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IN THIS ISSUE – “You Come at the King, You Best Not Miss”

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Capital News & Notes (CN&N) harvests California policy, legislative and regulatory insights from dozens of media and official sources for the past week. Please feel free to forward this unique service.

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FOR THE WEEK ENDING SEPT. 17, 2021

 

Newsom’s Recall Win is “Staggering”

California Politics / LA Times

While the headline is that Newsom beat back the recall, it’s the size and scope of his accomplishment that is the political story behind the story. After all, the recall’s outcome will reverberate into the 2022 election cycle. And with so many voters choosing to side with the governor and his agenda, an emboldened Newsom might easily scare off any would-be Democratic challengers.

For Republicans, still lost in California’s electoral wilderness after 15 years of losses, the recall may have left them in worse shape than when they began.

Or to quote the late Michael K. Williams’ most famous character, Omar Little from HBO’s “The Wire”: “You come at the king, you best not miss.”

The numbers are staggering. As of late Thursday, the governor could count 31 of California’s 58 counties in his column, including all of the state’s major population centers. Statewide, Newsom’s apparent 64%-36% victory would be even more decisive than his 2018 gubernatorial win over Republican John Cox, an outcome that was the most lopsided in modern state history. The current split is similar to the California win by President Biden over then-President Donald Trump in November.

The comparison with 2018 is worth a closer look. Newsom’s anti-recall campaign significantly improved his winning percentage in a number of counties he won three years ago — most notably in Bay Area communities, those along the Central Coast and battlegrounds like Orange County.

But even in a few counties where he looks to have lost on Tuesday, the governor narrowed the gap. Current returns show him topping his 2018 numbers in a few counties dominated by Republicans — rural locations such as Shasta and Colusa counties and larger, more urban or suburban places like Placer and Riverside counties.

Fast forward to this week, when it’s hard to overstate just how fundamental the COVID-19 pandemic was to the recall. In fact, history books should probably mark the 2021 special election with an asterisk so that campaigns and political scientists alike exercise caution before making assumptions that could apply to future recall campaigns.

It was the pandemic that sparked interest in the recall petition filed only a few weeks before Newsom’s emergency order and gave the effort new life thanks to a decisive ruling by a Sacramento judge in November that extended the amount of time proponents had to gather signatures. When criticism over Newsom’s decisions grew louder — to say nothing of his infamous mask-free moments at a posh Napa Valley restaurant — Republican-backing donors helped push the recall across the qualification finish line.

But anger seemed to subside with the reopening of schools and businesses and after COVID-19 vaccine supplies went from scarce to abundant. And in the campaign’s final weeks, Newsom delivered a knockout blow by painting the recall’s backers and the leading Republican candidates as determined to scrap the state’s efforts.

Public and private polls found a sizable number of voters who supported tougher vaccine rules as well as mask requirements in California schools. Juan Rodriguez, the strategist who led the anti-recall campaign on Newsom’s behalf, said support for pandemic safety measures was so intense that it might have broken through the seemingly impenetrable barriers of partisanship.

A data analysis by The Times backs up that assertion, as counties with higher COVID-19 vaccination rates were more likely to support Newsom. Those pro-vaccination counties are also home to most of California’s voters, a correlation that already has some speculating that opposition to vaccination mandates by the recall’s GOP candidates could leave a lingering stain for the party’s regional and statewide candidates in California elections next year.

The final preelection polls captured both the recall’s collapse and the rise of Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host whose late entry into the replacement race seemed to suck the political oxygen out of the contest for everyone else — including the overarching pro-recall campaign.

Elder was closing in on half of the votes cast on the recall ballot’s second question in returns as of Thursday. Democrat and runner-up Kevin Paffrath had close to one-fifth as much support, followed by Republican Kevin Faulconer, the former mayor of San Diego, with around one-sixth the number of Elder’s votes.

The GOP front-runner, who pledged before election day to stick around in 2022 should Newsom prevail, might hold all the cards when it comes to Republican politics next year.

“I have now become a political force here in California in general and particularly within the Republican Party,” he told a Fresno radio station Tuesday. “And I’m not going to leave the stage.”

