by John Hawkins, President and CEO, The Club
This issue marks our 12th consecutive month dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s a solid year of dealing with an emergency that has altered our lives dramatically. City employees and Club Members continue to work hard to keep LA running and providing necessary City services.
This month’s story – connecting City employees via videoconferencing so that those working at home safely can still get their work done – is an essential one to tell. Its success made so much of the City’s effectiveness possible. Special thanks to ITA’s Ted Ross, Maryam Abbassi and Ryan Norwall for helping us tell this story.
We’ve covered a lot of the City’s major COVID-related projects in the past year, and we will continue to do so. But as the vaccines are now in play and starting to stem the danger, we’ll be moving back to regular stories. It will be a mix, as the world moves from lockdown to a semblance of normal sometime soon. That may be awhile yet, so expect to see some of both.
I’m proud of how hard City employees have worked. From our end, it hasn’t been easy bringing these important stories to you safely and at a distance. We’ve been careful with protocols.
The Club continues to work hard bringing our services to you, our Members, as it has throughout the past year. Whether we’ve called you by phone in the biggest outreach project in our history, or joined your Webex or Zoom department calls, or fulfilled your Club facemask orders, or worked to deliver your insurance claims, we’ve been there for you all along the way.
So enjoy this month’s story and all those that will follow.
On a minor note, I’ve been on the cover a few times, which was never my intention of course, but only to tell a bigger City story. But now there have been two named John Hawkins to grace our cover – ITA’s John Hawkins is the second! Glad to share with you, the other John Hawkins!
I want to give a quick shoutout, as I do when I run across a longtime City veteran retiring, to John E. Mandry of Public Works, who’s leaving with an amazing 52 years of City service. Awesome!
So until next month, keep safe, be good to your family, and I wish you all the best as we slowly get back to normal.
— John
