As we welcome the warm sunshine after a winter of heavy rains — and, for those in the higher elevations, snow — our organization is also looking forward to brighter days ahead. Having sailed through the storm and reached calmer waters, we are ready to work with renewed emphasis on what we do best: helping our members succeed and thrive.

That doesn’t mean a simple return to business as usual, however. Our office has been busy putting policies and procedures into place to ensure that our operations are equipped with updated practices to fit the current times we’re in. We’re establishing safeguards, ensuring there are checks and balances, and creating more layers of review and documentation so that the future leaders of CCSO won’t have to face some of the scrutiny and negativity that have clouded our organization for the past year. We are in a much better spot financially than ever before, and just need to make these adjustments to be certain that the organization can grow in today’s conditions and be ready for tomorrow’s unknowns.

We are correcting what needs to be corrected, but keeping our overall focus simple, straightforward and member-centered. Rest assured that, as always, your dues money will be utilized for the purpose it was intended for, and we will continue to provide top-notch attorneys and other services for our members. We are taking a back-to-basics approach while we consult our chapter presidents to get a feel for what they really want from the organization moving forward. If they share these goals, we hope to be able to keep expanding our training offerings and provide an enhanced, high-caliber annual conference that isn’t just all talk with no substance, but truly represents our organization as a whole.

We are getting closer to the end of the “walk time” case and are looking forward to the possible settlement payments being released by the end of the year. We are anticipating the legal fees that were provided by CCSO to be returned to our budget for all the years we’ve supported this case. We are also looking forward to challenging CDCR to provide our members with a health-care package that is comparable to other union affiliates. It’s unfair that supervisors are unable to receive benefits equal to those provided to other groups.

I recently joined other members of CCSO leadership in attending the annual Law Enforcement Legislative Summit in Sacramento, a very informative event where we were able to take the pulse of what’s happening with other public safety agencies, the challenges they’re facing and the bills being introduced at the State Capitol that impact our profession as a whole. All the local law enforcement agencies are connected in some way to CDCR, so it’s critical that we work hand in hand to address these issues that ultimately affect us all. In addition to keeping us up to date on the hot topics and being a great networking event, the summit also gave us an opportunity to touch base with our legislators to let them know the direction we’re moving in and how we can assist them in their efforts to make our communities safer.

In closing, I wish all of you a safe and happy springtime. We at CCSO look forward to continuing to make great strides together as an organization while providing the highest level of representation possible for our members.