But wait, maybe not. In an excerpt of an interview with the TV show “Inside California Politics” released Thursday, Elder hedged.

“It’s hard for me to see how the outcome would be any different unless I was able to raise at least as much money” as Newsom, he said. “But even then the thing is daunting.”

And it seems certain Elder’s effect on Republican politics will be a hot topic at the state party’s convention next weekend. There’s clearly rancor in some GOP circles, displayed in a nasty exchange during Wednesday’s postelection Zoom meeting of the Sacramento Press Club.

As the results get more complete over the next few days, keep an eye on how many voters skipped the ballot’s second question, following Newsom’s advice of “vote ‘no’ and go.” It remains one of the most talked-about facets of the campaign, with a number of political strategists insisting it was an effective way to ensure Democrats, in particular, didn’t stray.

By Thursday afternoon, there were 4.1 million ballots that had left the recall’s second question blank with an additional 2.9 million ballots still to be processed. And the undervote didn’t just happen in Democratic counties; 37% of ballots in Riverside County registered no vote in the replacement election and vote totals in Placer County were 35% smaller on the second question than for the Newsom recall.

Rob Pyers, the research director for the nonpartisan California Target Book, noted Thursday that Elder’s vote total in the GOP’s ancestral home of Orange County was running just four-tenths of a percentage point ahead of the ballots that skipped the replacement contest.

 

Newsom’s Next Moves? “Let the Dust Settle”

NY Times

SACRAMENTO — For nearly a year — while a pandemic raged, while wildfires roared, while smoke smothered the once-pristine blue skies over Lake Tahoe — Gov. Gavin Newsom has had to simultaneously govern the nation’s most populous state and beat back an attempted recall.

On Wednesday, he emerged victorious — but still had multiple crises to confront. Ninety percent of the state was in extreme drought. The median home price had eclipsed $800,000. Some 100,000 people were sleeping outside or in their cars nightly. And more than 6 million public school children were struggling to make up the learning they had missed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Hundreds of bills on his desk waited to be signed, including one to allow duplexes in single-family neighborhoods across California and another enshrining the vote-by-mail rules that helped keep him in office.

The election’s resounding rejection of the long-shot, Republican-led attempt to oust Mr. Newsom appeared not only to strengthen him for re-election next year, but also to bestow a mandate. As the vote count continued on Wednesday, the recall was being rejected by roughly 2-1. The margin echoes the state’s Democrat-Republican split and the scale of Mr. Newsom’s 2018 election, which was a landslide.

But what the governor can do with that mandate is unclear. The recall campaign was long and divisive, political experts say, and the state’s problems increasingly resist simple solutions. Many more straightforward challenges were met last year with a massive state surplus and a flood of pandemic aid from the Biden administration.

Now — although Mr. Newsom has the advantage of a unified base, a Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and the state’s attention — what remains are issues that require far more than money.

“These are problems that take time,” said Jerry Brown, who governed the state for two eight-year stints in the 1970s and again from 2010 to 2018. “Reducing carbon emissions. Reversing the gross inequalities. Being able to keep the crime rate down. Dealing with so many people who have so little that their lives and families are disintegrating.”

The recall, Mr. Brown said, was “sound and fury signifying very little” — an “expensive blip” that in a couple of weeks “will be not much more than a footnote.” But, he said, “it’s down now to the bread and butter issues. And they’re the same old issues that have been around for a long time in modern California.”

Mr. Newsom offered few details during his campaign on how he would tackle these challenges, in part because of the tenor of the recall. The Republican candidates seeking to replace him framed the campaign as a referendum on him, from his handling of homelessness to the rise of urban crime rates and his decision to party at a luxe wine country restaurant after he had asked Californians to stay home during the pandemic.

But except for his coronavirus policies, which have been pointed to as a potential national model, the governor largely avoided making his agenda part of the recall discussion. Aiming to animate the state’s Democratic base in an off-year special election, he portrayed the recall as a battle to rescue the nation’s biggest blue state from hard right extremists, and as part of a larger, national war on the divisiveness of former President Donald J. Trump and the Republicans who admire him.

