 So we're here for the Supervisoral Candidate Forum on Child Health and Nutrition. It's been so graciously hosted by the Go For Health in the United Way of Santa Cruz County. So we're going to be asking these candidates a series of questions. They have a minute to answer. After I get to the fifth question today, and I'll remind you, we're going to be taking questions from the audience. So I believe there's some cards that are going to be passed out sometimes throughout this morning. Please write legibly. I have a hard time reading my own writing. So if you don't write well, please print. Don't write incursive. I'm not going to try to guess. I will not ask your question if I can't read it. All right. So question one for you guys. Since 2001, California has had labor code 1030-1033 that requires employers to provide space and time for mothers to express breast milk at work. Few employers know about that law, and if elected, how would you support employers to know and promote the law? Remember, one minute. Eric, I'll just start. I'm rich. Rich McKinnon, sorry. As far as this law, I have a small business, and I would definitely understand the concerns and issues involved around this issue. As far as getting the word out, I would start some sort of an online direct mail and some sort of a television campaign to educate the other business owners in my district so that they can be aware of this program and make it easier for women who are pregnant and breastfeeding to have the capability to do this at work. Thank you. My bad. I'm a little nervous, not usually, but I'm going to go ahead and introduce each one of these guys real quick so that everybody knows who we're talking to. I'm Rich McKinnon, second district. Thank you. Zach Frens, second district. John Leopold, county supervisor from the first district. Gary Richard Arnold, first district man against machine. Bruce McPherson, candidate for the fifth district supervisor. Aaron Cameron, candidate for the fifth district supervisor. Perfect, guys. Thanks. So Zach, if you want to go ahead and take that question first, please. Thank you, Danny. I see that you could do three things here. I think the first thing is that the county itself should actually create, in essence, a model lactation support program for its own employees as sort of the lead. And I think number two, both the federal programs that are associated with this that provide resource kits to add both advocates and to businesses, we could probably leverage the support of both Dominican and Sutter at the county level and some of the experts that are associated with those institutions for county-wide businesses. And I think the third thing would be, I was actually thinking about this last night, I was thinking that the same way that the county does green business certification, which is really just an awareness program, we could do a similar thing for businesses that do lactation support programs for its employees, which is an awareness or a recognition program, some sort of certification program that the county takes the lead on that helps increase awareness. Thank you, Zach. Well, good morning and first I want to thank you for inviting us to participate in today's forum. With the passage of this bill, the county set about to create a lactation policy, which now means that we, it's clear that women are allowed to take the break when they need to, to express breast milk. And we've also created a place where they can do it safely and privately, that's not a restroom. I think that that's an important part of what needs to happen, but we're also part of a larger breastfeeding collaborative, and we're working with our public health staff to educate the community about this. And we may need to do more as I look at one of my commissioners on the Women's Commission, this may be a great idea for our Women's Commission to help in sort of the public advocacy and education about this. I look forward to working with the community on it. Gary Richard Arnold. I think we've got scores of nonprofits in the area. Many of them feature emphasis on women. And I think in the same places where they post the wages and all the other information for employers, it would be nice to have probably some printers print up something that's fairly attractive, reminding them that this is now law. And I think with the organizations making visits like this, it would be coming as a friendly reminder for them. They'd be much more encouraged to adopt or easily adopt it. And it could be reiterated or followed up every 18 or every two years or so just to make sure that it stays on top of their agenda. Thank you. I want to thank United Way for having this and the other agencies as well. United Way, which I've been a member of the board of directors or a donor to for all my life. And I think this is a matter of the county setting example. We should be ones that are out front in this and make it to be very visible to the public that this is what we're promoting in the county. But secondly, I think it's a matter of communication with the private sector. I think that we need to coordinate our activities with the local business councils, the chambers of commerce, and those who own and operate those businesses to explain the law because I just don't think it's well known enough. And I think it's a matter of communication that we lead the way to let people know what is required of them. And I think that we should lead by example in the county. I think it's about, again, communication and education. I'm a small business owner and when laws change, or regulatory laws change, I have letters in my mailbox. I'm bombarded with them. So it's like, you know, how can you miss it? I think that we need to partner with other outside agencies like that so that mailers can go out and information can be provided to business owners. But then again, I think we need to outreach to that business community to show them ways and teach them ways in which their business can provide a safe place and provide the program that women need. On top of that, I'm president of the business association and I think outreaching and coming and giving a talk in front of my business association to all the small businesses that are part of it would be fantastic. And throw in all the chambers. You're going to outreach to a lot of small businesses that way. Thank you. All right. Well, congratulations. You made it through your first question. I'm going to go ahead and mention the co-sponsors at this time, sponsored by WIC. First five, Go For Health, Child Care Planning Council, Second Harvest Food Bank, and the Central Coast School Food Alliance. Go ahead and jump up. I would, while we have Mr. Rivas taking the stage, I would just have to say some of the ideas that I would imagine employing would be definitely getting in front of chamber. That's a good place. A lot of businesses, you know, go to that and it's a good opportunity to discuss those kind of things. Welcome to the panel. Yeah. No problem. So do we want to give him a chance to answer question number one, since he hasn't had a chance to do that? Okay. So I'll reread that for you, Mr. Rivas. Since 2001, California has had labor code 1030-1033 that requires employers to provide space and time for mothers to express breast milk at work. Few employers know about the law and if elected, how would you support employers to know and promote the law? You have one minute. One of the things that we have done in the city of Watsonville is to be able to provide more information in regards to the law, to the business community. One of the things that we did in Watsonville we did a march to be able to promote that kind of providing information and resources that we have within our city. So as a county supervisor, we'll do the same thing, provide that information. So to the business, to the school community as well has the areas that need to be done. Something that we need to do more as a county to provide more resources and information throughout the community. It's something that we'll do more closely in the city of Watsonville and I'll continue to do that. To ensure that we continue to do that. Thank you very much. Okay, we'll be moving on to question number two. Santa Cruz County has a documented shortage of quality and affordable childcare options and proposed state budget cuts further place some current programs in jeopardy of closing, leaving families leaving working families with less safe and affordable care options. How would you help support quality and affordable care programs for working families? And we'll just start with Rich, please. Mr. McKinnis. As a previous latch key kid myself I'm well aware of the lack of childcare options and I would do whatever it takes not to cut any current or government funding that's currently in place for childcare options and I would explore alternative options and try to fund those options as well so that we can have more options out there and more providers and fathers out there raising the family. Thank you. I think, you know, as a county we had to be more proactive