COLUSA, CA (MPG) – It’s been more than a decade since Rep. Doug LaMalfa held a Town Hall gathering in Colusa County.
Redistricting after the 2020 Census brought LaMalfa back to southwestern side of the Sacramento River, an area he represented previously in the California Assembly and Senate.
But while constituents who attended the Aug. 30 meeting at the Veterans Hall in Colusa were glad to listen and speak to the familiar Republican Congressman, most left with the same sense of desperation and hopelessness they felt when they arrived.
Fuel prices, homelessness, crime, education failure, government spending, the border crisis, the high cost of goods and services, lagging wages, the vulnerability of relying on goods manufactured in China, the slow pace to build water storage, climate overreach, and the war on parental rights, agriculture, diesel-powered vehicles, and energy, were top of mind.
“What we’ve suffered here economically is that our energy costs have skyrocketed because of the terrible policies coming out of Sacramento and Washington D.C., especially in the last couple of years,” LaMalfa said, as he fielded questions on the economy from the audience. “We stopped the ability to explore for oil and gas, and shutdown the pipeline process, and you’re going to feel the effects…It ripples through. The price of gas and energy ripples through everything else.”
Edward Kawasaki, representing Veterans of Foreign Wars Post No. 5731, came from Gridley to plead with LaMalfa for federal assistance with a construction project that has nearly doubled in cost in just two years.
“Since COVID, everything has gone up in price,” said Kawasaki, referring to the increase in the cost to repair the 97-year-old for Gridley Veterans Hall from the allocated $700,000 in 2020 to $1.2 million now. “So, I’m here to ask you to maybe consider finding some money so the (Butte County) Supervisors can finish this project.”
LaMalfa said it was a “fair ask” for an all-to-familiar problem, as people and jurisdictions everywhere are suffering the effects of high inflation on construction project.
Although LaMalfa said lavish and loose congressional “earmarks” are largely a thing of the past, he said there was still a limited amount of “member-directed funding” that can go to projects that are of high value and importance to communities.
“We ask folks in the district to submit what they would like the committee to look at,” said LaMalfa, who previously directed funding for repairs to the Corning Veteran Hall.
Union representatives for the National Federation of Federal Employees also attended the town hall to ask LaMalfa to support the identical Democratic-led firefighter classification and parity bills, introduced by Rep. Joe Neguse and Sen. Michael Bennet, both of Colorado.
The bills would permanently establish new special pay rates for federal wildland firefighters and would establish incident standby premium pay to compensate firefighters for all hours they are mobilized to respond to wildland fire incidents.
“We have families; we have bills to pay,” said Steve Gutierrez, who represents federal wildfires across the U.S. “We’re watching our friends die of cancer; we are watching our friends die from burn overs and suicide. The pay is one third of our counterparts right now.”
Gutierrez said wildland firefighters love the work they do but are prepared to walk off the job if Congress can’t come together before the bonus program expires on Oct. 1.
Gutierrez, NFFE Local 1836 Representative Justine Brown, and National NFFE Representative Maximo “Max” Alonzo asked LaMalfa to drop his own legislation and pass Neguse’s bill to provide salary stability for federal firefighters.
“There are 30 days to get this done or we are going to lose half our firefighters,” Gutierrez said.
LaMalfa said he would look at Neguse’s bill again, and was open to working with him, but he would not support a bill that would “lead down a path to a dead end.”
LaMalfa, in July, introduced H.R. 4831, the Fair Pay for Federal Firefighters Act, which will establish a new base pay rate scale to bring federal wages in line with state and private firefighters, and increase bonuses when firefighters are deployed.
Although the unions asked him to drop his bill and support the other, LaMalfa said Neguse’s bill would not pass in the House if it remained problematic for the Republican majority.
LaMalfa’s town hall was well attended by local elected officials and the public – and lasted just over two hours.
People asked LaMalfa for Congress to find solutions to illegal immigration, which is taking a toll on American resources, but said it is not something the present White House wants fixed.
“We had smart people decades and centuries ago that set up the proper laws on how to do it,” LaMalfa said. “They could be refined over time as technology changes and things change a bit, but they are just not being enforced. They are looking the other way.”
LaMalfa said nothing is going to change unless the attitude in the White House changes.
“If they don’t, then you need to change who is in the White House,” LaMalfa said.
While LaMalfa was asked how “California can save itself from California,” LaMalfa could only encourage people to continue speaking to legislators and hold their feet to the fire if they support extreme policies.
“Quit voting for politicians that are doing this stuff to us,” he said. “We are voting for people who don’t have a clue or voting for people who have an agenda because they do have a clue. And I think there is a lot of danger in that.”