I managed to attend part of Senator Vasconcellos' hearing today on the status of California's y2k preparations, and thought I'd share some of my notes with everyone. I only heard part of the opening comments, but enjoyed the one from Senator Debra Bowen about how you can't just expect to hire a whole lot of people to begin working on the problem now and expect them to be done on time -- "It's just like you can't put nine women on the job for one month to make a baby. It takes the full nine months."

The representative from Intel, Rich Hall, said that there is no one who knows the extent to which we will suffer failures from y2k, and from his point of view, the three most important problems were:

1. Asia: since California has extensive ties to Asia, we will suffer from their lack of preparation, which he says is at a Tier 4 on a scale of 1 to 4.

2. Electricity: absolutely everyone he has talked to about y2k, when asked what problem causes them to wake up in a cold sweat, says their biggest fear is the grid going down.

3. Panic: he is concerned that public panic, driven by the media, could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

He had three recommendations for the Legislature:

1. He thought they should set aside all partisan and political differences and support the Governor's y2k team.

2. The Legislature should use its oversight authority to assure the y2k readiness of electrical providers.

3. Educate the public about potential inconveniences so they can make calm, informed decisions.

He mentioned that the vast majority of information about y2k compliance is self-reported. He also said that if you're dealing with a supplier who can't guarantee completion of the entire y2k remediation process, including testing, by July 1st, you should be concerned.

He was asked by Assemblywoman Alquist, who is encouraging people in her community to become y2k self-reliant, what industry is doing to help with that effort. He said that with a company like his, they begin by educating their workforce, and that all responsible companies will want to be involved in community preparedness if they can figure out how.

Assemblywoman Ducheny said that his testimony made her want to stock up on candles and batteries.

The next speaker was Elias Cortez, the new director of the Department of Information Technology (DOIT). I'm afraid I didn't get much out of his presentation. He didn't really seem able to communicate effectively with the legislators, but that may just be because he's so new. One thing that did come across was that they need to standardize the way they measure y2k compliance for state agencies. Apparently, the information from state agencies is largely self-reported too, and they're not always all operating on the same wave length. He did say that y2k is the number one priority at DOIT. Senator Vasconcellos told him that he should suggest to Gov. Davis that he go on TV once a month to let people know how the state is progressing on y2k.

Senator Vasconcellos then suggested that Senator Peace and Assemblywoman Ducheny, as the chairs of the budget committees for each house of the Legislature, should lean on the various departments during budget hearings about their y2k compliance. Senator Peace said that the state agencies all knew that they had pretty much a blank check to fix their y2k problems.

The next speaker was Kurt Sjoberg, the Auditor General. I didn't get much from his speech either, because he spent most of his time having to respond to Senator Peace's criticism of his y2k report, which Peace characterized as "superficial and alarmist."

I didn't get to stay for testimony from Gov. Davis' staff director, the new director of the Office of Emergency Services, the citizen and community preparedness groups, or the media. Mitchell, it was nice to meet you there. Did you pick up any interesting information from any of the remaining speakers, and can you fill in anything I might have forgotten to say about the first set of speakers?

I think I saw one TV camera there, but couldn't tell what station it was from, and the cameraman was only there long enough to scan the crowd and the legislators.

If I think of anything else interesting, I'll add it to this thread.

-- Pam G. (Pam95818@aol.com), February 24, 1999

Answers

Great coverage Pam and thank you.

-- Anon (anon@abc.com), February 24, 1999.

Hoo, baby! Thanks Pam!

The representative from Intel, Rich Hall ...

He was asked by Assemblywoman Alquist, who is encouraging people in her community to become y2k self-reliant, what industry is doing to help with that effort. He said that with a company like his, they begin by educating their workforce, and that all responsible companies will want to be involved in community preparedness if they can figure out how.

Key Opportunity ... if they can figure out how.

Hummn.

Diane

See also ...

State of California -- Called Unprepared For Y2K Mess

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000W5X

And ...

LINKS: Know Your State of California & Y2K Information Sources

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000W6i

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 24, 1999.

Hummn, indeed, Diane. Opportunity knocks, but there is no currently-informed GI to answer the door ...

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 25, 1999.

Pam, was a pleasant surprise to meet you (I must have stood out like a sore thumb in that sea of suits), glad you took notes.

There were two TV crews there, both briefly, no station insignia for either crew.

You covered the testimony and questioning quite well. I would add that Intel's Richard Hall when questioned about electricity, in light of the recent NERC report, said that Intel questioned their electrical vendors directly rather than relying upon the NERC reporting. When asked if PG&E had given Intel assurances that they would have electricity, he replied, "no."

