Yes, I was at the meeting, Judy. I didn’t bring up the “strategic water reserve” that the Governor previously championed because she has apparently dropped this idea in favor of a $75 mil program to achieve another water objective. I don’t think we know enough now to decide whether to oppose or support, but we do need to monitor.

I did speak up about the importance of funding to implement water legislation that we supported in the past 5 years. This is the NM Water Advocates plan. I have been in touch with Norm Gaume about the specific bills that might be offered, and which legislators will sponsor them. I was glad to see that several other Action Committee members are in favor of Environment as a priority category.

Let’s stay in touch about which bills are likely to be pre-filed.

Jeanne

From: Action <action-bounces@mailman.swcp.com> On Behalf Of Judy Williams via Action
Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2024 10:05 AM
To: LWVNM Action <action@mailman.swcp.com>
Cc: Judy Williams <jkwilliams24@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [LWVNM Action] Summary of last night's meeting

  [EXTERNAL]

Thanks for the notes.  I'm wondering, was Jeanne Logsdon there?  I was hoping she would mention the "Strategic Water Reserve."  I really wanted us to oppose the $75 million and whatever other related bills arise.

Was there any discussion?

Hannah and I will meet with Katharine Clark and the GIS people next Wednesday, and will discuss her GIS bill.  If it's good we will probably want to support it.   Judy

On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 10:11 AM Akkana Peck via Action <action@mailman.swcp.com> wrote:

Thanks for a good meeting last night. Here's a summary, for those who couldn't make it:

Regular Action meetings during the session will be on Wednesdays at 6pm.

We have a long list of possible priorities; we have to pick three as our top priorities to be approved by the LWVNM board. That doesn't mean we won't continue to advocate for our secondary priorities!

Some priority areas, with a few bills we think might be discussed in this session:

Voting, Elections and Good Government
    Redistricting – for now
    Salary Commission – paid legislature
Environment
    gas & oil royalty rates – also supports education
    Water issues – funding to implement past bills, aquifer mapping, surface water permitting, non-hunted wildlife
Health Care
    Medicaid Forward
    Healthcare workforce
    Oversight of insurance & provider consolidation
Added at the meeting:
  Immigration: stop sharing of data with ICE. Look at SB135 (2024).
  Education: keep immigration raids out of schools
  Housing

If you have other areas you think should be considered, please post it to this list, and describe types of bills you expect to see that our positions cover. Remember, we can't advocate for anything that isn't covered by our positions:
https://www.lwvnm.org/positions.html

Our next Action meeting will be Wed, Dec 18 at 6pm, to finalize the priority list.

Thanks, everybody!

        ...Akkana
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