The end of year report provides an overview of the services provided by RPPG to CARPD during the 2023 legislative year, as well as insights and potential next steps in preparation for the 2024 legislative year. Additionally, this report provides a recap on efforts currently underway for the 2024 legislative session.

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On behalf of the Renne Public Law Group, LLP [DBA Renne Public Policy Group (RPPG)], I want to thank you, your team, and the California Association of Recreation and Park Districts (CARPD) for engaging our firm for state legislative advocacy services. 

Our work with the Association began on December 1, 2022. Since that time, RPPG has worked diligently with CARPD executive leadership, board members, the legislative committee, and individual member districts to take an aggressive approach to raise the Association’s profile in Sacramento. We did this first by building relationships within the broader local government stakeholder coalitions through positioning as a statewide leader on Brown Act modernization, then with members of the legislature, policy committee staff, key leaders at state agencies, and within the Administration. 2023 proved to be an extremely productive inaugural year in RPPG’s representation for the Association, as we continued to build upon CARPD’s presence in the Capitol and educate decision makers on the Association’s top priorities.

RPPG established the Association’s first ever legislative platform in coordination with Association leadership and introduced CARPD’s first ever sponsored bill. We executed CARPD’s legislative priorities in Sacramento through the following mechanisms: forming essential working relationships with key stakeholder groups; elevating its Capitol profile through relationship building with legislators, staff, and the Administration; drafting sponsored legislation, fact sheets, background materials, sample letters and talking points, and helping to draft lead witness testimony; and providing memos, information on legislative and administrative actions, and detailed policy and political analysis on significant items of interest to CARPD. This resulted in over 540 individual “touchpoints” between RPPG and the Association, actively working with 25 stakeholder groups to advance CARPD priorities and organizing 5 visits to Sacramento for CARPD staff and/or executive leadership.

In 2023, RPPG monitored and/or engaged on over 250 pieces of state legislation, with 70 identified as priority measures of interest. In total, CARPD officially positioned on 24 pieces of state legislation, with 22 active positions. On behalf of the Association, RPPG engaged on state legislative measures in the areas of climate, emergency response and disaster preparedness, parks and recreation, homelessness,  constitutional amendments, public contracting, governmental operations, and employment issues with specific applicability to CARPD members.

Thank you once again for the opportunity to serve the California Association of Recreation and Park Districts, it’s truly a pleasure. We are grateful for the positive working relationship that has developed between our teams and greatly look forward to continuing this relationship into the 2024 legislative session. We believe there is still much more work to be done and are eager to build on the successes we have achieved together!

Sincerely,

 Alyssa Silhi

Director of Government Affairs

Renne Public Policy Group