PG&E sends all y2k related material to PUC under a stamp of Confidential. The committee is trying to get that changed but so far PG&E is refusing.

Senator Peace's grilling of the State Auditor was enlightening both for what was said and what wasn't said. The bruhaha stemming from disparity between last week's public statement by Gov Davis and the statement by State Auditor Sjoberg the following day. This disparity in large part was an illusion caused by different metrics used by DOIT and State Auditor, and the media storm was for the most part created by the media. Senator Peace brought out that the ISO (?) lines, which I took to be the main long distance electrical transmission lines have been fully upgraded with guaranteed y2k compliant controllers yet this fact wasn't included in the Auditor's report. This omission was the primary cause of the Senator's wrath, once the media spin was exposed, and the fact that Gov Davis had the Auditor's report for a week prior to the press conference was revealed. Sen Peace ended by saying that that omission was not up to Mr Sjoberg's usual level of excellence. What was interesting was that was the only part of the Auditor's report that was called into question, the remaining sections, one must conclude, were considered by Sen Peace as being up to the usual high standards of reporting by the Auditor's Office.

Mr. Dallas Jones, new appointee to the Office of Emergency Services, gave a standard boilerplate presentation outlining his office's areas of responsibility. He was questioned at length about Contingency Planning. At one point he commented that OES has numerous CP's but it will be up to the Budget Committee as to whether they will be funded. (Two Budget Committee members are also members of yesterday's joint IT committee). While OES has done some outreach to counties and cities, it is miniscule. They are beginning process of outreaching to all Police and FireDepartments to collect info on y2k exposure of radios, etc., and to find out the status of emergency backup power. I came away with the idea that everyone in emergency services is woefully unprepared. OES does think that most CHP car radios will work. Questions were asked about public emergency shelters, no groundwork has yet been laid. The Nuke Labs and Reactor Facilities are relying upon NRC and DoD, not encouraging, and the committee did make noise to get lines of communication about status into the CalState reporting system. Minimal work has been done to outreach to the Petro and Chemical Industries regarding possible hazardous conditions or toxic materials release.

Embedded Systems are a problem hardly touched upon by assessors or remediators according to the DOIT Quarterly Report. This was brought up in Committee first by bringing up the Calif Prison system, and secondly Emergency Reponse helicopters. Further info will be brought to Committee at the next convening.

Mr. Bob Burnett, co-founder of Cisco Systems, gave a very lucid presentation on the ways that large scale IT systems are y2k exposed, both directly and via supplies and partners. He too brought up Asia, and included Latin America. He suggested that the Budget Committee reasses Calif's 5 year income projections, and that Calif needs realistic Contingency Planning in regards to Asian and Latin American imports and exports. Mr. Burnett touched upon the potential for toxics and that regional guidance needs to be emplaced at the State Level. ie. Richmond and Martinez refineries are in other counties than Berkeley, but toxic plumes could easily reach Berkeley. Right now there is no real State authority whose mandate is that sort of situation.

Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute hammered upon Community. Of all those who gave testimony only he touched upon the fact that the poor and disenfranchasied are not able to follow the Red Cross's minimal recommendation for preparation. Not only business and govt are potentially threatened, but individuals too. Portland's excellent program of individual preparedness was brought to the Committee's attention.

Overall impressions from the afternoon. The hearing was well attended by state workers or good haircuts in suits, I only saw three of us who I would call general public. Almost uniformly the long term Committee members left handedly rued that former Gov Wilson had not taken interest in the State's y2k problems. Uniformly they praised Gov Davis' ExecOrder D-3, in which Davis puts the power of the Govenor behind the State's y2k effort.

State of the state impressions.

Sen Peace's grilling of the Auditor brought forth interesting info. The main transmission lines are OK, generating facilities will probably be OK, the problem is the grid that feeds from the main line's regional substations all the way down to everyones house or business. After listening all afternoon I remain as concerned about having juice as I have been based upon internet info. Regarding electrical outages, the comments that 72 hours continual outage is about as much as can be Contingency Planned for went unquestioned.

Given the very few remaining days till y2k, given the status reports of systems and embedded systems in either the DOIT Quarterly or the Audit, given the questions and testimony highlighting the great number of areas in which there is either no info or the info is questionable, given that some of the non-critical systems are actually quite major systems, given the lack of priority by the previous administration, given what was both said and unsaid in testimony and questioning - I have grave doubts that Calif govt, State, County, and City, will be able to weather y2k without severe impact in services. I have doubts that Emergency Services and Response mechanisms will be able to function at the level the probabilites of govt and social disruption will warrant.