in providing quality childcare. What I mean in quality care is that we've been able to write licensed childcare centers. Like, you know, we have a beautiful example like the Head Start programs and the Migraine Head Start programs that provide a lot of quality childcare. One of the things that it's important that we try to like, you know, the program that we have it's very important because we provide the stimulation and socialization of children outside the home that is very important because they will be ready for school. That's something that we, we as an educator we can be able to do that. I think it's important that we continue to provide along with that the nutritional meals, education and learning and hopefully bilingual education with the childcare. Another concern I have is the teen pregnancy that we have is a big concern within our Latino community. We need to provide more health help that we have in Watsonville High School, a couple of colleges so we can provide working mothers to provide, you know, childcare so they can be able to provide, you know, get the jobs get the education at the same time we can be able to provide that childcare. It's very important for me to continue that. Thank you. Mr. Friend, please. Actually this issue occurred in my own family. Both my sisters in law were faced with what I really see as a false choice after they had their children they had to make a decision because of the high cost of childcare whether they would be able to rejoin the labor force and they actually were unable to which is an unfortunate thing that they were even forced with this choice. And as I thought about it I realized that I think the discussion of childcare needs to leave sort of economic development. I mean the reality is that people are being forced to make legitimate economic decisions and if you elevate it to an economic development discussion as opposed to is this just part of a community program or just part of a social service and unfortunately those tend to be treated at a different scale than those in economic development then I think that the entire discussion can actually change and I think if we start looking at early education programs and what economic return that has and childcare options and early health programs we actually get on that that it will totally change the discussion and change the context by which we are even having this debate. Thanks. Santa Cruz County is the third most expensive region in the country to live in so it is imperative that we have a quality childcare system here in Santa Cruz County and it's imperative that local government support our childcare system. I participated in the county's task force on community programs which is a significant amount of research which really showed significant gaps in our county where quality childcare was not available. I believe that we need to work to close those gaps. I was disappointed that the board chose not to continue on with that community program process and I look to restart that with a new board I also think that we need to work with other partners like the 5 commission to help provide funding and we need to make sure that as I've done for the past three years on the board of supervisors to fight for funding for our community programs and not let it slide any further than it already has we need to support programs that support families. Gary Richard Arnold I think in addition to being just an economic decision it's a human decision and we've seen what's happened in the inner cities where the man was driven from the family. I think we need to use our neighbors, our relatives and our friends. We have an emergency care training over here by the Dominican hospital. They have a babysitter program that qualifies young girls to watch over your children. I think this would be the way to go. Again turning the children more and more over to the state is disrupting for their future and in this way you've got your friends, your neighbors and the child is at home and I would encourage that as a remedy. Gary Richard Arnold With the state budget cuts that we have and the ones that fall down also on the county we need to do the best we can with our own limited resources and we're doing a very good job with what it does have. We are fortunate to have a wide range of non-profit agencies who address these issues and we're fortunate to have the human care alliance of 50-some agencies who coordinate activities as best they can for an efficient and effective process. We have to rely more on them and as I suggested in a previous form give them a floor that they don't have any lower than this and this is going to be something that you have to discuss in budget discussions. The fact of the matter is with the economy that we have in our world today two worker families it's a common thing and there's more need for child care than ever and we ought to see what we can do the best way we can do to provide that. Being a father of six and a half year old twins and having a 14 year old teenager child care is a huge issue for us so I've seen it right up front and what families go through especially when we had young babies and an eight year old going to school I think that Santa Cruz actually isn't just doing a good job they've set the bar in the state we have an organization called Child Care Planning Council that has done a strategic plan they have seen some of the shortfalls that are going to be coming and they have a plan to work to work with this community to do the outsourced in the program and it's necessary. What is unfortunate is 97% of the kids that are eligible through the census that show need child care and need support are not getting, those needs aren't getting met. We really need to work harder in this community to help that 97% and get them the education that they need. Thank you. Alright so we're going to mix things up a little bit we're going to start jumping around with the candidates now that you guys are all comfortable just in case you've just walked in my name is Danny Keith I'm the moderator for this panel discussion today it's the Supervisoral Candidate Forum on Child Health and Nutrition hosted by Go For Health in the United Way of Santa Cruz County co-sponsored by WIC Cal Care Planning Council, Second Harvest Food Bank and Central Coast School Food Alliance so my next question I'm going to be starting with Mr. Arnold and I'll be selecting people randomly so be prepared and on your toes question number three despite significant outreach efforts our county is ranked 45th out of 58 counties in California in terms of CalFresh participation by income eligible persons what will you do as a supervisor to boost countywide participation in CalFresh which is formally food stamps well I encourage those who are investigating this learn from those who are not collecting the food stamps and try to trim the program back I don't think welfare is beneficial in the long run it's merely a transfusion from your neighbors into a welfare program the biggest welfare program we've got going to Social Security which is neither social nor secure those monies go directly to the Federal Reserve banks they don't even go into the general spending of fun that the Congress uses and they've spent every cent of that has disappeared they've never put it aside for you any way shape or form so I think welfare is a trap I think there should be an underlying safety net and it should be used for families only alright Mr. Hammer would you please take this question sure I think as I've stated before it's about information and education it's getting the word out to the communities and to the people that there is assistance available with my experience working with Mountain Community Resource Center which is a family resource center that has drop-in facilities that house several of the nonprofits that we've been discussing you know it's having outreach in those areas you know we've got seven family resource centers out there that are helping to spread the word that there is support available but I think you need to go a lot further than that I think you need to partner with businesses I think you need to partner with schools you need to partner with state agencies to give out education and on top of that you need to take away the stigma about welfare and aid that it's okay to get help it's okay to buy food, nutritious food for your families without public ridicule around it thank you alright thank you very much Mr. Friend would you mind taking this question please well anytime you're in the bottom quartile of something I think it's time to look at some of the barriers to access to the information in the program and I think that one of the things it's a pretty cumbersome process to actually apply for anybody who's been through it as members of my family actually have and I think that one of the things that we can do is permit technology to more quickly and efficiently allow you to understand whether you qualify for the benefits as well as allow for the communication between county HHS to the applicant which is currently