Outside a victory party afterward, he acknowledged the challenges that await him, but resisted much elaboration.

“Let the dust settle,” he said.

At least part of the calculus will include next year’s regularly scheduled gubernatorial election. Although the governor is unlikely to face much meaningful opposition, 2022 is a regular election year — a time when controversial legislation tends to be set aside.

“It will be interesting to see what he wants to focus on,” said Toni Atkins, the president pro tempore of the California Senate, noting that much of the Legislature also will be campaigning. The dominance of Democrats in the State Senate and Assembly masks an often unwieldy range of views — Bay Area progressives, Central Valley moderates, coastal environmentalists, jobs-first pragmatists.

The challenge was apparent even within the county-by-county recall tallies, with huge majorities for the governor in Democratic strongholds such as Los Angeles and the Bay Area, thinner margins in San Diego and Orange County and much of the far rural north voting to replace him.

Legislation of remarkable sweep quietly passed this year, even as the recall consumed the public’s attention, Ms. Atkins said: preschool for all of the state’s 4-year-olds, stimulus checks for low- and middle-income people, health insurance for undocumented immigrants 50 and older.

But climate bills stalled, casualties in many cases of the split between parts of the state that prioritize jobs and parts that prioritize action on climate change.

She predicted the governor would resume work on priorities he had held from the start of his administration, including affordable housing and early childhood education. But, she added, his victory has whetted legislative ambitions, too.

The fifth-largest economy in the world and home to some 40 million people, California is known both for its bounty and for its epic flaws. It leads the nation in billionaires; when housing is factored in, it also has America’s highest poverty level.

Its coastline is renowned, but towering wildfires, burning over as much as a million acres, have become a terrifying annual occurrence. A mega-drought has sent the price of agricultural water soaring and tens of thousands of farms are on reduced water rations.

One hurdle in carrying out ambitious policy objectives, experts said, was a political lesson that emerged from the recall: Polarization pays.

Partisan rhetoric mobilized voters on both sides, handing Mr. Newsom his win and raising the profile of an otherwise withering Republican Party. Any group that, in the past, might have been daunted by the challenge of launching a statewide recall learned that even a lost cause can disrupt an opponent for months, Mark Baldassare, president of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, said.

But that isn’t necessarily conducive to governance, he added.

“This recall election has just really stirred the pot,” said Mr. Baldassare. “Will people find common ground? It’s going to be hard.”

Fernando Guerra, a professor and the director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said the governor has every tool at his disposal to take bold action if he wants to — a supportive White House, a legislative supermajority, a state surplus and billions of federal dollars in pandemic aid. Leveraging those advantages could leave a legacy to rival the state’s most iconic governors, he said, including Jerry Brown and his father, who governed in the 1960s, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown.

“California will be positioned to have the most extraordinary two or three years of government and state-led innovation since the Pat Brown era — or California could be mired in political paralysis and doomed to incremental decline. And it will all depend on Gavin Newsom,” he said.

“If crises are opportunities, then this is the greatest opportunity any sitting governor in America will ever have.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/gavin-newsom-governor-california.html

 

National Democrats Adopt Newsom Strategy for 2022

Wall Street Journal excerpt

California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s overwhelming victory in Tuesday’s recall election could provide a model for other Democrats to solidify their footing ahead of midterm elections next year and the Virginia governor contest this year that present challenges for the party, including sinking job approval ratings for President Biden and a Covid-19 pandemic that has gained new strength.

While recall elections are unusual and California is heavily Democratic, analysts in both parties said Wednesday that Mr. Newsom’s lopsided win contains lessons for 2022 candidates. With nearly three-quarters of precincts reporting Wednesday night, some 64% of those who voted had opted to retain Mr. Newsom as governor, with 36% voting to oust him, an Associated Press tally showed.

Democrats say Mr. Newsom showed how to turn the recall into a choice election focused on approaches to the Covid-19 pandemic, more so than a referendum on the governor’s own overall performance.

In a statement Wednesday, President Biden said Mr. Newsom’s victory was “a resounding win for the approach that he and I share to beating the pandemic: strong vaccine requirements, strong steps to reopen schools safely, and strong plans to distribute real medicines—not fake treatments—to help those who get sick.”

