NEWSOM THANKS FATHER WITH PASSAGE OF SUMMER CAMP SAFETY BILL
PASADENA, Calif. – On September 22, Gov. Newsom approved AB 262 (Holden) which requires the State Department of Social Services to explore approaches for children’s camp health and safety regulation.
The measure requires CDSS to convene a stakeholder group that will not only define children’s camps but also outline potential licensing and enforcement policies along with projected costs. Stakeholders include the State Department of Public Health, the State Department of Education, the Department of Parks and Recreation and parent advocates.
One of those advocates is Pasadena resident Doug Forbes who was notified about the bill on a recent Saturday afternoon. “I was working on my nonprofit when an email landed,” Forbes said. “The sender attached a photo and wrote: “Just signed / thanks for all you are doing – Gavin.”
Forbes and his wife Elena Matyas introduced the first iteration of a camp safety bill SB 955 (Portantino) in February of 2020, a month before Newsom issued a stay-at-home order to slow the rapid spread of COVID-19 and seven months after the worst day in the couple’s life together.
During the morning of June 28, 2019, their 6-year-old daughter Roxie drowned in a swimming pool at the Altadena camp known as Summerkids. Camp owners abruptly removed Forbes and his wife from all communications. Their daughter’s dubious death remained a mystery.
Forbes happened to be attending graduate school for journalism at the time. Since Summerkids owners refused to cooperate, Forbes investigated Roxie’s death on his own. “I discovered that Summerkids did not have an operating license, but even worse, I learned that California did not require any camps to be licensed, which shocked everyone I told.”
Thousands of California summer camps serving upwards of a million children offer zip lines, high ropes courses, horseback riding, ATVs, aquatics and even live ammunition gun ranges to children as young as five without any mandated oversight. Contrarily, CDSS strictly regulates traditional child care operations that offer far more innocuous programming.
Forbes and Matyas pulled their 2020 bill after lobbyists and special interest groups demanded countless concessions that entirely diluted vital protections, including background checks to prevent pervasive child sexual assaults and health protocols to treat injuries and illnesses, especially in light of COVID outbreaks at myriad camps.
Nonetheless, the couple persevered. They introduced AB 1737 (Holden) in 2022, a streamlined version of their original bill. Boy Scouts of America submitted more than 100 opposition letters despite its role in the worst child molestation campaign in modern American history, the majority of which occurred at camps. American Camp Association lobbyists rallied supporters to oppose the bill despite member camps being responsible for enduring sexual and physical harm.
Forbes’ journey to effectuate long overdue protections for children took another diabolical turn. His wife had suffered from severe depression after Roxie died, and within a year, doctors diagnosed her with Stage 4 cancer from which she died in the couple’s home on March 4, 2022. Forbes’ mother died of the same cancer and heartbreak three months later.
“I felt like I was sinking in quicksand while haunted by ghosts,” Forbes said. “But my wife and I promised to parent Roxie in her death as we did in her life, so I kept that promise to both of them by doing all that I could to prevent other families from suffering as we did.”
In June of 2022, Forbes passed the Elena Matyas Camp Safety Ordinance and Roxie’s Swim Safe Ordinance in Los Angeles County. And in February of 2023, Assemblyman Holden introduced
AB 262. Forbes flew to Sacramento on multiple occasions – as he did during previous years – to rally support for the bill, testify before committees and make media appearances.
The same lobbyists waged the same opposition, which diluted the bill but did not defeat its intent. Both houses passed the measure by wide margins, but Holden’s team informed Forbes that Newsom intended to issue a veto, nonetheless.
Forbes said, “I have the word persistence tattooed on my forearm for a reason.” He emailed Newsom and his senior advisers to advise them that a veto would not only symbolize a public rebuke of child safety but also result in more deadly outcomes. Tragically, Forbes was right. A 9-year-old girl drowned at a private school camp soon after Forbes heard about the likely veto.
Over the ensuing months, Forbes convinced Newsom to reconsider. His advisers pledged to pass the bill with certain amendments. And on September 22, Newsom made good on that pledge.
Forbes said seconds after reading the Governor’s kind message from his personal account, he collapsed to the floor and wept for a long while. “I wanted to share a celebratory hug with the loves of my life, but all I could do was embrace a photo of them at that bittersweet moment.”
Newsom recently appointed Kim Johnson as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services under which CDSS operates. Forbes already contacted Johnson to secure his seat at the table regarding AB 262. Johnson replied, “Thank you for continuing to lift up recommendations on how to better support children and families, Mr. Forbes. You are making a difference. The DSS team will be in touch with next steps.”
In the interim, Forbes continues to helm Meow Meow Foundation, the nationwide nonprofit that makes camps and aquatics safer for kids. He has assembled his own stakeholder group comprised of camp, health, safety and abuse prevention experts who are developing model camp standards that they will deliver nationwide in 2025.
Forbes has also interviewed more than 100 subjects throughout roughly 20 states as he directs a feature documentary about his journey. He plans to release the film early next year.