Dear friends,

January is a rough month. The Omicron variant of COVID has sure thrown a wrench in many of our plans. Hopefully you're doing ok. It looks like we're about to turn the corner and have a few more weeks of this but February should be better, COVID-wise. 

Sad news for public health and Rhode Island. Public health champion Department of Health Director Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott has resigned. I am grateful for her leadership and service to Rhode Island.  While Director, she oversaw many great initiatives supporting community health and health equity including our Health Equity Zones and of course, she used her expertise as an infectious disease physician to lead us through the current pandemic. I have been talking with my colleagues in the RI Senate to ensure that they will confirm another solid public health leader to the position. 

Nationally, we need to pass voting rights, and I'm not giving up on that. Here in Rhode Island, I'm hoping that we get to vote on the Let RI Vote Act soon. This legislation will protect our ability to vote by mail, in person early or in person on election day as easily as we did during the height of COVID. In addition, we will soon be voting on these new legislative maps (look at House and Senate Maps D, and Congressional Map B): https://www.riredistricting.org

Session started on January 4. We voted on a downpayment of the COVID funding (ARPA) investments - it's a good start, and I'm hoping we are able to commit to significant investments in our historically underfunded social services sector with much of the rest of the funding in the coming months. The Rhode Island Foundation engaged the community last year and issued a report recommending about 40% of the funds to housing, 40% to behavioral health and 20% for other things, including $50 million for Neighborhood Trusts. This is a pretty good outline, and I think we should use this as our blueprint for further investment. 

I'm working on drafting and getting legislation ready to introduce in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for bills from me on regulating neonicotinoid pesticides, bicycle rules of the road updates, healthcare, vaccines, ranked choice voting and more. The deadline for introducing bills is mid-February so if you have something you want to talk about introducing, now is nearly the latest time to start discussing it for this year! You can look at what bills get introduced here: http://status.rilin.state.ri.us/daily_introductions.aspx

Since COVID is so rampant this month, and it is cold outside, and it is difficult to chat in the State House right now, I'd love to see you at the January District 4 Community Conversation I'm hosting on Wednesday Jan.19 at 5 p.m. - the agenda is whatever you want to talk about! Here's the link to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZErc-ytpjMvEter6d6om4ccpYoOt5k8wMno

As always, please let me know what you think. Also, please follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, or write to me at info@rebeccakislak.com. You can also call or text me at 401-400-2338. I look forward to hearing from you! Meanwhile, please enjoy some of my favorite photos from 2021.