Senator John Vasconcellos' Y2K Plan for California
California State Senator John Vasconcellos delivered the following
letter and strategic plan March 4, 1999, to CA Governor Gray Davis, his
top staff, members of the press (including major editorial boards) and every
CA legislator. He has proven very responsive to testimony and advice. He
is an important ally in all creative Y2K work. Any of you who have suggestions
can send comments to him at SenJohnV@aol.com.
-- Tom
GRAY -
I trust you recall that during our January llth first meeting after you
became
Governor of California, I encouraged you to take a bold lead in assuring
the
State of California is fully prepared to fully meet the challenges of Y2K.
So I especially appreciate your public statement last week that you are
doing
so, that you have named somebody to take charge and responsibility for seeing
to it that all that needs to be done will be done, that you will lead
California, and all Californians, to be fully ready to meet the challenges
of
Y2K.
As you know, last Wednesday three of our legislative committees held a joint
hearing on Y2K, to receive recent reports from your Department of Information
Technology (DOIT) and from our Auditor General, as well as to hear concerns
from community leaders regarding our overall preparedness.
From what I learned at that hearing, I have composed a 20-point strategic
action plan which will serve to enable you to, assure that you can, carry
out
your pledge, to assure California becomes fully Y2K ready in time.
In composing this plan, I have used the smart simple framework offered us
at
that hearing by Rich Hall, a most knowledgeable member of Intel's world-wide
Y2K team, who urged us to think especially in terms of three (3) prime
priorities:
l - Asia;
2 - Electricity; +
3 - Panic.
Altogether, most simply, we owe it to ourselves and to our people:
l - to anticipate and deal with any fallout from the lst of those,
2 - to assure we are fully prepared to maintain the 2nd of those, and
3 - to assure neither we nor our people succumb to the 3rd of those.
If we well, successfully, manage these three priorities, all other concerns
are likely to fall into place.
Attached is my 20-point California Y2K Strategic Action Plan:
l - For your consideration, +
2 - Hopefully, for your adoption soon, +
3 - Hopefully, for all of our implementation soon after that, on through
completion.
As this year moves on, Y2K will become an ever more burning priority for
you
and all of us Californians. It is essential for us all that you build now
on
your February l7th Executive Order, provide leadership for a comprehensive
strategic action plan that provides our people assurance, our systems
compliance.
I pledge you my best efforts to support your leadership and partner with
you
in assuring that California, and all Californians, are fully prepared to
meet,
in a timely fashion, every one of the challenges we face with regard to
Y2K.
I thank you, I wish you well, call whenever I can help.
john vasconcellos
_ _ _ _
CALIFORNIA Y2K STRATEGIC ACTION PLAN
A - ASIA (anticipating its eventualities):
l - Instruct your Secretary of Trade and Commerce Lon Hatamiya to proceed
immediately to conduct an intensive survey of the state of readiness of
the
major Asian nations and economies California relates to, and design a
contingency plan for our addressing any fallout their potential Y2K failures
(this is incumbent in light of the Gartner Group assessment that almost
every
major Asian nation - including both Japan and China - are in Tier 4, the
lowest readiness state. It would be wise to instruct Secretary Hatamiya
to
conduct a similar survey + contingency plan with respect to Latin America).
2 - If this survey concludes those nations are in dire straits, we are likely
to be seriously adversely affected by their failures, take yourself soon
to
Asia to meet with the respective heads of State and national economic
directors, to encourage them to commit themselves to focus more fully, more
immediately, on curing their respective Y2K problems.
3 - If this survey so concludes, convene a top-level strategy meeting of
California's major exporters (especially hitech), develop a specific plan
for
addressing the problems we can then anticipate for our economy.
B - Electricity (assuring its continuation):
4 - Convene the CEO's of California's major providers of electricity, insist
each provide you and the People of California the closest they can to a
guarantee that each of their companies will have the entirety of their systems
compliant and prepared in plenty of time for Y2K.
5 - Invite to California for a summit with you, bring to the table, the
CEO's
of each of the out-of-state electricity providers (individual companies
as
well as associations) whose continuing services and supply are essential
to
California's maintenance of its supply of electricity, and insist each and
all
provide you the same quasi-guarantees.
6 - Altogether, invite all various energy providers and the public (especially
non-utility energy experts and community leaders) into dialogue to design
and
promulgate a comprehensive energy supply plan, including attention to
clarification of which energy uses should be considered 'vital.'
