El Cerrito Democratic Club

Fiona Ma

 Fiona Ma was elected to represent the 12th Assembly District from November 2006 to November 2012 (after serving the maximum three terms).  She was the #112 woman to ever be elected to the California Legislature and the first Asian woman to ever serve as Speaker pro Tempore since 1850 (first Legislature).  Assemblywoman Ma first became interested in politics as a small business owner and a Certified Public Accountant advocating on behalf of other small businesses.  She was an elected delegate to the 1995 White House Conference on Small Business under President Bill Clinton, which produced a report to Congress on the 60 top policy recommendations to help small businesses grow and prosper in the 21st century.

 She formally entered the field of politics in 1995 serving as the District Representative for then Assemblyman Senator John Burton.  She was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2002, where she served for four years.  During her tenure on the Board of Supervisors, she authored the landmark Local Business Enterprise ordinance on behalf of Women and minority business owners and passed legislation to tackle human trafficking.  Building on her work combating toxic chemicals in San Francisco, Assemblywoman Ma authored groundbreaking legislation (AB 1108) to ban toxic chemicals, known as phthalates, in baby products statewide, which was the first such law in the nation.  Senator Dianne Feinstein incorporated her bill into the US Consumer Product Safety bill which now protects all babies and children across the nation.

 As Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Domestic Violence, she worked on legislation to protect victims of domestic violence and help survivors in prison get another chance at freedom.

 Fiona Ma received her B.S. from the Rochester Institute of Technology (NY), her M.S. in Taxation from Golden Gate University (SF), and an MBA from Pepperdine University.  She has been licensed in California as a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) since 1992.

ECDC member, Joan Kuenz, started a petition and would like the Club to check it out.

 

Conversations about preparing students to be emotionally, socially and physically healthy are missing from the national and local scenes.  There are National Health Education Standards that need to be implemented.

That’s why Joan Kuenz created a petition for President Barack Obama, which says:

 “We are facing major emotional, social and physical problems in our country.  To combat and prevent these problems the antidote is a course of study to promote wellness in our society.”

 Will you sign this petition? Click here:

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/comprehensive-health?source=c.em.mt&r_by=6134104

 For more information, contact Joan-jkuenz@me.com

The Club will consider adopting a resolution to aggressively remove obsolete DOT-111 railroad tankers and to restrict their parking at the February meeting.

 

The resolution is as follows:

 WHEREAS, the citizens of California are concerned that oil refineries transport potentially volatile and explosive products via use of railroad tanker cars that routinely travel within 200 ft. of occupied residential homes; That as a testament to the recent rapid rise in production of both Canadian Tar Sands crude oil and U.S. shale oil and a lack of adequate pipeline availability, railroads have been the frequent method of choice for crude delivery to refineries. According to the Association of American Railroads, there was a forty-fold increase in carloads of crude oil destined to refineries in the last five years.

 WHEREAS, the most common railway tanker car, known as DOT-111 is known to the Department of Transportation, the federal regulatory authority for railroads, as being prone to rupture and explosion during derailments; Railroad tanker cars are typically not owned by the railroad companies themselves, but rather by third party entities, according to the Association of American Railroads, who want DOT-111s removed or structurally upgraded; The DOT-111 tankers were recently involved in the following rail accidents:

• 2009, Cherry Valley, Illinois, 13 tanker cars ruptured and caught fire after a derailment, killing one person and injuring nine.
• 2013, Alberta, Canada there was an explosion after 13 DOT-111 tanker cars carrying liquefied petroleum gas and crude oil derailed.
• 2013 Lac-Megantic, Canada, a train carrying North Dakota crude oil derailed and exploded, claiming 47 lives and destroying much of the downtown.
• 2013 Casselton, North Dakota derailment and fire of a train that was also carrying the same Bakken shale oil involved in the Lac Megantic disaster.

 WHEREAS, tanker cars travel regularly through communities carrying potentially explosive products and these tank cars have also been left parked unattended for periods of days or weeks on rail tracks nearby people’s homes; After a series of fiery train conflagrations involving unusually volatile shale oil from Bakken North Dakota, the US Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a warning that declared Bakken crude oil as being significantly more flammable than typical crude.

 THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, the Democratic Party of California calls on City Councils, Mayors, County Supervisors, State Legislators and elected Federal Representatives to formally request PHMSA, the federal agency responsible for regulating tank-car safety, to prohibit the parking of unattended tanker cars on California railroads, so as to ensure the safety of the State’s citizens.

 THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, the Democratic Party of California calls on City Councils, Mayors, County Supervisors, State Legislators and elected Federal Representatives to ask the US Department of Transportation to aggressively remove obsolete DOT-111 rail tanker cars from service and ensure that the replacements are built to higher standards, as the nations railroads have requested of PHMSA, which is beginning to craft new rules on tank cars.