and believe it or not, I was quite impressed with Cedillo's adherance to the schedule in allowing those of us our allotted time slot. He kept reminding people, mostly auditors, judges, and, administrators, that everyone was going to get their turn. I only had a short run, so I had to trim my little speech by over half, and do it on the spur of the moment. They do videotape these things, but I'm not sure it's accessible. If it is, I'll bore you with the link a little later. But this is another way in which we will get heard. I live close enough to make quite a pest of ourselves at these meetings, and we will let them know the wishes of each and every Save Our State'r over the course of this legislative session.