DIANA CONTI FOR ASSEMBLY 2014

    “Because California Deserves Better”

College of Marin Trustee Diana Conti  is running for Assembly because she believes California and the 10th District needs someone who will stand up for a good affordable education for all, including higher education that will prepare our young people for the good well-paying jobs of the 21st century, that our coastline is a resource for all Californians and not something to be exploited by oil companies and large developers and that special interests have too much influence on who makes our laws in California.  She would fight for a true single payer system in California.

“California is in a crisis,” said Conti. “With a drought, the specter of fracking and loss of funding for essential services such as education and parks, and the true crisis in trust and confidence in our legislators felt by a majority of California.

“We need someone strong enough to stand up to special interests in the legislature, and experienced and practical enough to work for consensus,” said Conti. “This means a government that is focused on the needs of the people of the state, not the needs of special interests and big contributors; all people deserve the right to live with dignity and know they can have a safe place to live, a good education for their children and jobs that are meaningful and pay a living wage,” stated Conti, currently in her second term as a trustee for the College of Marin.

As a College trustee, Diana has seen the devastation that lack of funding and the loss of courses students need to succeed can have. She has worked to build consensus with her Board colleagues and the surrounding community in the expenditure of bond funding for new classrooms and infrastructure improvements.

Conti has been called a “pragmatic peacemaker,” a description that has served her well in her career working with social service agencies in both Marin and Sonoma and the non-profits she has led, such as in her former position as Deputy Drug Program Administrator for the County of Sonoma, executive director of the Marin Institute, and Executive Director of the Novato Human Needs Center.

She currently is CEO of Parca, an organization that helps people with developmental disabilities and their families and serves on the Board of West Bay Housing Development Corporation (housing for people with special needs). She is a member of the Governing Council, and past Executive Board member, of the American Public Health Association.

Contact Diana at 415-990-8798 or email her at [email protected]

See her Facebook page at http://tinyurl.com/n3eqwhp

 

Marin and Sonoma Counties are currently represented by State Senator Mark Leno.  As of last week, maps show the District split at the Golden Gate Bridge, which is what we were hoping for, however, watch out what you wish for. As of this weekend, San Francisco has been given an odd-number. This means they will have a Senate election in 2012. Mark Leno, as the “odd numbered” Senator, will run for re-election in that race. However, even numbered District have no elections until 2014.  In the new numbering scheme, we will be District 2, even, and hence no election until 2014.

But will that mean we have no State Senator until 2014, since our current Senator, Mark Leno, will now represent San Francisco?  The current Senators representing a part of the new District (which goes all the way to the Oregon border) are Noreen Evans, Dem, Santa Rosa, and Doug LaMalfa, Republican from Butte County, thankfully not in the new District.  I’d be happy with Noreen, but I think she’s in the part of Santa Rosa north of College Avenue and out of the new District.  Does this mean we get a caretaker appointed Senator until 2014? Anyone know this? Weird huh?  

Dotty LeMieux is a founder of and writer for the GreenDog Truth Squad, a project to expose the Corporate underpinnings of the Fiorina Campaign.

Poor Carly Fiorina.  She can’t decide if she’s a hard nosed corporate capitalist, or a new-wave feminist.  Either way, her decidedly “un-sisterly” jabs at Barbara Boxer’s hairdo (which by the way is quite fetching) and attempts to create division between our two Democratic Senators have fallen flat.

She calls herself a “pro-woman, pro-life” feminist, in a recent Chronicle article by Carla Marinucci, trying to have it both ways, a corporate executive (and not a very good one, losing HP thousands of jobs, and ultimately getting the sack herself) and a “conservative feminist,” similar to Sarah Palin.

Well, gag me with a speculum! When I was coming up in the second wave feminist world of the late sixties, there was no such animal as a “pro-life” feminist. That’s a contradiction in terms. Feminism means never having to say “NO” to a women’s right to choose.

(First published in sfgate, July 2010.)  It is also decidedly anti-hierarchical; you cannot be an apologist for corporate capitalism and be a feminist.  Feminism is more than being a strong woman, breaking the glass ceiling, or playing in the big boys’ club.  Feminism is all about egalitarianism, choice and protecting the rights of the most vulnerable in society, not throwing them under the bus to advance the bottom line.

Or pushing them out the door in a snit fit either, as another female Republican corporate head turned politician, Meg Whitman, has now admitted to doing, with a subordinate who wasn’t playing nicely in a press conference. What did she do? Refuse to get you your coffee?

These Top Dog ruthless, free spending, woman bashing she-wolves are not feminists in my book.   I may be an old fogy, but high unemployment rates, tea partiers fighting against their own self interests in order to serve an illusory “family values” platform and women clawing their way to the top of the heap over their less successful counterparts means we still have a long way to go Baby.

copyright Dotty E. LeMieux

I’ve been to many a convention, but this one was the most interesting.  You’ve read about most of it by now. This is my Blog post from www.sfgate/community/blogs

To San Diego and Back: Our State Democratic Convention
Posted 5/1/2007 4:45 PM
Politics alert: This Blog contains partisan viewpoints and might not be suitable for small children or those with short attention spans or high expectations.

I’m back from the Convention, thank you for asking, yes it was exciting.  The usual suspects traipsed through to be adored or ignored, depending.  In this case, the usual suspects are presidential candidates (all except Biden, even that Alaskan guy no one ever head of, and he is a fire brand) and Party hacks, with budget reports or passing out awards to volunteers of the year in Visalia. Oh, and Gavin was there, pressing way too much flesh for a guy simply doing his job.

My personal fave is John Edwards. Hands down. He has programs, he has energy. He has hair. (Whoops, edit that out!) He’s a serious candidate who seems to really care about social programs and has the guts to say he was wrong to vote for the Iraq War. Go here for his postcard you can send to your representative.  http://johnedwards.c…  Get out of Iraq.  This was his message, and it resonated with the crowd. See the YouTube footage of his Iraq statement here: http://johnedwards.c…
All the Caucuses held meetings, so did the committees, many at the same time and it was impossible to juggle between them all, especially with mini-crises and important votes that couldn’t be missed. Some of them got missed. Some people left the building early resulting in an embarrassing lack of quorum for an important resolution: Stop funding the Iraq War now. 

You’ve read about the famous quorum call, about which Art was “shocked, shocked, I tell you!”

Aside to Party Leaders:  Please put the important business on first.  Save the awards and back patting until later.  And make the resolutions available as soon as possible, so that all know what they may be voting on and why it’s important to stay in your seats until the votes are cast.

  In other news, our Progressive Caucus rocks, in the word of one Blogger at  http://usliberals.ab…  We elected some new officers (I’m still an Officer at Large) and reported on the progress of our initiatives for the year.  We may be the largest Caucus in the Party now. Yay progressives!

Our own Marin County activist, Mayme Hubert, was elected to the unsung position of Regional Director. That means she rules the roost from Marin to the border in matters Democratic.  Really, she has to keep us all informed and log a lot of miles as she travels from meeting to meeting. 

And there were parties.  Charlie Brown, the once and future candidate against  ethically challenged John Doolittle in Congressional District 4, spurred on the crowd eating family style pasta and eggplant at the Take Back Red California Dinner (cheap eats). In the hospitality suites which took over the meeting rooms in the evening,  you could eat ice cream with Bill Lockyer or drink red wine with the progressives. I did both, but declined the photo op with Bill.

Hope to see many of you in Sacramento in July for the quarterly meeting of the Executive Board.