By Doug Forbes

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Doug Forbes and Elena Matyas, principals of Meow Meow Foundation (MMF), landed in the capital November 18 for three days of meetings about their mission to license California summer camps and to develop the state’s first end-to-end preventable drowning model.

The couple first met with Cathy Barankin, a camp lobbyist who works with the Western Association of Independent Camps and the American Camp Association (ACA). Barankin successfully crafted previous legislation that currently requires overnight camps to either become accredited by the ACA — her client — or submit an annual operating plan to local health officials based on ACA standards and practices.

Forbes and Matyas discovered, however, that the ACA requires camps to abide by only 10 percent of its standards and practices for accreditation status. Therefore, not only is current legislation ill-equipped to ensure children’s health and safety, it also serves as a revenue boon for the ACA. Camps pay the ACA thousands of dollars per year for accreditation.

“Cathy’s clients want to build camp contracts and boost bottom lines—we want to keep kids safe,” said Forbes. Matyas advised Barankin that MMF has redrafted 44 pages of language for a new bill. Barankin repeatedly asked that her clients review and amend such language as they see fit. Forbes and Matyas have not made those accommodations.

Forbes and Matyas also met with legislative counselors who will draft their language into bill form. After a few anticipated redrafts, the bill will be introduced in late January or early February. Sen. Anthony Portantino is the legislative “author,” Meow Meow Foundation is the “sponsor.” Forbes and Matyas said they expect Assemblymember Holden to co-author and other parties to support the bill before its vote.

On Tuesday, November 19, Forbes and Matyas met with representatives from the Department of Developmental Services, the agency through which California provides services and support to individuals with developmental disabilities, including drowning survivors with severe cerebral and physical effects.

Forbes and Matyas said they want to work with government agencies and health care providers to establish the state’s, if not the nation’s, first drowning-centric database. Forbes said that the aggregation of demographic and epidemiological drowning data is a vital step toward understanding and eliminating this preventable outcome.

DDS officials said that multiple state and federal agencies collect only a scant amount of data. And because these agencies neither adequately collect such data nor explore causation, Forbes and Matyas requested that the agencies convene to determine a productive path forward. Otherwise, they said, children 1-4 will continue to die at unconscionable rates.

Following their DDS meeting, Forbes and Matyas met with Danna Stapleton, external engagement advisor to Lt. Governor Eleni Kounalakis. Stapleton said she would advise Kounalakis as to the severity of the issue and also coordinate with Sen. Portantino’s office to rally support for the forthcoming bill.

On Wednesday, November 20, Forbes, Matyas and MMF board member Liliana Coronado met with Darin Walsh, chief of staff for Sen. Richard Pan. The senator chairs the Senate Committee on Health where the Forbes-Matyas bill will likely land for discussion and voting before heading to the Senate Committee on Appropriations, chaired by Portantino.

Forbes, Matyas and Coronado finished their agenda in Governor Newsom’s office where they met with Chief Deputy Legislative Affairs Secretary for Operations Che Salinas and Senior Policy Advisor for Early Childhood Giannina Pérez. Forbes and Matyas stressed that MMF will not only keep campers safe but also children like Newsom’s who need a holistic recreational water safety paradigm spanning pools, rivers, lakes and oceans.

Forbes and Matyas also stressed how summer camps are not required to issue background checks. “You can kill or sexually assault a child and keep a camp open,” Forbes said. “Our daughter Roxie drowned and the camp did not have to report to a single health department official or close their operations for one minute.”

Matyas said, “And little boys and girls can also shoot .22 caliber rifles.” Multiple California summer camps offer riflery programs. “So kids can shoot guns while 15-year-old counselors are in charge of the range.”

Salinas and Pérez are currently exploring ways by which to reduce opposition to the forthcoming bill while at the same time increase funding and resources for oversight should the governor sign off in 2020.

Three years ago, the city of Sacramento paid $15 million to the family of a 13-year-old girl who died from anaphylaxis. She suffered the fatal allergic reaction at the city-owned Camp Sacramento. In July, Governor Newsom signed a bill that required camp’s to take greater precautions with food handling. That bill, however, only requires “organized camps” to comply—meaning overnight camps, not day camps. This is precisely the kind of critical loophole that Forbes and Matyas aim to reverse.