CCL Team Leads meeting update

[Josh Gutwill]

Dear Chapter Team Leads,

This note summarizes the key decisions and discussion points from our meeting earlier this week, for clarity and shared understanding.

2026 Budget

• We reviewed the draft 2026 budget proposal and discussed two specific additions: funding for travelships and funding for T-shirts. Ted will incorporate proposed dollar amounts for travelships ($3600) and T-shirts ($500) into the budget draft.

• We agreed to put the following proposal out to Team Leads regarding the Lee Balance Travelships:

  • We'd like to change the application requirement from "Please only apply if the award will make the difference between your attending or not attending" to "Please let us know if the award will make the difference between your attending or not attending."

  • The chapter will match donations made to the travelship fund. Our fundraising goal is $1,000 in donations. Combined with the approximately $1,600 already in the fund, this would provide up to $3,600 for travelships this year.

  • If you have any concerns about this change to the Lee Balance Travelship requirement, please contact me and/or Ted by the next Chapter meeting (2/23).

Policy Neutrality – New Process

• We discussed the proposed process for handling policy neutrality.

• The policy was provisionally approved for use in the FOFA case, with the understanding that we will monitor how it works in practice.

• A key clarification we made was that different outcomes or approaches for different districts are acceptable (exemplified with FOFA below).

Fix Our Forests Act (FOFA)

• Based on Shekhar’s recommendation, the chapter considered taking a position of neutrality on FOFA.

• We decided not to lobby on FOFA in CA-12, but we would thank Rep. Garamendi (CA-8) for his support of the bill. (No need to lobby him on it, since he already supports it.)

• For tabling on FOFA, we'll collect letters from community members from CA-08, but not from those in CA-12.

• At the next chapter meeting, we'll summarize this discussion and articulate the chapter’s stance on FOFA. Since Shekhar will be unavailable, someone will need to lead this portion of the February meeting. We won't ask the full chapter to revisit or vote on the decision.

Please let me and Ted know if I missed anything, and if you'd be willing to describe the FOFA issue to the Chapter at the next meeting.

Best regards,

Josh