Last week, California State Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur visited Park La Brea for an informal chat with residents and members of the Park La Brea Residents Association.
Zbur, the freshman representative from the 51st Assembly District (a long, narrow strip stretching from Santa Monica northeast to Griffith Park, including the western 2/3 or so of our general Greater Wilshire area), was just elected to the office in November, so last week’s talk gave him and his field representative Sherwin Shamoeil a first chance to check in with a few local constituents after just a few months on the job.
During the intimate 90-minute session, Zbur talked briefly about his work at the state capitol, including his committee assignments, the process by which bills are presented to him for sponsorship, and how he won’t sponsor a bill unless he believes in it. “I won’t take anything just to score political points,” he said. Zbur also talked about the day-to-day process of reviewing proposed legislation, and his own major interests, including housing and homelessness, and clean energy and environmental sustainability.
Due to the small size and low-key nature of the gathering, attendees also got to ask Zbur, an environmental lawyer and 20-year board member of the California League of Conservation Voters, a lot of questions. The wide-ranging discussion covered traffic safety (very top-of-mind after the recent fatal crash at Park La Brea), landlord/tenant issues and other housing-related topics, the state budget, and a variety of potential energy and environment legislation, including development of offshore wind power (a big challenge is finding ports where the enormous wind turbines can be assembled), building electrification, and encouraging development and installation of batteries to store solar power in homes.