7 - Ask the Public Utilities Commission to make public, now and in the future
as they are submitted, all documents from electricity providers
which pertain to their Y2K readiness (except insofar as need for confi-
dentiality is demonstrated, and it won't jeopardize the public interest).
8 - Instruct your new Director Elias Cortez of the Department of Information
Technology to immediately convene his own summit with the CEO's of each
of the
companies operating nuclear plants in California, and seek their assurances
that each of their plants has been made Y2K compliant, and tested positively,
otherwise have him close them down in a timely safe manner.
9 - Convene the CEO's of the major communications companies operating in
California (I'm advised the power providers all express concerns about the
continuing of communcations in face of the threats of Y2K),
insist each provide you and the People of California the closest they can
to a
guarantee that each of their companies will have the entirety of their systems
compliant and prepared in plenty of time for Y2K.
C - Panic (assuring we don't succumb):
l0 - Request the County Supervisors Association of California and the League
of California Cities to each request that each of its member
counties or cities (including California's singular city & county) develop
a
correlative comprehensive strategic action plan for itself and
each and all of the vital activities within its operation and jurisdiction.
ll - Request the County Supervisors Association of California and the League
of California Cities to each request that each of its member counties or
cities (including California's singular city & county) convene at least
monthly a confidential roundtable of top officials and opinion leaders from
government, media, business, utilities, emergency services, non-profit and
community sectors - chaired by its respective mayor or chair of its county
board of supervisors - to inventory preparedness for Y2K, consider how best
to
inform and involve the public to prepare themselves as individuals,
neighborhoods and communities, together with development of community
contingency plans for anticipated failures.
l2 - Request the County Supervisors Association of California and the League
of California Cities to each request that each of its member
counties or cities (including California's singular city & county) convene
at
least monthly a community-wide conference regarding total preparedness for
Y2K, together with community contingency plans for failures that can be
anticipated (advise them that the County of Kauai in Hawaii and the City
of
Portland, Oregon likely have the most advanced models of such community
involvement and preparedness).
l3 - Instruct your new Secretary of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA)
to immediately conduct a status survey of all operations which, were their
systems to fail on account of lack of Y2K preparedness, could spill toxics,
radioactivity or potentially destructive biological agents into our midst,
doing so on a regional basis.
14 - Instruct your new Director of DOIT to immediately enter into a contract
(or contracts) for conducting IV&V's (Independent Verification &
Validation)
of all of California's mission critical systems (we can no longer depend
upon
self-reporting assessments in this critical matter).
15 - Be sure any and all such assessments examine whether all compu-ter
systems that come together to fulfill each department,s individual functions
are compliant (e.g. all the computer systems necessary to process, cut and
mail an unemployment check are compliant).
16 - Direct your Director of the Office of Emergency Services (OES) to convene
immediately a blue ribbon advisory team to develop for your
consideration and adoption an emergency plan for the State of California
to
deal with contingencies of failure of our mission critical systems.
17 - Direct your Director of OES to convene immediately a blue ribbon advisory
team to develop for your consideration and adoption an emergency plan for
the
State of California to deal with providing back-up provisions (especially
of
food and water) to residents of California's economically marginalized
communities (who are unlikely to have resources necessary to purchase their
own stockpiles of such critical life-support commodities); such advisory
team
should include members of various diverse community groups, and develop
recommendations for involving citizens and various associations in the design
and implementation, so it empowers target communities rather than increasing
long-term dependence on the state.
l8 - Invite the Legislature to fully partner with you in providing lea-dership
and oversight in our effort to assure California becomes fully compliant
in
time, especially by having the leadership of each House:
- request its budget chairs to have each of its budget subcommittees update
its query of each of the state agencies and departments within its
jurisdiction regarding respective readiness, +
- request each of its policy chairs to conduct 2-House joint hearings to
query
each of the critical private sector operators within their subject matter
jurisdiction with respect to respective readiness for Y2K.
19 - Design and implement immediately a smart broad public media campaign
to
advise each, every Californian of her/his personal responsibility for
enlisting in our effort to make California entirely Y2K ready, perhaps
focusing on a simple message:
inform yourself,
prepare yourself,
don't panic -
together we'll get ready in time!
20 - Publicly commit yourself to conducting a public press conference, a
"fireside chat," at least monthly, on the 1st of each month from
now on, to
provide the People of California an updating of our progress (making graphic
via use of progress charts) toward making all of California's critical mission
systems Y2K compliant in time.