President’s Message – December 2024

Hello. In previous newsletters I have written that one of REA’s goals is to continue to brief new Councilmembers about REA. Accordingly, several weeks ago Board member Greg Woods and I had the opportunity to brief Mr. Henry L. Foster, the new Councilmember representing District 4, as well as his Chief of Staff, Mr. Daniel Horton about our association.

Both the Councilmember and his Chief of Staff acknowledged at the beginning of the meeting that they knew only a little about REA. We assured them that the purpose of our meeting with them was to provide information about our organization. As such, Greg and I took the opportunity to brief the Councilmember and his Chief of Staff about REA. We started by describing some basic information about REA such as when we started, the number of members, our monthly meetings, our WEB site and monthly newsletter, etc. Next we provided a description of REA’s Image Enhancement Effort including sponsorship of Learn to Swim events, our organized San Diego Foodbank contributions and our support for the Voice of San Diego. We next reviewed our collaboration with other retiree groups, and finally we discussed the various benefits that retirees get through their membership in REA, such as the insurance plans they have access to via our partnership in SDPEBA.

By the end of the meeting the Councilmember and his Chief of Staff had a much fuller understanding of what REA is and what we do. Since that is the purpose of meeting with the Councilmember, I am sure we had a successful meeting.