We kicked off the new year with our always popular Joint ACEC/APWA lunch meeting on January 8th at the Woodlake Hotel and Conference Center. Our guest speaker was Assemblyman James Gallagher. James was formerly a Sutter County Supervisor. He represents the 3rd District, which includes the Counties of Butte, Tehama, Yuba, Sutter, Glenn, and Colusa. Special thanks to Megan Carter (APWA President) at Dokken for handling all of the logistics for this event.

The turnout was excellent with many Sierra Chapter members in attendance, including President Harvey Oselick who sat at the head table with Assemblyman Gallagher.

Although James is a farmer and attorney by trade, I was impressed with his knowledge and understanding of infrastructure issues. It turns out his college roommate was a civil engineer, so he appreciated the value we bring to society. He was also very appreciative of the contributions made by the public works industry. Being from a rice farming family near Nicolas, Assemblyman Gallagher was very aware of water, drainage and transportation challenges in the State of California. He absolutely supports the Sites Reservoir project, transportation funding, and streamlining CEQA for basic upkeep and maintenance of infrastructure. Assemblyman Gallagher felt California needs to be doing more “Pay as You Go” type infrastructure funding to avoid the long stretches of inaction by state politicians. Sounds like a great idea to me!