something you cannot do electronically but it's a system associated with it that's an unfortunate cultural thing that I think needs to stop but I believe just as far as barriers to access the technological improvements in and of itself I think would significantly improve and streamline the application process for people in communications process thanks great Mr. McPherson please I have to agree with I do agree with the that we need better communication on how a family I think part of the answer could be that some of the private agencies that the non-profit agencies I should say excuse me are doing such a great job of providing food for our county residents I don't know exactly how that plays into it but the second harvest food bank Gray Bears they collect and distribute thousands of pounds of food and about 20 years ago we had three people in agriculture three and Tim Driscoll said they would coordinate an ag against hunger program here in that time they have they have delivered 200 million pounds of food to our county residents there to be applauded for that we need to encourage more people to do it but we have an agricultural community that is very aware of it and we should be appreciative of what they do for us thank you very much Mr. Leopold please thank you it is completely unacceptable that we fall 45th on the list of 58 in our county one in four people are on some form of public assistance we need to do a better job of making sure that they have access to all the resources that are out there we need to make sure that we can simplify registration we need to do effective outreach we need to increase our collaboration with our community based organizations who are working with people in need we've got to make sure that people have access to information and it's easy to apply we have to take advantage of every time people interact with either county government or local community based organizations in order to ensure that they have access to resources that are available to help them and their family our health services agency and our human services department are working together to do outreach nutrition but we all have a responsibility of ourselves and as county government as a whole to make sure that we're reaching out to people especially those who are in need and vulnerable to make sure they have access to healthy food Mr. Evis please it's very disappointing that the county hasn't done enough like Leopold said that the emphasis has been done in different areas one of the things that we need to do is like to do more outreach one of the things that has an educator at the high school level we're able to do working with the schools as they apply for free lunches we can be able to understand and comprehend who they are it's important that we work with the schools with the business community as well and the nonprofits to be able to do one of the things that we really do in the city of Watsonville we go to the farmers market as they go along with it and provide that access to be the community and asking questions and sometimes they can be able to get the food spent you can be able to trade your food stamps there to buy nutritional meals in the farmers market I think it's important to continue to do outreach work with the community as the county government will have to go and also to do more bilingual information for a Latino community it's very important to do that because I think our Latino community are very proud to ask for food stamps sometimes and they need it our seniors also they need to be provided to get more information that it's important that we provide that outreach as much as we can thank you Mr. McGinnis please yes if I'm elected I would promote a county outreach program in order to educate and reach the families who qualify but currently are not participating in the program this program would consist of community TV radio and direct mail advertising to get to these folks and I think the main goal the program would be to try to reduce the stigma of accepting help from your county government in terms of CalFresh or food stamps what it used to be called because I think that's probably the big issue to overcome thank you alright I just want to remind everybody that we are currently recording this for TV community television will be broadcasting this at a later date you need to check communityTV.org that's Peter McEdigan over there filming and I'll be honest that question was a hard one for me not to want to jump up and answer being in the social service game it definitely is a stigma situation and I appreciate everybody's input and willingness to continue to work on this problem we have in the county I'm going to go to question number four now still going to pull the round robin so be on your toes as a supervisor I have a question how will you assist local schools in preparing and providing more nutritious meals to students and how would you engage local farmers in the effort to improve school meals I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Friend on this one well I was fortunate to attend recently an event that the secretary of agriculture put on in Salinas regarding exactly this we really need to expand the farm to school program because farmers need to understand what's going on from a childhood nutrition standpoint schools need to understand what's actually happening to the family farmer I think if you grow these two links you can have some pretty remarkable benefits if you think about it kids will have access to more nutritious food it'll also be less expensive and connected in with their local environment schools will also be able to benefit their local farms as many of you know there's a significant threats to county and regional farmland and this is something that I think that if you can develop this is something actually at the national level they're starting to take a lead on so I don't see any reason why at the county level we couldn't do the exact same thing thank you and I just want to remind everyone that these questions were provided by our co-sponsors our co-sponsors today were our WIC first five go for health child care planning council second harvest food bank and the central coast school food alliance I'm going to go ahead and turn to Mr. McPherson for this question please we have to coordinate our efforts with the school districts that are independent governing agencies as we know we and we also need to start at home with every one of us here we need to educate the parents of the value of a nutritional meal for their children and really warn them of the terrible consequences that we face last night I was asked what is the biggest problem facing our youth or children and I said obesity because this used to be rare diabetes type 2 used to be a rare occurrence now it is getting 1 in 3 in the nation and it's more than that in this county this can lead to very serious serious consequences and the health services that we provide in the future the more important of that to the health care for our children we need to educate ourselves we need to expand our education efforts to the school districts and I am confident as the agriculture community has done in the past they will coordinate their efforts and get into this game and help us face this problem Mr. Rivas Yes I just really very proud to HHS mayor to do the Hovenesanos we set up a subcommittee with our city of Watsonville and the city of Watsonville to be able to attack the obesity within our city Hovenesanos is a youth program that are able to work in different areas and we are able to combat that we set up this subcommittee and then we pass that ordinance in the sense we work with with the business community so we are able to provide nutritional meals nutritional food products within our city this is what I would like to continue to work with the youth so we can be able to fight this obesity within ourselves and also it's very important that we won a national award for Hovenesanos for the things that we have done in the city of Watsonville I will continue to do that as a counter supervisor the other thing is that as part of the Pajaro Valley help for us we are able to do also to provide funding for nutritional food to fight the obesity diabetes in the heart disease which is an epidemic within our county and the last one is we are very part of it to be able to get that grant go help grant and which I wrote the letter to get that grant within our county it's very proud to have that grant for the whole county thank you for that thank you Mr. Rivas remind the panelists to please try to stick to the minute go ahead Mr. Hammer please take that question I am going to address that a little more locally Bowdoin Creek Elementary where my kids attend there was a group of parents up there in the last year, two years we are working with the school district to provide better lunches to look at upon themselves to create a group to partner with some local organic growers to bring in and work with a cook and started making a meal a week I believe it was of fresh vegetables and fresh foods and it