By Supervisor Zach Friend
Earlier this month, the Board of Supervisors held a special meeting with our state and federal legislative delegation to discuss our legislative priorities for the coming year. Congressman Jimmy Panetta, State Senator Bill Monning, Assemblymember Mark Stone and Assemblymember Robert Rivas joined to hear from the Board and community and also share their goals for the coming year.
The legislative priorities, while by no means comprehensive, provide a list of immediate and emergent needs in the County that could be addressed through legislative action this coming year. They are informed by the County’s Strategic Plan, which was shaped by significant community input. What are some of the state and federal priorities that were outlined?
State Legislative Priorities
Our 2020 legislative priorities for our state delegation focused on a wide-ranging set of issues including homelessness, the opioid crisis, PG&E and the power shutoffs and the declining markets for recycled materials. Here are some of the specific requests that were discussed with our state leaders.
The County supports legislation providing direct access to State armories for counties through California to address homelessness, including making them available as year-round shelters. In our county the local armory, which was previously available as a shelter, has been made unavailable for various reasons and this legislation would allow it to reopen as an important option.
Given the significant impacts the opioid crisis has on our community the County supports funding for Drug Medi-Cal services and access to substance use disorder services, including Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT ) and withdrawal management. The state provides this type of programmatic funding and the County was supporting an expansion of what’s available.
Additionally, there were discussions around our support of reimbursement for counties and other local governments for costs associated with PG&E’s power shutoffs. From preparation and outreach to services to medically vulnerable adults, shelters and more the County was requesting that funds be made available for these expenses and also that local governments have increased input on PG&E’s governance, structure, wildfire management plans and more.
Federal Legislative Priorities
Our 2020 legislative priorities for our federal partners focused on a variety of issues that included flood protection and control, storm damage repair (and road repair), Medicaid waivers and more. Here are the specifics we discussed with Congressman Panetta and were also shared with our other federal legislative partners.
Given the flooding from the Pajaro River, and the inadequacy of the levee system along the Pajaro, the County has been working for decades to get funding for the rebuild of the system. One of the greatest sticking points to this has been the way that the Army Corps and others calculate the benefits associated with projects in low-income communities. As such, the County supports changing funding formulas to more equitably determine the costs and benefits of flood control projects in communities such as the Pajaro Valley, which has inadequate protections due to systems and project analyses that favor wealthy communities.
With the storm damage to our local roads the County supports restoring flexibility and increasing timelines and funding for local governments to complete emergency repairs funded via the Federal Highway Administration or FEMA on disaster relief funding projects. This change would allow for the many projects that were damaged in 2017 to be under construction very soon.
On the health care side, the County discussed Medicaid changes. Since the federal government has the ability to issue waivers (or amendments) to Medicaid state plans, the County supports changes that would allow for housing to be included in the reimbursable scope of services for beneficiaries with complex health challenges. Allowing secure, supportive housing would provide a significant benefit for those experiencing these health challenges in our community.
This is just an overview of the priorities that were discussed. Our delegation was supportive of many of our priorities and provided helpful insight into the process to move some of them forward.
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As always, I appreciate hearing your feedback. Please feel free to join me during my open office hours in Aptos, Corralitos, Watsonville or Seascape or give me a call at 454-2200.