Town Hall Meeting

I decided to go to a town hall meeting hosted by Alyson Huber, Assemblymember of the 10th district. It was held at the Rio Americano High School from 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM. The weather was kind of warm that day but in keeping with my desire to maintain a low carbon footprint, I decided to go there by bike. One way distance is about 9 miles with easy access from the bike trail since the high school overlooks the American River. I was kind of in a hurry so by the time I got there, I was drenched in sweat. I walked into the event at the school library and quite a few heads turned to stare at the spectacle of a man drenched in sweat. After signing in without dripping on the sign-in sheet, I made my way over to a seat about 4 rows back and took in the crowd assembled. A lot of gray hair and bald heads dominated the audience with a few younger people scattered throughout. The meeting started promptly at 5:30 with Assemblymember Huber introducing herself and describing her focus at the state capital. My purpose in attending was to follow up on emails left on her website and messages left on her voice mail asking about the oil severance tax. California is the only oil producing state that does not have a severance tax and a modest 6% tax could pull in close to 900 million dollars a year. After being forced to sit through cranky old conservatives railing about pensions that state workers don’t deserve, I finally got a chance to speak up. My question was whether Ms. Huber thought that the state budget deficit could be solved without looking at any revenue generation and whether she supported the oil severance tax. I was a little disappointed to hear an ambiguous answer from her with her thinking out loud whether gas prices would go up. (The short answer to that question is no, they won’t go up because oil is a world commodity. How come people have so much trouble with this concept?). She did mention that a severance tax is included in the assembly version of the budget but not in the senate version. I appreciated how much time she spent with my question but I don’t get the sense that she is particularly enthusiastic about it. When the meeting ended, there was no time for chit chat since there was another town hall meeting across town she had to go to. I did get a chance to speak to one of her staff members and she told me to call anytime.