was perceived really well with the students and with parents I think you are going to need to see more action like that because you need to also educate at home you know we just went to the dentist this week and the dentist said hey you need to cut back the amount of milk that you are serving your kids because of the high content of sugar it is amazing where we find sugar and we have to be able to talk to parents and talk to school and change our entire concept around nutrition huge changes need to take effect thank you Mr. Leopold thank you I think there is really three parts to this one is that the health services needs to work with our food services director at our local schools to make sure that they promoting healthy foods and also pilots some project like in class breakfast or other creative ways in order to get healthy foods to people I believe that you know if you have universal school lunch where you didn't have to qualify for it and there was a stigma to who gets free lunch or not it would be a go a long way but we also need to support actions like the central coast school food alliance which came together a couple years back to look at this very issue and to work with local farmers non-profit organization school district to figure out how we get good healthy food to our kids lastly we need to think about the investments we make as county government and make sure that we are investing in those things that support healthy eating and I'll just give you a little bit more detail on that I think that county recently was able to apply for CDBG funding and we applied for the passion for produce program and second is we're investing in a new boys and girls club in live oak which will have a demonstration kitchen and I've already reached out to Jamie Smith from the Santa Cruz City schools who's also live oak resident to think about how we can do programming to be able to support children and families I remember when I was in elementary school and I was in a government program that provided free lunches to low income families and I've never forgotten hot dog Mondays and taco Tuesdays that we had at the school I think it's important that all of our kids get three square meals a day whether they get it at home or at school or somewhere by our government because that helps them to concentrate and learn and that's one of the main basis of a healthy kid but I do think those meals need to be a lot better and a lot fresher than the meals I was served as a kid so I would definitely reach out to our local farmers and try and provide them with access to get their foods into our schools so that we could basically like Zach said use our local produce in our local schools and I think it would be a nice little circle to have both of those industries come together and provide great lunches for our kids, thank you Thank you, Mr. Arnold please Yeah Good Lord, we've got three meals a day we got school itself we got after school, we got babysitting we might as well get the bunks raise the North Korean flag, let the people abandon their children to the Board of Supervisors let us sit here as a Soviet and take care of your children for you because they are outrageous I'd rather see a kid home, hungry and free than what these people are advocating because they have to dictate all of this stuff to the parents they have to steal from their neighbors in order to do this there is no state money there is no federal money the money comes from you government has no money the only money they have is what they take from the people themselves you're going to be like Gulliver tied up with all of these various rules it's outrageous, it's an attack against freedom many of these mandates are coming through and they have a contract with the World Bank called ICLEI you need to know about that ICLEI sets a protocol for the policy decisions by the Board of Supervisors okay alright, I just want to remind everybody that we're here for the Supervisor of Candidate Forum on Child Health and Nutrition Go for Health in the United Way of Santa Cruz County co-sponsored by WIC First Five, Go for Health, Child Care Planning Council Second Harvest Food Bank and Central Coast School Food Alliance now we're on our last question for the day I would implore people to please fill out a card if you'd like to have me answer a question we're going to be selecting a couple questions for the panelists to answer and we'll be moving into that fifth question just a little footnote on the old School Food Alliance program that's going on, apparently Second Harvest Food Bank has been working with these guys to distribute thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and produce to the schools at no cost so there's no taxpayer dollars that are going towards that I'm going to go ahead and ask the fifth question if elected as Supervisor you will be a Commissioner on the Regional Transportation Commission what will you do in that role to support and promote safe routes to schools and parks and regular use of active transportation in our county I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Leopold on this one Thank you In 2009 I led a community planning effort around our redevelopment funds that brought out 500 people and one of the five goals they were interested was safe routes for walking and biking we made investments with our final redevelopment dollars to support safe access from Soquel High down to Soquel Village from the Yacht Harbor over to Seventh Avenue on East Cliff Drive to continue to do that work I think it's also critically important that we complete the purchase of the rail line and create the rail trail that many county residents are interested in about three quarters of our population lives within a half mile of the railroad tracks there are 12 schools on that rail line if we can get a good rail trail going that becomes a place where kids can bike and walk to get to school and to get home safely in an active way rather than having to depend on some other form of transportation Thank you Mr. Hammer I look forward to sitting on the RTC and when you take a look at what's needed as far as bike lanes and bike paths and walking paths and outside recreation I've been working locally on those issues now I'm working with people power to put a safe route to school up at Santa Rosa Valley we've had two working meetings and we are doing outreach and starting to involve more of the community I helped with Boulder Creek Parks and Rec build a new playground facility and park in Boulder Creek we did a $375,000 renovation and when we drive by there every day now you're seeing after school programs meeting at that park and playing on the equipment running around the track you see youth soccer and I'm talking under 5 youth soccer for young kids just getting them involved and motivated in sports and sports programming at a young age so those are just two examples of what I'm currently working on thank you Mr. Arnold Yes the community is really rich in senior citizens and activists such as yourselves we have plenty of computer text and I think a coordination for zoning guards and people at the various parks and so forth could be accomplished and I think that's one way to address safety at the parks and the walkways Mr. McKinnis Yeah I will continue to support existing transportation options available today and I would also look to add other options as well such as the rail trail and Highway 1 because I was stuck on Highway 1 on my way here today from Aptos and all those other options would leave people with several different ways that they could get down to my business down at the Sea Breeze Tavern in Aptos so I'm big for transportation and I want to thank you guys for all the opportunity to speak today thanks Mr. McPherson Yeah I've had discussions with the safe routes to schools program as well and that is something that we need to do in the future we need to promote alternate forms of transportation from bikes for age appropriate children to walking more to school and to better utilize our bus system years ago many of our children went to school on a bus today we have many more children but we have fewer bus routes I think the immediate concern there is that we have probably well over 1,500 to 1,700 school children going to the Valley campus and most of them are driving themselves or being driven and there's a parking light two times a day on Highway 9 I think that we need to work with our public transit system which is underutilized and until it increases ridership it's highly unlikely that the number of routes will be increased I do think that we can have a win-win situation here and have more people take public transit including our students to school Thank you Mr. Rivas Yes guys as a former transportation commissioner with the Santa Cruz County one of the things that we have done in our city of Watsonville Pajaro Unified School there was one of the things that was part of our plan as the mayor of the city of Watsonville we were able to locate that Pajaro Unified School to be a walking community you can say 70% of our