Sen. Joe Simitian Chats With Cupertino Chamber of Commerce Members

Sen. Joe Simitian, who as a youngster hustled lemonade for a profit on the streets of Cupertino, sat down Friday at an informal lunch with members of the and talked about California's tough economic woes that probably can't be fixed using his entrepreneurial lemonade stand practices.

"My entrepreneurial spirit was probably first realized with a lemonade stand that I had across the street where the construction workers were building new homes. I quickly discovered that if they had nowhere else to go to buy a cold and refreshing beverage, I could push my prices up, up, up," Simitian said. "It was then that I learned about supply and demand."

That was about 50 years ago, when Simitian and his family lived on Blaney Avenue, just a few blocks away from the Burger Pit, he said.

Simitian's opening remarks at the Cypress Hotel in Cupertino where he was joined by members of the Cupertino Chamber of Commerce included anticipating the release of Gov. Jerry Brown's additional budget cuts and what it may mean to California's schools.

"The easy way to describe it is if we're short another $12 billion, then 40 percent of 12 billion is $4.8 billion, and that's probably what you would see disappear under the current scenario if we have an all-cuts budget," he said. "And if 4.8 billion is a little hard to wrap your arms around, it works out to about 800 bucks per kid."

Simitian (D-Palo Alto) represents District 11, which includes cities such as Cupertino, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Campbell, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, Capitola, parts of San Jose and more up the Peninsula, is possibly best known for his annual "There Oughta Be a Law" contest, which invites constituents to submit ideas for legislation. Since the program's 2001 inception, 16 entries have been signed into law, he said.

After his opening remarks, Simitian turned to the attendees for a question-and-answer session, (some of which can be viewed in the accompanying video) covering topics of education, the chamber's advocacy role and partisan politics.

"I think a lot of the debate in the Capitol becomes either partisan or ideological, when really what most of the folks I represent want is to see the place work and for us to solve problems," Simitian said. "Those kinds of issues which need not be polarizing are the ones that I would encourage the people to bring to the state." 

He used as an example of how legislators can help to make things work better in the state a time when an Apple representative went to him to discuss state bonds and warrants.

"Apple came to me and said, 'Hey, we don't want to have a great weighty ideological debate; there's just a simple problem that is making it hard for California businesses to invest in California bonds,'" Simitian said.

Helping companies such as Apple buy California bonds "is a good thing for California businesses, because it gives them more opportunities to invest their unused cash at the moment, and it's a good thing for California, because it gives us more people who want to buy the bonds. Those kinds of technical fixes are things I wish we solved more of, frankly. Fundamentally, the job (of a legislator) is to make things work."

On the state's budget woes, Simitian had this to say: "I think it's pretty simple. You've got to spend less, raise more; do it now. Just like in your businesses or in your homes or in your personal lives, the longer you let a problem go unattended, the worse it gets, and the harder it is to solve. We have, I think, taken some good first steps to do most of the cutting the governor proposed earlier this year."