FREMONT, Calif. – State Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi told a gathering of Indian Americans here that he will take their advice on matters relating to their community should he become lieutenant governor.

For this, he said, he will set up an Indian American Advisory Committee, with people “drawn from a broad spectrum” of the community serving on it.

“That title of lieutenant governor has the best sound system in the state,” the veteran politician told those who attended a dinner reception hosted for him by community activist Jeevan Zutshi, and his wife, Usha, in their hillside home.

“What I want to do, I can’t do alone. In order to inform, and help determine what is the best course to take” on issues affecting the state’s residents, “I will need your help.”

Garamendi went on to say that he wants “to use the office of lieutenant governor like it has never been done before to drive public policy” in such areas as education, consumer protection, business, research and the environment.

But it was on health care that the commissioner dwelt on the most, an issue, he asserted, that was “crucial to California,” and in which he has invested a great deal of time.

Calling it one of the ills of society, he warned that if something were not done soon to remedy health care policy, it would collapse. Already, southern California has seen “a meltdown of the health care system.”