students walk to school and also Rowling Hills Middle School you can be that's the intent of part of the livable community's plan that we adopted as the city council and the city of Watsonville to have more walking community same way Pajaro Unified School districts are a great way of working with the government and as well as our schools and our district it's important that we continue to provide that kind of service the service that we provide for bus routes we need to do more of that as a county supervisor continue to to continue to do the to do the livable community's plan for the county because it's a great plan that we have adopted in our city of Watsonville and needs to be adopted of the county level thank you Mr. Rivas Mr. Friend please well this is one of the most common questions if not the most common question I get asked there aren't safe routes to school in my district in fact there aren't safe routes for candidates to precinct walk in my district either and I think that in part a lot of this has to do with I agree with Supervisor Leopold about bringing together the right people and the second component is sort of ending the either or mentality that's been focused on so much so at the transportation funding level at the county which is that we've kind of created a lot of false choices of you can either do highway improvements where you can fix the local roads you can either fund the metro or you can build sidewalks and I think realistically we need to look at a holistic approach to these things because it just simply is not a safe route right now for kids and we need to end that discussion of either or in that way and I think if we do that with a priority standpoint we can make a significant difference all right we've come to the conclusion of the prepared questions I'm going to move into the community questions I just want to thank the candidates for their time I'm going to go ahead and move into the first question from the audience this is a I'm not sure if this is a statement you guys will go ahead and address it on nonetheless so like I said this is more of a statement than a question youth voice and empowerment health does not start in the hospital but in the community the California endowment what will you do okay sorry what will you do or have done in your district and countywide towards the end of gosh this is really hard to read there's I told you not to write in cursive I tell people not to write in cursive there are 600 existing faith-based and non-profits here in Santa Cruz County what is wanted and needed from your insights and strategies to involve youth and how do you plan on solving this for healthy communities does that make sense to you guys okay who's question was it okay maybe you could clarify question as I best can basically what I believe he's asking is how are we helping youth to be part of this solution so I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Rivas on this one yeah one thing that we have done is for us almost 30% of our city Watsonville our youth one of the things that we have done is I have brought the mayor of Watsonville we have brought the city council members to have a city council meeting at the high school and something that we need to do that to bring government to the youth because so they can be able to participate it was great to the questions of our youth participation and what happened with that is that now our youth comes to to the council is a government and economic station one of the requirements is to go to the city council members so they can get involved and understand and comprehend what's going on with city government and also we have involved a lot of the ideas ordinance like one of the things that the ordinance that they provided to us and we implemented is the no smoking van and parks as well that's very important for us and they brought to us that ordinance and we passed it and now we have no smoking at the parks that's the involvement that we like to do and we had to do it at the county level two to bring those to bring the county a government to the schools so they can understand and comprehend what the county government does and do for our community thank you Mr. Rivas Mr. Arnold please yeah I don't think the you should be mandated with having to volunteer and be involved I think they need to create their own traction by studying hard understanding their own power and creating their own life I think the government should get the hell out of their way and stop trying to control to make them behave in a way that the government thinks they should behave we're abusing our children by trying to shape them in every way shape and form alright Mr. Friend please I was recently speaking to a group of high school students and I asked them a simple question why is it that you don't vote these were seniors in Santa Cruz High and they said well nobody none of the elected officials speak about any of our issues and I said no the elected officials speak about your issues because you don't vote and it occurred to me that there is a real feeling with youth and it's fair and looking up here it's sort of reflected that there isn't really necessarily an interest in youth and politics that you really speak down to people as opposed to include people within the process I mean I've worked for the last basically the last decade in local law enforcement I've seen what the unfortunate end results of failures in a lot of programs can be and I've seen the need to we're talking very early intervention 10, 11, 12 year olds are getting involved in some very serious things and until we recognize that they are a part of the process and we don't speak down to them and decide that our policy is their policy but their policy should be our policy we're going to continue to have this as a cyclical problem thank you Mr. McKinnis please Yeah I would I would reach out to both Cabrillo and the UCSC system as well as both our middle and high schools to educate our youth and get them involved in our community on all levels because I think the earlier that you get the kids participating in our local government as well as all the programs available in our county the better you have a chance to get them involved even when it goes back to non-profit and volunteering etc. I think if it's something kids are doing at a younger age it'll it'll impact them as they move on through life and grow older thank you Mr. Hammer I think youth empowerment is extremely important and there's a certain section of the youth that really enjoy it you can't force everybody into it but through peer pressure positive peer pressure people get involved when we had youth first we had a youth advisory board that helped steer our programs and we gave the kids the input that they gave us the input that was needed on what they wanted in their community if you take a look at the skate park that was built at Highlands the youth were very much involved in the design concept and making that happen if you take a look at San Lorenzo Valley High School they have a diversity club that is phenomenal it speaks to so many different issues out that teens and kids are going through every day and they're young leaders you know I went to two of their events and the energy in that room they reach out and they are looked upon as huge role models within their school and they're getting statewide recognition for that so you start empowering a few and that will spread Mr. Leopold thank you I think the job of any elected official is to reach out to his constituency and engage them in local government as a county supervisor when we've done community planning I reached out and work with local schools and community-based organizations to get young people involved in planning what our community should look like and we had over a hundred people participate in the redevelopment planning process and not surprisingly they wanted similar things that the older adults wanted but they didn't want it all in one place parents liked it all in one place and one stop young people wanted to spread out across the community and we worked to accomplish that the Boys and Girls Club were looking at another community center in the Pleasure Point area as well the other thing is that when we're planning facilities we need to engage young people so as we look to build Chanticleer Park we're working with the neighborhood to build the bike pump track when we design the skate park features we talk to local young people who are going to use that park to find out what it is they wanted that's an important part you can't just do what's sitting in your office you have to go out to the community and reach out and bring them into local government Mr. McPherson I've been walking door to door at every precinct in the 5th district sometimes a teenager will come to the door and say just a minute let me get my parents and I said before you get to them I want to talk with you because the important part for me in doing this and going door to door is to find out what's on your mind and what matters to you and in general that's what we