State Treasurer spotlights challenges ahead

California State Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate John Chiang was in county this morning, speaking to a Breakfast Club meeting at Cypress College.

Despite the 7am start the meeting, part of a series organized by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (CA-65), was Standing Room Only with more than 100 local residents in attendance.

As a former State Controller and Equalization Board member Chiang has kept an eye on California's finances for over 20 years and was able to identify both the successes of the past and the challenges that lay ahead.

Chiang explained that whilst state and previous federal policies have helped reduce the number of Californians without health insurance by some 50%, changes to those federal policies are likely to see that
progress reversed.

Although aware that he was speaking in a county whose Supervisors have consistently branded homelessness as a public order issue rather than an affordable housing issue, the Treasurer was unequivocal in his call to expand the state's Rapid Rehousing initiative. Only by instituting an early intervention model, he argued, complete with wraparound health and social services could communities hope to resolve the growing crisis.

Speaking to issues of difference with the current federal administration Treasurer Chiang's office released a statement earlier in the morning strongly condemning the administration's decision to rescind rules regarding cannabis :

"The action taken by Attorney General Sessions threatens us with new national divisiveness and casts into turmoil a newly established industry that is creating jobs and tax revenues.

“Until the slow, clunking machinery of the federal government catches up with the values and will of the people it purportedly serves, states —like California —will continue to both resist and, more importantly, to lead.”

The Treasurer will be back in the Southland next Saturday morning for a debate with other gubernatorial candidates. The event, jointly organized by the Empowerment Congress and local NPR affiliate KPCC, will be held at USC's Bovard Auditorium, commencing at 8am.

The next meeting of Assm. Quirk-Silva's Breakfast Club will be held on February 2nd at the Brookhurst Community Center in Anaheim when State Secretary Alex Padilla is slated to attend.