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Current Events - 02/21/2000

Allen Friedmann — Allen’s widow, Julie Friedmann, has asked me to express her surprise and great pleasure at receiving some cards from those in the banking industry out here who had met Allen, if only briefly, while he was our director of meetings, marketing, and membership. She has asked that donations in Allen’s memory be made to the Jewish Children’s Bureau, 1 South Franklin Street, Third Floor, Chicago, Illinois 60606, attention Tessie. A trust fund for Allen’s two children has not yet been established. Those wishing to send a card of sympathy directly to Julie can do so to the following address: Julie Friedmann, 208 Mary Court, Round Lake Beach, IL 60073. We on staff continue to miss Allen every day.

Sacramento Legislative Day — From my perspective, while CBA’s Legislative Day events are always successful, this one was special. Greg Wilhelm, Jamie Clark, Maurine Padden, Mary Maybie, Cynthia Threatt, and Yvette Ernst in our Sacramento office did a superb job of putting this year’s event together. On Tuesday, February 8 we had a full day of substantive committee meetings. These included an assessment of the legislative outlook for this session and comments on actual proposed legislation during our State Government Relations Committee meeting, concrete planning for increasing the visibility of our two candidate PACs and action plans for fund raising activities to generate contributions to our depleted PAC coffers during our PAC Administrative Committee meeting, and a complete reworking of our grassroots efforts through our thirteen Regions Committees. And no, grassroots does not refer to something you have growing in your front yard. Give Mike Jones’ Regions gatherings your attention. They are designed to get local bankers together to do everything from networking, to learning about an important banking related issue, to meeting with legislators in your district. There is no better way to become involved with CBA and its efforts on your behalf. Tuesday ended with a reception for bankers and legislators in the lobby of the old Senator Hotel where our offices are located. It may have been the best attended reception we have had in some time and many bankers finished the evening by taking their state Senator or Assemblyperson to dinner. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these one on one contacts or the personal relationships bankers have developed with individual legislators. Just ask our three lobbyists!

The real meat of our Legislative Day happened on Wednesday. State Treasurer Phil Angelides delivered our keynote address, discussing his desire to make sure that the economic prosperity California enjoys is shared by all segments of society. He presented some sobering statistics on projected traffic woes for the future and stressed the need to make sure we have properly invested in California’s infrastructure during these good times. State Controller Kathleen Connell spoke to the group at lunch. As a former banker herself, she truly understood our issues and could speak to us as a peer in outlining the job responsibilities of the Controller’s office. She touched on many of the same issues as Treasurer Angelides, but with her own perspective. We also acknowledged her instrumental role in working with us on escheat issues. That work will continue this year. But perhaps the most interesting and valuable meeting was the panel discussion on privacy with the chairman and vice-chairman of the Assembly Banking Committee (Assemblymen Papan and Cox) and their counterparts on the Senate Finance Committee (Senators Leslie and Murray). The message from the legislators was that privacy is a bi-partisan issue and the public wants some assurance that they can control what happens to their financial information. Asking the legislature to take a wait and see posture so that the federal law and regulations can take effect will not convince everyone to refrain from introducing legislation this year. But, by the same token, these legislatures heard from the bankers in the room and understood the need to share information to take care of normal operations within the various structures that banks have established to deliver financial services. From our discussions we learned that legislators are less concerned with the potential advantages of information sharing and are more concerned that their constituents have control over the sharing of their financial information. The legislators learned that a common sense approach to this issue is essential if we are to achieve a result that is liveable. They also have a greater appreciation of the banks’ continuing desire to safeguard their customers’ reasonable expectations of privacy as we have done traditionally.

LA Will Watch and Wait — I journeyed south to Los Angeles on Wednesday to testify before the LA city council’s technology committee about the status of our ATM lawsuit against San Francisco and Santa Monica. I also heard the city attorney’s office report on the legality of imposing an ATM access fee ban. This was the first city attorney in my experience to acknowledge to his council that there is a real legal issue with ATM fee bans. As a result of the hearing, the technology committee agreed to continue the matter and await guidance from the Ninth Circuit in our case before deciding whether to proceed with an ordinance of their own. A rational decision. Our briefing to the Ninth Circuit is due on February 25 and we are hard at work refining an initial draft. More news as it happens...

CALBANKPAC — A big THANK YOU to the employees and directors of the 56 California banks who contributed to our federal PAC last year. Nearly 500 individual bank employees participated and total contributions exceeded $59,200. For CALBANKPAC to be even more effective, however, the number of participating banks must increase substantially. Each and every bank employee makes a difference, and your bank’s participation is critical to our efforts. To reach our fundraising goal for 2000 of $74,000, we will need everyone’s support.

Member banks should receive our 2000 fundraising guide in the mail this week. When you get the packet please complete and return the CALBANKPAC Response Form, regardless of your desire to participate. If you do not want to contribute, we would like you to jot down your concerns on the form. If you do want to participate, we need your written authorization to accept contributions from your eligible employees. If you have any questions about the PAC or how your bank can get involved, David Burgess will be happy to answer them. You can reach David at (415) 284-6999 ext. 206.

CBA’s State of the Industry Report — Many members have asked why CBA did not produce a State of the Industry Report this year. In fact, we have only decided to postpone the publication of the report until the Fall, when most banks are undergoing their strategic planning process. The decision to change the report’s timing stemmed from the results of a readership survey we conducted in which many respondents indicated a Fall publication, with mid-year data, would make the report far more valuable in their strategic planning process. We plan on integrating the report into our Directors Briefings in November and are also looking into the possibility of offering strategic planning workshops for bank CEOs in September. If you have ideas about structuring a strategic planning workshop, please give Mike Jones a call at 619-482-8283. He would love to hear your thoughts.

CBA’s Internal Efficiency — Kudos to Leland Chan of our office for negotiating a sublease of more than 2700 square feet of our current office space at very favorable terms to us. We have figured out how to reorganize ourselves into the remaining space while increasing our income through this sublease arrangement. As bankers I know you can appreciate the cost savings and operational efficiencies we will derive from this sublease transaction. The internal move is now complete, thanks to the organizing work of our own Janet Zamora. I’ll bet no one even noticed that this whole transformation has already taken place. Hats off to the staff for a truly seamless move.
 
 

Chris Chenoweth
CBA COO & General Counsel
On behalf of the entire staff
02/21/00