Telecommunications were not explored, unfortunately. But then again time ran out anyway. I have not mentioned Mr. Vince Hall's testimony specifically, he did speak both in prepared testimony and in some of the roundtable question/answer sessions involving the state people. From what I can remember what he was saying has been covered either by Pam's excellent report of what I have written about the session here.

I ask that Pam or Diane please keep us informed on future committe hearings such as the one yesterday, and that more of us who live within driving distance of Sac attend these meetings. I found yesterday's to be very informative and downright interesting.

I apologize for having to do this from memory, with the consequent problems of that medium, rather than taking notes, but if I take notes I've long known I tend to get involved with the note taking rather than following the actual discussion. Once again I apologize for my shortcoming in that area, and I may have wrongly attributed points, but overall I think I have fairly caught the highlights and flavor of the hearing.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 25, 1999.

Ouch!!!!!!

Thanks, I think, Mitchell. (Great job of memory note taking).

... I would add that Intel's Richard Hall when questioned about electricity, in light of the recent NERC report, said that Intel questioned their electrical vendors directly rather than relying upon the NERC reporting. When asked if PG&E had given Intel assurances that they would have electricity, he replied, "no."

Later, ... The main transmission lines are OK, generating facilities will probably be OK, the problem is the grid that feeds from the main line's regional substations all the way down to everyones house or business.

In my opinion, PG&E = Profit, Greed & Excuses.

You said ... I came away with the idea that everyone in emergency services is woefully unprepared. Can we weep yet?

Met Bob Burnett at the Oakland Y2K Around The Bay gathering (so did Vasconcellos) ... hes great and throughly on top of Y2K and its ramifications for city concerns, especially the City of Berkeley.

Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute was in Oakland too. Wonderful person and community organizer around the Bay. (Gott'a e- mail him about this thread).

Diane

(Okay, Ill make my Oakland notes a priority for this weekend. Pam & Mitchell you guys are great!)

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 25, 1999.

Mitchell, I'm glad you mentioned Gov. Davis' executive order on y2k. I meant to look it up on the Internet after hearing everyone talk about it yesterday, but I forgot until I read your report. Anyhow, I found it and here is the website address in case anyone else would like to read it:

http://www.ca.gov/s/governor/execorder.html

-- Pam G. (Pam95818@aol.com), February 25, 1999.

Of significance, to add to the rest of my report was Sen Bowen's sharp questioning of Elias Cortez, DOIT, about his comment on making sure that the various state depts have or work out a business continuity plan. Ms. Bowen agressively questioned Mr. Cortez about DOIT's role in assuring dept business continuity planning and unfortunately his answers weren't as lucid as her questions.

As it stands, apparently DOIT is the only overseeing agency re business continuity planning. It was mentioned that there will be a March meeting regarding all contingency business plans with a mid summer deadline on the final plans. It was made to sound as though the people who are producing these plans have a long row to hoe. It was unclear yesterday if DOIT will remain the watchdog on these CP's, there was dissatisfaction expressed by Committee Members over the current setup.

btw, DOIT's Quarterly Report has a listing of all the non-critical systems listed by Dept. Some of these non-critical appear to me to be quite borderline. DMV, Sec of State, Social Services, DOT, DWR, Justice, Housing Finance Agency, CHP, Corrections, Controller's Office, etc. are going to affect us all, some of these systems are going to affect the poor extensively. It is imperative that business continuity plans be emplaced not only for mission critical systems, but that non-crititcal systems need to be prioritized in terms of their human impact and these contingency plans address that prioritization.

I want to commend the various Senators and Assemblymembers on yesterday's hearing, most were very prepared as shown by the depth of the questions, and the women especially exhibited a degree of human compassion that was refreshing to observe in a hall of government. There are some very sharp tacks sitting in those seats. Hopefully, Gov. Davis' EO D-3 will provide the leadership necessary to drive and guide the State of Calif away from the brink represented by y2k.

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), February 25, 1999.

As I noted in the first thread California State Senate Hearings Today , I was never able to access this hearing via the Web. Could one of you who's nearer to Sac inquire as to the reason for this? The meeting of the Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee and its discussion of the Horse Racing Board was televised (!), but this committee's work, which has implications for every California citizen, was not made available via audio on the Net.

I e-mailed Sen. Vasconcellos on this and got a frankly rather overdone mailbot reply.

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 25, 1999.

Mac, I couldn't get it either. I e-mailed the webmaster but no response yet.

I'll try phoning "Jose" in Vasconcellos's Silicon Valley office tomorrow.

Diane

See also ...

Angry California legislators blister new state IT head

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 000XfZ

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), February 25, 1999.