Senator Nancy Skinner to talk challenges of civic service

With the November election looming and her term ending, state Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, will appear at a public forum Monday for a conversation about her 14 years in the California Assembly and Senate.

The conversation, titled “A Candid Conversation,” will be held at the Berkeley Hillside Club at 2286 Cedar St. at 7:30 p.m. and will be led by realtor and club member Arlene Baxter to address the challenges of legislating and the importance of being civically engaged. The conversation is part of a longstanding series of “fireside chats” at the club about current affairs and local issues.

Guests will get an overview of Skinner’s long career, which started in 1984 as the first student elected to the Berkeley City Council. She is a past member of the East Bay Regional Park District board, a former small business owner, and an active advocate to increase the number of women in elected office. She served on the board of the East Bay Women’s Political Caucus and launched the Women in Power political action committee to support Democratic women running for state office.

Baxter plans to ask about local and state issues spearheaded by Skinner, whose district includes the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, El Cerrito, Emeryville, El Sobrante, Hercules, Kensington, Oakland, Piedmont, Pinole, Richmond, Rodeo, San Leandro, and San Pablo.

Following the path of bills she authored from creation to implementation, including both the positive and unintended consequences of those bills, should help demystify the process of creating new legislation, Baxter said.

For example, Senate Bill 330, which prohibits local jurisdictions from creating new laws that delay or restrict new housing through regulatory barriers, also known as the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, as well as more recent bills addressing housing density, have been hot topics locally.

Another closely watched topic: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent signing of Senate Bill 1211, which removes previous restrictions on accessory dwelling units to ease the ongoing housing crisis.

Baxter also plans to ask Skinner about several environmental measures she worked on. Early in her career, Skinner introduced the nation’s first Styrofoam ban and co-founded an international association, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, which now includes 2,500 local and regional governments in over 125 countries.

Skinner’s work at ICLEI led to the initiation of the Cities for Climate Protection program, which engaged hundreds of cities worldwide to take action to stop climate change, according to her website.

This event is free and open to the public with registration. More information can be found at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fireside-meeting-october-2024-registration-971466581697.