It’s only mid-January but feels like we should be farther along in the year. It is shaping up to be another intriguing election year, but when are they not? Due to redistricting, some major shuffles have happened including the one you found on the front page.

 

The retirement of Congressman McNerney, the move in location for Congressman Harder, the redistricting of boundaries taking Congressman Costa to a Fresno centric district and the jump from Assemblymember Gray into our Congressional race are all big news. Due to Gray’s move to run for the US House seat, his Assembly seat is left vacant. In addition, our state Senate seat has also changed and will no longer include the Salinas Valley and San Benito County. There has been speculation of people running for all the above, however nothing that has been set in stone aside from Gray. Notable county elections that will also be taking place are Supervisorial Districts 3 and 5, Merced County Sheriff, District Attorney and Assessor-Controller among others. Our cities will also be impacted by their routine election cycle; however, those races will not start to heat up until August when filing takes place.

 

We have also been busy in our office with routine meetings and planning for this year. You may have noticed our Save the Date for our Annual Meeting taking place on March 25, 2022. Everything that we booked in 2020 – our speaker, location, etc. – is the event you will be a part of this year. We will be sending out a message to all ticketholders from the original event, but if you purchased tickets at that time and asked us to hold them for you, we will honor that request. If you would like to purchase tickets, please reach out at your convenience and we can make that happen.

 

We have also scheduled an in-person FARM2U Day for the end of April. This event is our largest educational event for children, taking place since 2012. Typically, we hold this event at the Merced Fairgrounds but due to the pandemic and each school district approaching precautions differently, we have partnered with the Kids Discovery Station in Merced for a Saturday event. This would be open to the public at no cost. We are currently working on requesting the support of sponsors and presenters. If you are interested in either, please reach out to Denelle in our office by emailing dflake@mercedfarmbureau.org.

 

Lastly, look for our upcoming events as they hit the newspaper and our e-news. We are scheduled to host an Ag Haz Mat course on Monday, February 7. Following this, we are working on some exciting events including CE units, coffee talks and more. In recent weeks you will also receive more information on our upcoming events along with sponsorship opportunities so please be on the lookout! Hope to see you in 2022!