Mr. Newsom told voters during the campaign that radio show host Larry Elder, a Republican and leading vote-winner among replacement candidates, would roll back public-health protections, such as the state mandate that healthcare workers be vaccinated, and said a successful recall would empower former Republican President Donald Trump and his allies. Mr. Elder, who has said he is vaccinated, said that government officials shouldn’t be able to force people to wear masks or receive the vaccine and called Mr. Newsom’s school and business restrictions arbitrary and extreme.

Republicans on Wednesday focused on what the outcome said about candidate selection. Many said that Mr. Elder set a poor example for the type of candidate who should win coming GOP primaries for House, Senate and governor in Democratic-leaning or swing territory.

“Larry Elder’s candidacy not only saved [Newsom] but delivered him a landslide rejection of the recall,” said Kevin Spillane, a San Diego-based GOP strategist. He said Mr. Elder was “obsessed” with courting the state’s conservative GOP base with statements opposing abortion rights and promising to fill a potential U.S. Senate vacancy with a Republican.

Republicans enter the 2022 campaign with significant advantages: The party out of power in the White House almost always gains ground in a midterm election. The GOP would take control of the Senate with the net pickup of a single seat, and it could win a House majority with as few as five additional seats. More Americans have said in recent weeks that they disapprove than approve of Mr. Biden’s job performance, compounding his party’s challenge.

“The Democratic majorities in the House and Senate were at risk before the recall, and they continue to be at risk after the recall,’’ said Nathan Gonzales, a nonpartisan analyst. Few of the battlegrounds that will determine House and Senate control have the lopsided party mix of California, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly two to one.

But strategists in both parties said the stunning turnaround in polling—from a statistical dead heat over the summer to a double-digit lead by early September—is an indication that Democrats can overcome the prospect of low voter turnout next year.

The Newsom campaign launched a formidable field campaign in the midst of the pandemic—knocking on 2 million doors and sending 31 million text messages to voters by the eve of the election.

“We have a silver lining here that we can apply to the big, big problem we have nationally in 2022,” said Sean Clegg, one of Mr. Newsom’s top strategists. “The base may start out asleep but you can wake up the base.”

If current turnout trends hold, “Democratic turnout during this new era of polarization is breaking through new ground,” said Mike Madrid, a Sacramento-based GOP consultant and co-founder of the Lincoln Project.

“If Jesus Christ himself had run as a Republican, I don’t know that he could have won in California,’’ said Glen Bolger, a veteran GOP pollster.

The number of voters who chose not to weigh in on a replacement candidate outnumbered Mr. Elder’s support by millions. But the Republican radio host had an overwhelming lead among those who did—46.9% as of the latest tally-—and has sizable leads in every county but super-liberal San Francisco, showing that GOP base voters still have a strong appetite for outspoken candidates in Mr. Trump’s mold.

Still, Democrats proved that they could rally their party and escape the pitfall of failing to capitalize on their registration advantage. More than 9 million votes have been tallied so far, and the total could rival the 12.7 million cast in the 2018 midterms, a state record for a mid-cycle election.

If Democrats can replicate that energy next year, they won’t necessarily retain their congressional majorities but might hold off the kind of wave election in which a party suffers sweeping losses, as hit the GOP in 2018 and Democrats in 2010, Mr. Gonzales said.

“We get wave elections when one party is energized and one party is depressed,’’ he said. ”If both parties are energized, we have much closer elections. So, if Democrats can replicate the energy they had in California in 2021, they might avoid a Republican wave.’’

Analysts said that a better test of the political environment will come in November with the election for governor in Virginia, a state that has trended Democratic but where Republicans often remain competitive. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and former governor, is competing against Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer and former chief executive of Carlyle Group Inc., the asset-management and private-equity firm.

 

Governor Goes Back to the Office: Legislature Left Him 700+ Bills to Consider

CalMatters

Newsom on Thursday signed into law a package of bills to boost housing production, including two of the year’s most controversial proposals: one that would curb single-family zoning in most neighborhoods statewide and another that would allow local governments to build up to 10 units on single-family lots near public transit.

