Another First

Last Friday was pretty incredible. I seemed to surprise everyone at CHC, including myself, by arranging a meeting at our office with Assemblymember Nava (representing Ventura and Santa Barbara counties). I had heard that he had passed legislation to improve oil field safety and that he had a general history of environment-focused initiatives. So I thought he would be a perfect fit to visit our group. I wanted him to speak to a group that I convene in my “spare time”—the LA Oil Organizers. I say in my spare time, because CHC is not funded to do work with them, it’s just something that I really see a need for. Plus there is so much energy in the group, they practically run themselves.

I just wrote him a letter requesting his visit and then followed up with his staff. It took a little back and forth with the staff, but for the most part, was no biggie! It was a little bit of a long shot because we are not constituents of his district. But I just had a feeling that he would be interested because our interests aligned so much.

The highlights of the meeting for me: 1) The whole week everyone in the office was asking me “HE is actually coming, not just his staff?” 2) When the Assemblymember walked in quite informally without a staff person and subway sandwich in hand 3) When I could feel him winning the hearts of people in the room as he described his battles with offshore drilling 4) When after we charted about nine different concerns that were brought to him, he said that he was learning from us because this was the first time he was hearing a lot of these concerns. 5) When my exec director, who said she was only going to pop her head in, decided to stay for the whole meeting

;) Fun times.....