have to do as county supervisors and just as school districts have a student member on their school boards many of them I think we should look at that kind of an outpouring of the youth in our respective districts and have them be engaged in the policy making process that we have in the county I think that's very important and it's very important just to show the students how valuable and important education is as well and we have two outstanding educational institutions here in Cabrillo College and UCSC and we should really tell them the value of that in getting an education given that there will be five men on the board of supervisors next year how will you be sure the perspectives of women are well represented at your meetings and in your decision making I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Hammer on this one I think it's through outreach I think partly my staff I would imagine I'm going to fill my staff with a couple of women because some of the smartest people around me that are helping me today are women and I understand that I also think that we have we in this county are very lucky we have a women's commission that is extremely strong and they're a huge advocate for equal rights for everybody and especially women and they've tasked the board of supervisors to collect data to go out to all the departments within the county and make sure that everybody is getting equal treatment equal pay and equal access to services and continue along that process and I would reach out to that commission to people like Sheila Delaney to make sure that that particular section of our community is represented, thank you all right who do I want to pick on now we'll go with Mr. Friend well for the first time in really recent history this is going to be the situation on the board of supervisors and I think it is something to be mindful of quite frankly I think that something my wife actually reminds me of all the time and I just simply think that I agree with Mr. Hammer on the outreach component but I also think that really what it is is you bring a set of values to the board I mean it doesn't matter the gender of the person that's elected quite frankly it has to do with a set of values there shouldn't be any particular litmus test when you vote for somebody but I think that it's essential that the people that are here are held accountable for and represent their district and I think that this is a very important one of them but I think that whoever is those of us that are fortunate enough to be elected that we recognize that this is the first time in recent history that such things occur to the board and it's something that we should be mindful and respectful of thank you Mr. McPherson I think it's interesting that you just have to be mindful of that and it begins at home with me with my wife of 44 years Mary and to recognize the interests of women throughout and I think it's significant we did have a woman who was a candidate for this seat in the 5th district she has dropped out of the race her name will be on the ballot but Susan Weber has endorsed me to be the county supervisor of the 5th district I think that says something for itself but I do think that we also have to be mindful that women probably make up the majority of our population and we need to really have the sensitivity of what are their concerns of them it is true that we don't have a woman on the board for quite some time or will not have after this election I think that's unfortunate but I do think the past record that I've had has shown me very sensitive to women's issues and I will continue to do so as county supervisor Mr. McInnes I'm just hoping that we see the kind of participation by women at the county supervisor meetings that we see here today I'm looking at an audience that's predominantly female and hopefully that will go forward as if I get elected to the supervisor I'll reach out to the female community and make sure that your voice is heard and is reflected in how I run the 2nd district I have my campaign manager who's a female, Tammy Davis and I would definitely look at adding her as one of my assistants so I think it's important that you're heard even though there won't be a female on the county supervisors you'll definitely have a voice within the county if I'm elected, thank you Mr. Leopold thank you I want to point out that although the board will be changing the gender make up the leadership in the county is strong with women, our county administrative officer our health services agency director our human services director and our planning director to just name a few are women and it's important to work with all of our departments and it's also important as a man to make sure that we are representing the needs of the entire community recently I brought some items to the board about expanding reproductive health options for women and last month I also brought something to the board at the suggestion of our women's commission to look at the decisions made by the county and make sure there aren't gender biases in those decision making process it came out of the women's commission status on women and girls in Santa Cruz county and it really showed that in a community like ours where we pride ourselves on being diverse and as a representative of everyone here there were still significant hurdles as a county supervisor we need to keep that in mind and work on that every day Thank you Mr. Rivas Yes for me Mary for 42 years wonderful woman and a registered nurse is something that it's important to me that women participate in any part of the decisions one of the things that has city council member and a lot of my commissions to appoint women in that area and my intent was to date themselves to be able to understand and be involved and also run for elected women so as a county supervisor I will do the same try to encourage and at the same time appoint women so they can be able to take this position as a county supervisor because we need to train so they can get involved as a county supervisor elected a position that is important that women can participate more and I think like Leopold said we have so beautiful, powerful women in the county government that are leading the agencies anyway so we have to work with them and they make a lot of decisions they make the recommendation to the county supervisor so that's something that we always take that information and mostly we have very professional with in our county and continue to do so going to turn this over to Mr. Arnold please generally I think the board has been gender blind which is fine women have the same earnings for self-government and liberty as men do and they have the same virtues and flaws as we do the thing if you'll note that the board usually votes 5 to nothing and they vote as a machine and that should be your concern okay we're going to move on to the next question I do want to remind the candidates to please pay attention to the time that's going on here and make sure that we give everybody equal time to speak we try to keep this to a minute I will not cut you off out of respect but I would ask that you give your counterparts equal opportunity many parts of Santa Cruz county has been designated as a food desert what would you do to help change this and I'm just going to go ahead and for the sake of everyone a food desert is when there's not exactly healthy nutritious food around a central location or around a neighborhood or it's highly inundated with not so healthy food I don't want to go into brands but just food that isn't necessarily what you would want people to eat if they're needing healthy nutritious food I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Arnold on this one yes I think that's changing it's going to change radically not only for California but the rest of the United States and it's involved with the labeling with the GMOs in the state of California I think merely that alone and this I think is a correct ability for most of our problems transparency and identification and I think that will have a very corrective thing going all the way to your 7-elevens Mr. McPherson I think that we have a very sensitive community in a lot of areas and I think our food and nutrition as I said then again to repeat again that the concern of obesity in our community in our state and our nation is huge and it's the long-term health care needs that we're going to have to provide those that get that diabetes comes upon them is going to be very very costly but more serious than that very personal and sensitive issue health issue for them we have as I want to repeat again we have an agricultural community here and having been the campaign food drive chairman for Second Harvest Food Bank a couple years and still being the advisory board chair of Second Harvest Food Bank I know for a fact that the agricultural community will cooperate with us in the best way possible to provide healthy nutritional foods for our youth and for our community as a whole thank you Mr. McPherson Mr. Rivas please yeah I think you know we have to