But he did so with little fanfare: Instead of holding a ceremony with the bill’s authors and supporters, replete with congratulatory speeches and signatures — as he did both over Zoom last year and in person this year — he simply issued a press release.

The subdued behavior is a marked change from recent months, which saw Newsom riding roller coasters, juggling lottery balls and holding massive ralliesto promote his programs and, well, himself. But the governor’s first public appearance after surviving the recall was a restrained speech on election night that lasted less than five minutes. The next day, he visited an Oakland school and quietly awarded fire prevention grants — actions presumably in line with those the Sacramento Bee editorial board asked for in a Wednesday column.

The editorial board: “Californians are fed up with problems not getting solved, and paying more for almost everything — from housing to gas to electricity. Residents want sound leadership to deliver not just words, but actual achievements on thorny issues like housing costs and homelessness.”

State lawmakers adjourned last Friday, sending hundreds of bills to Newsom’s desk even as some of the most progressive environmental and criminal justice proposals remained on the cutting room floor. The casualties underscore not only the tensions between the Legislature’s moderate and liberal Democrats, but also the stubborn realities facing California. For example, lawmakers rejected a bill that called for reducing greenhouse gas emissions beyond current mandates — a setback for environmentalists, but perhaps also an implicit recognition that California isn’t even on pace to meet its current goals. And amid a sizable spike in homicides and a brutal Sacramento murder, bills stalled that would have expunged felony records for more offenders, reformed the cash bail system and removed exemptions to California’s sanctuary state law.

Other key takeaways:

The final night was unusually subdued compared with the chaos of the last two years. At the end of 2020, Republican senators were forced to vote remotely because of a COVID infection while Assemblymembers were required to vote in person, prompting one to make a late-night floor speech cradling her newborn baby. Not to mention the previous year, when the Senate was evacuated and a hazmat crew called in after an anti-vaccine protester tossed a menstrual cup of blood from the overhead gallery, splattering senators.

https://calmatters.org/explainers/california-legislature-bills-passed-2021/?utm_source=CalMatters%20Newsletters&utm_campaign=5125b9b61c-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-5125b9b61c-150181777&mc_cid=5125b9b61c&mc_eid=2833f18cca

 

Biden Administration Backs Valley Reservoir

Modesto Bee

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland talked about dealing with drought, including a reservoir planned near Patterson, in a Zoom call with reporters Wednesday.

She was joined by Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, who has urged increased federal spending on such efforts.

The 2022 proposed budget for the Interior Department includes $15 million toward building Del Puerto Reservoir in the hills west of Patterson. West Side irrigation districts would pay most of the roughly $500 million total cost.

The budget also would put $50 million toward expanding Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the Brentwood area. It holds water pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for use in Contra Costa County.

The expansion could supply more water for wildlife refuges along the San Joaquin River. It also could mean more flexibility in the Delta supplies for West Side farmers.

Haaland also noted plans for increased water conservation, recycling, desalinization and other projects in the call from her office in Washington, D.C.

“We’re committed to addressing the challenges of drought and climate change in the Central Valley by using science-based, innovative strategies,” she said.

The 2022 spending does not include the $8.3 billion for Western water projects in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package now before Congress. Storage projects would get $1.15 billion of this. Details on how to spend the money over several years would come later.

Haaland represented New Mexico in the House of Representatives before President Joe Biden appointed her to his Cabinet. The department oversees federal water systems, national parks, Native American affairs, energy production and other matters.

Del Puerto Reservoir could be built by 2028, adding 82,000 acre-feet of storage for the region. It would help farmers deal with reduced federal supplies from the Delta, including zero water in the very dry 2021.

The project drew a lawsuit from four environmental groups last year. They are concerned about habitat loss, earthquake safety and overuse of Delta water by farmers.

Los Vaqueros, by contrast, has drawn support from environmental leaders along with farm and urban interests that could benefit. The project would boost water for wildlife refuges that mimic the annual flooding that happened before dams and levees were built.

