Silva assumes new post

Jim Silva, who served his last term on the Orange County Board of Supervisors this year, was sworn in Monday as the state assembly member from the 67th District at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

“I have an awful lot to learn,” Silva, 62, said after taking the oath of office.

The former Huntington Beach mayor has already waded through more than 40 hours of classroom presentations, including lessons on how to set up office, hiring staff and, most importantly, an eight-hour briefing on how to get a bill passed in the assembly.

“I thought it was very interesting — working on bills, how you can maneuver through committees — to get a bill passed,” he said.

Silva, a veteran economics teacher in the Garden Grove Unified School district, has already begun working to garner support for a bill on urban runoff to protect the ocean along Orange County’s coast, he said.

“Surprisingly, I have been getting a lot of support from people up and down the state,” he said. “And not only people who live along the coast but also people who live inland and come to visit the beach.”

He plans to work with educators in Orange County to introduce urban runoff as a topic in ecology for the first-, second- and third-graders in state and county schools. He hopes to bring in coauthors to write the bill to get it passed in the assembly.

Silva’s other priorities include getting state funding for building freeways in Orange County and a limited government role.

Silva, who holds a real estate broker’s license and owns a waterfront home in Huntington Harbour, oversaw the rebuilding of the Huntington Beach Pier in 1992 as mayor.

He won a seat on Orange County Board of Supervisors representing the 2nd district in 1994 and served his third and final term this year.

Silva is credited with helping the county emerge from its 1995 bankruptcy without raising taxes.

“I’ve a very good understanding of finance,” he said in an earlier interview. “The most important job of local and county officials is to balance a budget.”

The $1.7-billion financial disaster came about because of high-risk investments.

But working in a Democrat-controlled assembly will be a far cry from his Orange County experience, a conservative Republican stronghold.

“It seems like you work with Democrats and Republicans in trying to solve a lot of problems,” Silva said. “I think it’s a process for the betterment of the state, but sometimes I think it has a tendency to get bogged down and can be very frustrating.”

Family members and friends were present in Sacramento along with Silva’s wife Connie, who watched him being sworn in with 79 other assembly members.

Connie Silva underwent some training of her own as part of a briefing for assembly members’ spouses and significant others. The topics included ethics, legislative cycles and full disclosure of campaign contributions among others.

So far, she’s been enjoying the changes, she said. “It’s a new time frame for us,” the Bolsa Grande high school teacher said.

The Silvas have rented an apartment right across from the State Capitol and are looking forward to living an “urban lifestyle,” having never lived in an apartment, Connie Silva said.

Silva is set to start work in January, when the assembly begins its session, flying to Sacramento from Monday through Thursday. He will fly back to be with his family through the weekend and meet people from the district.

The 67th District Assembly includes Alamitos, Anaheim, Cypress, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Stanton and Westminster.