continue to limit our fast food you know restaurants around our county but at the same time I think you know the Harvest Food Bank has been able to and working with the ag community be able to provide more nutritional foods to our community what I see and what we have policies and ordinance within within different areas I think it's important that we continue to provide those kind of areas and provide more information so our community can be more healthy as a county as Santa Cruz Mr. Hammer I think it starts with education at home about how to feed your kids and what's appropriate we need to take a look at changing what our kids look up to and their advertising we see Burger King McDonald's ads in and out burger which you know is good but really bad for you we call that sometimes food sometimes anyways we need to change the imaging around that because kids look up to that and that's where they want to go and it's also ease of access we need to change that that image in the San Lorenzo Valley we also are trying to help those people that need more nutritious foods if you take a look at the outreach and the pantries that are done at Valley Church is United and Mountain Caring Resource Center a lot of the food does come from Second Harvest which is fantastic but these are people that need nutritious foods and they're being provided by some of the non-profits but I think that we need to see on every corner little farmers markets we have enough organic growing and enough organic farmers that we need to provide those that's what you need to see on the street corners you don't need to see in and out and Taco Bell but they do bring in taxes as part of the problem so I think that's it thank you so much Commander McIntyre again and fortunately I grew up on fast food at school like I said we had Taco Tuesday and but I think as we change the food that's offered to our kids in school starting at an elementary school through middle school in high school they'll start to make money and they want to sell their products, but they'll sell what the community is looking for. So it really starts at a young age and then it goes from there. Thank you. Mr. Leopold. What we're really talking about here is land use planning and really thinking about what it is we want to see in our community. We are just about to undertake a new study on the Soquel Drive corridor, basically from the overpass near Dominican, all the way to Freedom Boulevard. This is a chance for us to envision what it is we'd like to see and make sure that there is good, healthy food access all along that corridor so people who live there can walk and access that food. We also have to avoid traveling on the low road of economic development. And I don't think the county should change its rules to allow drive through restaurants, but I can't tell you how many county bureaucrats, private landowners and others have come to me and say we should be competing for In-N-Out Burger. You see other local cities putting up Facebook pages in order to get one, but if we really care about what we're going to be eating and what we want our children to eat, we shouldn't make it easier for these outlets to open. We should really do some planning and describe what it is we want to see and make that happen. Mr. Friend. I agree with Mr. Leopold about this being fundamentally a land use issue, especially with a lot of the new development that's going to be going in. But secondly, this really is a shame. I mean, think about where we live. One of the reasons why I live here, and there's more agricultural land in the second district than any other district in the county, is for access to this food. This is exactly supporting the CSA, supporting the farmers markets. If you can build those relationships similar to the school question, if you can leverage the relationships and make it local and make it fresh and make it accessible and therefore fundamentally bring down the cost and benefit everybody that's involved, I think that you're going to see a significant change. I mean, it's totally changed the way that I eat growing up in Southern California versus growing up versus living here for the last 14 years. And I think that exactly that, both on land use and moving forward on the partnerships. I think you can have a significant impact on that. Thanks. Thank you. And I've had the opportunity, if you haven't, to fly over the county in a helicopter. You can actually see it's the seventh largest ag business in the world, right here in this county. So I really resonate with what you guys are saying. Unfortunately, this might be a question that's a little uncomfortable for Zach. I'm not sure if it's compliment or detriment. I was asked, are Zach and I twins? So I'll go ahead and take that. Mr. Friend, would you please? By the licks of the tattoos I can see on you? No. All my clothes will stay on, but I have no tattoos. I got them covered up. Anyway, sorry. I'd like to have a little bit of fun with the candidates and the panelists. Okay. I am an identical twin and I resent the twin exploitation that's going on here, but not to us. Just in case you didn't know, Zach and I will be running together for now. All right. So as I get to this last question, I just wanted to remind everybody what we're here for. We're at the Supervisory Candidate Forum on Child Health and Nutrition at the new Resource Center for Nonviolence. It's sponsored by Go For Health and United Way of Santa Cruz County, co-sponsored by WIC, First Five, Go For Health, Child Care Planning Council, Second Harvest Food Bank, and the Central Coast School Food Alliance. So as I asked this last question, and I think it's something that people obviously have a big concern about, so it's actually almost a duplicative question, if that's a word. Food service directors at schools say they do not have the resources to make a significant impact on improving the nutrition, the nutrition of school meals. What's the county's role in better school meals, and how would you help get the resources into the hands of the food service directors? I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. McGinnis on this. I watched a show on TV about a week or so ago where they moved away from pre-packaged, pre-prepared foods, probably the same stuff I was being served when I was in school. And it was a non-profit based out of, I believe, San Francisco. And they had moved to all fresh foods, and it was all prepared freshly. And there was actually a savings in the overall budget and money spent by the school to provide the fresher lunches. And they even interviewed the kids, and they had a little food plate with fruit and salad and a main meal. And the kids thought it was the best food ever. I'm sure their parents aren't too happy about that. So I could see there is a way to do it. It's just a matter of putting the programs in place and working with the proper people. And it could be a non-profit. It might be something that the county does, or it's just a matter of working with the infrastructure in place and educating them and putting it in place. Thank you. Mr. Arnold. Yeah, I really think this should be, has to do with the school boards themselves. We need to get rid of the Department of Education, which sucks up millions and billions of dollars with thousands of employees in Washington, DC. What they do is they take your taxes from here. They send them back to Washington, DC. They keep about 80 percent. They put strings on them. They send them back to the schools. I think the school boards need to regain their sovereignty in their community so they can dictate what's best for their children, who they know in their culture, in their community. This homogenation by the national government is bad for business in the world. We're like 26 or something like that in science, and you go through each of the other comparisons. We're not doing well. And it needs to go back to the parents and the people that you vote in those school boards to make these decisions. And just how far, if your school board wants to give them meals and cots and everything else, that's up to them. Let them take care of that and let them pay for it. But everybody shouldn't be participating in this. We're not, we shouldn't be communized where every person is made into one particular result, a human resource for the cartels. Mr. Rivas. I ask continued that, you know, the youth is to empower the youth. You know, Joven Esanos has been a great advocate in regards to making presentation to the school board members at the same time, be able to work with the food services, working with the community, with the business, with the restaurants. It's something that they need to continue to be done. I think, you know, and with that matter, I think, you know, Joven Esanos has been one of those youth empowerment that I'm very proud of it. And I think we have to do it throughout the school. And now, Pajaro Valley Unified School District be able to receive a lot of the, a lot of nutritional meals within the food services and the lunches, the breakfast. And that's important that we continue to do so within our county. And I think something that the council will continue to do throughout the county. