Recognizing the Departure of the Honorable Marie Brizuela After 41 Remarkable Years As A Trustee on the Jefferson Elementary School Board

Floor Speech

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Ms. SPEIER. Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize my friend and colleague school board trustee Marie Brizuela as she departs public service after forty-one remarkable years in elective office.

As noted on the district's website, ``The Jefferson Elementary School District serves Pre-Kindergarten through 8th grade students from four contiguous areas in San Mateo County--the city of Daly City, the Town of Colma, unincorporated Broadmoor Village, and a small section of the city of Pacifica . . . the population of the four communities has a wide socio-economic, ethnic, and cultural diversity.''

Marie Brizuela is the ``Guardian in Chief of the School District.'' For forty-one years, she has been entrusted by her community with guiding the education of its students. She has been passionate in her advocacy during her entire time on the school board. During my service in the California legislature, Marie was a regular caller, letter writer and advocate for school funding. She knows the impact of every dollar sent by California to her school district. She is intimately familiar with California's complex laws on school finance, staffing and board governance. When you walk into a library and you can't immediately find what you want to locate, you go to the reference librarian. When you are elected to the state legislature and need to know something about the schools, you go to Marie Brizuela.

The Kent Awards are a countywide award for innovative school programs. Her fellow trustees from San Mateo County routinely selected Marie as a member of the team that determined who would receive this annual, prestigious, award. Her fellow trustees selected her as a representative to the California School Boards Association. She was a member of the district's personnel committee, the member-parent involvement committee, and the executive board of the PTA.

Marie is also an adult education teacher in a nearby district. She has also served as a member of the California School Employees Association and on its board.

As if all of this was not enough, Marie has owned a dance academy and served as Wardrobe Mistress at St. Ignatius High School.

It is unusual for a person to hold two elective positions but nothing about Marie is typical. Her neighbors in Broadmoor Village elected her to the Broadmoor Police Protection Commission and she served as Secretary of the Broadmoor Property Owners Association. She was president of the Friends of the Daly City Library, Secretary of the History Guild of Daly City, and Past President of Westlake Catholic Women and the Daly City Civic Ballet, as well as the Mission Merchants Association. Somewhere in this whirlwind of activity across more than four decades she also found time to be a wife and mother. I want to thank her husband, Robert, and her children Anna Marie, Robbie, Angela, and Andrea for their willingness to share Marie with the community throughout her time in public and volunteer positions.

The community served by the Jefferson Elementary School District is composed of working and professional families who love the sense of belonging that comes with living in their neighborhood. Marie is a person widely regarded with respect and affection because she is singularly focused on building community.

On most days, the fog of Daly City and Broadmoor reliably burns off or moves offshore and the sunshine arrives. Marie Brizuela reliably shows up and volunteers or raises her hand to be sworn into public office. Both the predictable weather and Marie are welcomed by residents as leading indicators that the community is operating well. We thank her for her friendship and the enormous respect she has shown to others through her willingness to sacrifice on their behalf. If she's taking a break at her age, it's only to allow others to lead. They would do well to follow her outstanding example.

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