California's urban and rural leaders held a Zoom news conference last month to urge the Legislature to reinstate Gov. Gavin Newsom's three-year, $7 billion plan in the June 15 budget to close the digital divide throughout California. With LAEDC, we co-lead the LA Digital Equity Action League (LA DEAL), working with a wide-reaching coalition of stakeholders to eliminate the digital divide for everyone in L.A. County. UNITE-LA President & CEO, David Rattray, was one of the speakers at the press event, that also included Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, California Forward Leadership Council co-chair John Chiang, Mono County Supervisor John Peters, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation CEO Bill Allen, Riverside County Supervisor Chuck Washington, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools Dr. Mary Ann Dewan and Tom Steyer, CEO and founder, NextGen America. You can watch the press event here.

Related – L.A. Times' George Skelton covered the press event and wrote a very informative piece about this issue. We encourage everyone to read this article.