CASE BOARD OF DIRECTORS UPDATE
Member Survey Deadline Extended! As the CASE Board gets ready for another year of action and advocacy on behalf of CASE Members, we need your help. Take 5 minutes to complete our 2024 CASE Member Survey. Your answers will help us better know the membership that we serve and inform our decision making in the coming year. Also very important: the survey will collect beneficiary information for your free CASE Life Insurance Policy. The survey closes Monday, February 5, and three respondents will be selected at random for a $100 gift card.
Serve CASE and Your Colleagues-Become a CASE Local Rep. CASE’s team of all-volunteer local representatives help ensure that CASE members stay informed on union news and help CASE staff identify and solve problems at departments across the state. If you’re interested in recruiting new members, growing CASE’s collective strength, and serving as a resource for your coworkers, then serving as a CASE Local Rep might be for you! Here’s our winter recruitment schedule:
- Applications open February 1 and close March 1.
- Staff Review of Applications – March 1-March 15
- Membership Committee Interviews – March 15-April 30
- Board Approval of Candidates – May 17
- New Local Rep Training – June (Date TBA)
MAKING THE #Case4CASE
We Need Your Story. Last week, we encouraged you to share your story using our online form to help us build awareness of your good work as we move closer to 2025. This week, we’d like to introduce you to one of your colleagues who has graciously agreed to share his story – an example of the sort of profiles we hope to compose about members from across Unit 2 classifications. Here’s a new member profile that makes the #Case4CASE:
Jim Blevins Keeps the State of California Accountable
He’s not an auditor or an investigative journalist. He’s not an agent of a good-government nonprofit. He doesn’t scrutinize whether taxpayers get their money’s worth. He’s not a public-policy analyst.
But without state attorneys like Jim Blevins, government outsiders would not know how the state functions – and sometimes fails. That’s because he and his staff handle record requests filed with California’s Department of Water Resources.
Say you’re an Associated Press reporter, and you want documents about the Oroville Dam. Jim’s got you. Or you’re a Sierra Club advocate looking into Gov. Gavin Newsom’s controversial Delta Conveyance Project. That’s Jim. Maybe you’re studying state water use and reporting laws. Jim again.
When the Legislature enacted the California Public Records Act (CPRA) in 1968, lawmakers declared that “access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.”
However, there’s a legal yin and yang to determining what can be released, Jim says, which is governed by the CPRA – one of the most aggressive laws in the country regarding government transparency.
“What has kept me up at night the most,” Jim said, “is the thought of allowing my department to publicly release a document that could jeopardize public safety by revealing vulnerabilities of the State’s water infrastructure system.”
What about records that might draw criticism of DWR’s policies or decisions?
That’s an easy question to answer, Jim said: “We can’t withhold records just because they’re embarrassing to the department.”
NOTE: Jim will conclude a distinguished 27-year career in state service at the end of February. CASE wishes him well as he enters the next prosperous phase of his life in retirement.
Want to be profiled in CASE Files? Complete our form. CASE staff will contact you for a telephone interview. Participation requires you to provide a photo along with your name, job classification, and your employing department. Email questions to CASE Media Consultant Jon Ortiz at jon.ortiz@calattorneys.org. Watch for more member highlights in upcoming issues of CASE Files, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
News of interest to Unit 2 legal professionals:
- Can California state employee unions protect civil servants from crackdowns on telework? – The Sacramento Bee
- CPUC approves $45M penalty for PG&E over 2021 Dixie Fire – CBS News
- State wins a round in fight with Huntington Beach to build more housing – Los Angeles Times
- California Assault Weapon Ban Case May Wait on Bullet Ruling – Bloomberg Law
REMINDERS
CASE Board Meeting-February 9. The CASE Board meets next on Friday, February 9. To attend via zoom, please complete the online registration form (pw: membersmatter22) no later than 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 8. A Zoom link will be sent to all registered members on Friday morning by 9 a.m.