Schipske Elected Secretary of the California Medical Board

Today at its quarterly meeting in Sacramento, I was elected by the other members of the California Medical Board to serve as Secretary of the Board, and as a member of the executive committee.

The California Medical Board is the state regulatory agency charged with the licensing and disciplining of physicians.

Members are appointed by the Governor, the Senate Rules Committee and the Speaker of the Assembly.

I have served since 2007 and am so honored that my colleagues unanimously supported my election.

Additionally, I have been appointed as Chair of the Access to Care Committee and the Application Review Committee. I serve on a hearing panel, the Enforcement Committee, the Education Committee and the Advisory Committee on Physician Responsibility in Supervision of Affiliated Health Care Professionals.

I am the first and only registered nurse practitioner to serve on a state medical board.

Long Beach Chopped Up by Redistricting Commission

If you click on the link and type in your address you can find out which new congressional, assembly and state senate district you now reside.

Long Beach was chopped up because the commission claimed that they had heard "Long Beach was a tale of two cities" and did not have communities of interest that needed to be kept together. Thus we now have a State Senate district drawn into Orange County (Santa Ana) and a Congressional District drawn into Garden Grove.

It is likely that several groups will bring litigation about the lines -- particularly the residents of Little Saigon who were drawn into a largely Long Beach congressional district.

The California Supreme Court will likely redraw several of the districts and then the fun begins as candidates scramble.

We need an answer: why are we still putting fire stations on brown out when we have seen a huge increase in oil revenue?

I have just asked Councilman Robert Garcia to call a meeting of the City Council committee on Public Safety as soon as possible so that we can discuss and review the continued "brown out" of fire stations while the city has realized a continued increase in oil revenue due to the continued high price of oil.

Additionally, I will be scheduling a "Community Conversation" in the 5th District to discuss the staffing of fire trucks and stations and the standards set nationally.

Unfortunately, again another proposed budget cut is being leaked out to the news media before the City Council has even seen the budget.

Knowing these cuts to public safety continue and may increase, I think it is urgent to have a community conversation on these issues.