Restoring California’s Promise, State of the State Conference 2010

Today I attended a thought provoking forum about the current health and future of California.  It was both hopeful and discouraging.  There are so many challenges facing the State.  The convening was produced by the Milken Institute California Center and brought together leaders of business, economists, political analysts and other prominent Californians.  Topics ranged from housing, small businesses, innovation, public pensions to the upcoming elections.  During one of the breaks, I was speaking with a gentleman from Vienna, Austria who told me how amazed he is at the problems facing California considering its contributions to the world’s technology, agriculture and entertainment and being one of the world’s largest economies.  He said how much he always admired our State.  To me, his comments rang true yet made me frustrated as how we could have allowed our State to get into the mess that we currently face.  Not all of the challenges are a result of factors internal to the State, but those that are, and those that we can control within the United States, should not have been allowed to get to this point.  One general theme of the day is that we have got to get everyone working together to solve California’s problems and end the divisive environment that we face in our nation and which is so prevalent here in the State.  Elections have become a contest of extremes.  How can we get to a pragmatic approach to governing?  Many ideas were shared and a website has been created to obtain suggestions on how we all can make California again be the Golden State.  www.CaliforniasPromise.org