The original reservoir was completed in 1998, providing 100,000 acre-feet of storage for the Contra Costa Water District. An expansion in 2012 brought it to 160,000 acre-feet.

The current proposal could result in 275,000 total acre-feet as soon as 2029. Water agencies serving other parts of the Bay Area are looking at helping pay for the project. So are some of the West Side irrigation districts, which are constrained now by fish protections in the Delta. .

And it could cover up to a quarter of the estimated $895 million cost of expanding Los Vaqueros. The state is expected to provide $470 million from a 2014 bond measure.

Harder noted on the call that Stanislaus County already has a major water recycling system. Farmers in the Del Puerto Water District use the highly treated effluent from sewage plants serving Modesto, Ceres and Turlock.

“Obviously, the best thing that we can do is get more use out of the water that we already have,” Harder said.

https://www.modbee.com/news/local/article254088263.html#storylink=cpy

 

California to Spend $22 Billion For Housing and Homeless

CalMatters commentary by Lourdes Castro Ramirez,

Secretary, Business, Consumer Services & Housing Agency

California has often been criticized for lacking a comprehensive, holistic approach to housing and homelessness. When investments were made in the past, they were often scattered in their approach and design, with little strategic relation to other investments.

This is changing.

California is now poised to invest $10 billion to accelerate housing production and $12 billion to tackle homelessness – with funding for Homekey units, shovel-ready affordable housing, mortgage and rental assistance, and direct resources for local governments to prevent and end homelessness.

This is more than 10 times the budget of any previous year.

To get the most out of these dollars, we plan to deploy them quickly and in coordination with federal and local governments. We are also building off the work of the last few years that makes it easier to build in California by continuing to streamline the approval process for affordable housing and accessory dwelling units. And we will be focusing on building the housing not being produced by the market – housing for very low- and extremely low-income households who have been squeezed out of housing opportunities for far too long.

As secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, I am working closely with Gov. Gavin Newsom and an incredible team to ensure the effective and efficient delivery of these resources.

For the past 16 months we have been working on meaningful, strategic coordination of the work done by the housing and homelessness departments within our agency – the Department of Housing and Community Development, the California Housing Finance Agency, and the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council.

We are also harmonizing their work with key partners like the Health and Human Services Agency to provide critical health and social services, and with the state Treasurer’s Office, whose tax credits and bond resources are so essential to financing affordable housing.

Why does this matter? Because people like Chad Martin expect government to work when they fall on hard times.

I met Chad in San Diego at the Stella and Bluewater community, a 158-unit complex providing affordable housing to low-income families, individuals and veterans. Before living there, Chad had bounced around on the couches of friends or occasionally slept in Balboa Park following a tough divorce. While he worked off and on as a bartender, it wasn’t enough to help him get back on his feet.

Then one day, an outreach worker deployed to Balboa Park offered him hope.  He went into a temporary shelter and within three months was able to move into a permanent housing unit with onsite services. Having a safe, stable place to live along with rental assistance has enabled him to focus on renewing his real estate license and regain his chance at a better life.

Every California family deserves a chance to live their dreams, and stable housing is an important part of their ability to do so. And our efforts always keep individuals like Chad in mind, allowing us to be people-centered with a lens on racial and geographic equity.

With housing costs significantly outpacing wages, many Californians were already in precarious situations even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. A coordinated approach is crucial to helping as many Californians as possible.

In providing the largest housing and homelessness investment in California’s history, Newsom and the Legislature have put a huge down payment on the solutions needed to stabilize people in their homes during the pandemic, address the state’s long-term housing instability and give every Californian an opportunity to have a place to call home.

The solutions to tackle housing insecurity and give every Californian a fighting chance to reach their potential is a centerpiece of Newsom’s $100 billion California Comeback Plan. For state and local governments, these resources will mean building more units more quickly with greater reach and greater coordination.

For individual Californians like Chad, they will provide an opportunity for a new beginning.

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/09/strategic-coordination-planned-to-address-affordable-housing-homelessness/?utm_source=CalMatters%20Newsletters&utm_campaign=ff1d935584-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-ff1d935584-150181777&mc_cid=ff1d935584&mc_eid=2833f18cca