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. McPherson. Yeah, I think that this is, if it's school services, we have to be very careful of being one government agency telling others what to do and not leading by example. Government makes that mistake time and time again. Let's be an example ourselves and set a standard over there in the county center of what we should do. And then let's pass that on if we think that's so great. And I think it would be that we should, we should let school services know this is what we're doing. We think we should lead by example. I think we don't tell other people to do what we're not doing. I think we have to be an example of how to best provide nutritional foods for other people. And I also think that we could bring in some nutritional experts, health services experts to go to schools and tell them what the value of an nutritional meal from better education being sharper in the classroom right on up or down, however you want to put it. I think those are the types of things that we should do and cooperate with school districts and telling them we can provide this kind of service or this explanation from experts, but we want to work with you to do it. Thank you. Mr. Leopold. I served in the Cabrillo College Board for eight years before I became a county supervisor. And during that time, the food service was a big issue when we finally got rid of Sodexo Marriott and we got a local vendor. All of a sudden the food got better and sales went up and the students reported that they liked the food better. As a county supervisor, it's hard to influence the direction of the school lunches or our school food availability outside of working with our public health staff and our human services staff to reach out to folks there. But we can partner with the schools very creatively. And over the past three years, we've done partnership with the Live Oak School District on the Boys and Girls Club with the Santa Cruz City School District on making safe access from Soquel High to Soquel Village from the Loma Prieta School District to partner with them to install a new gym floor so that they have a good recreational opportunity. And I'm currently working with the Happy Valley School District to help refurbish their field as giving a place where kids can participate in good outdoor activity. By doing this, we also create resources for them to focus on that which is their responsibility, which is school food, by working with them on issues of recreational activities and other support services. Mr. Hammer? When I went to Cabrillo College, I got a degree in culinary arts. And one of the programs that we had was, you know, we provided a restaurant. You know, we worked with foods, had a working kitchen. I think that we need to see that also in and in high school and junior high education and also primary education. If teaching kids, it used to be called home ec. Now it could be fancy and something a lot more fun on how to work with the fresh foods that we have. Porta Creek Elementary, you see it, I help them build a greenhouse. They're growing fresh vegetables. The kids are going out there at a young age and they're growing foods and seeing where they're coming from. I think we need to continue that. And I think that if you want to take and look outside the box and how we fund some of this stuff, you know, if we had a one cent sales tax on every teaspoon of sugar that was in soda, we could raise $1.3 billion a year. You know, that's going to upset, you know, some big industries, but it's going to make a huge statement. We need to start making some huge statements so that we can make change. Thank you. Mr. Friend. Well, the federal Department of Agriculture has been running pilot programs to do exactly this and a number of urban cities over the last couple of years and have had a lot of success. I think the question really is one of empowerment. I mean, the question speaks to someone feeling like they just don't have the authority or the ability. I completely agree that that school districts are autonomous and they should be that way. When you're an elected official, though, you are an advocate, you are you represent your people in your district. And if people feel like their voice isn't being heard or that they're not being empowered, then it's important for you to help be that bridge between them and the people that should and can be making the decisions. In this case, the school boards and the County Office of Education. So I think that that is the key part for the elected official. And I also think knowing that there have been pilot programs just in the last two years that are going on currently where this exact model has worked, it's reduced costs and people are enjoying students are enjoying the healthy foods even more. All right, I want to take a moment to just mention that Community TV will be broadcasting this at a later date and for you to go ahead and check community TV.org. I would like to first of all thank the panelists for being involved here today. Thank you guys for allowing me to moderate this. Thanks to all the sponsors that have been involved. Go for Health United Way of Santa Cruz County. WIC first five go for health. Child Care Planning Council, Second Harvest Food Bank and Central Coast School Food Alliance. I'm now going to turn you guys an opportunity to speak for two minutes to close this out. And I'm going to go ahead and start with Mr. Hammer. Got me by surprise there for a second. I want to thank everybody for being here today and giving us an opportunity to talk about health of children. Our kids are our future and if we don't give them the educational resources that are necessary, they're not going to strive to the levels that they should. And it starts at an early age. Early education is extremely important and it needs to come from every sector of the community. It needs to start at home with strong parenting. And to get strong parenting, we need to parents have to look for help also sometimes. We need to, we place our kids in the care of organizations or childcare facilities when we go off to work. The majority of our public does. They need to be well funded, well educated organizations and groups. And we're lucky in this county. We have a fantastic support system. It's not large enough. It's not funded well enough. But we have professionals that, that understand how important our three-year-olds, four-year-olds and five-year-olds are. There's a test out there that they say in third grade you can take and they can tell you how many beds you're going to need in prisons based on the test scores of our kids. I think that's a problem. You know, I think that, that watching my six and a half year-old twins grow, what they learn on a daily basis is amazing. Their ability to grasp what's going on in a day-to-day life and the pain that they can feel about what's going on around them. And the pains that they're feeling is coming from school, coming from their aftercare programs. We need to make sure that we support early education, childhood development. And we look and I look to the people that are here in this room to continue providing such excellent service. Thank you. Mr. Rivas. Yes, I want to thank everybody to be here today and talking about the issue about the health problems that we face in our community. One of the things you know when I became mayor and I've been in the city council for eight years, it's something that I participated in a one year training with the Nalel program is and the purpose was is to implement policies and action plans within our communities. And that's one of the things that I did to be proactive in the city of Watsonville. And that's why we adopted a lot of the ordinance and working with the schools and working with the nonprofits and working and also we developed the whole and the sound work and the whole and sounds of parks and recreation so we can be able to continue to provide a healthy community, a healthy communities, healthy and safe communities. That's what we call them in the city of Watsonville. And it's important we continue to do so on the county level. And I think you know whoever you know, Lexie, Lexie or kind of serious, I think we could we need to do that. I think you know we live in a beautiful area and we sometimes we think that we'd help you, but according to the text, we not. I think we need to do obesity is a big problem. We have a heart disease problems in our community. And you know, so something that we need to do and we need to do action plans at the county level or how we're going to be doing this county level. And we don't want to be the last and we say the 45 54 in the district that we in a but is it a problem and we need to attack it. And that's and that's the way we have to do it. Thank you. Mr. Leopold. Well, I want to thank the sponsors for putting together this forum. These issues are really critical. And I appreciate the leadership of so many in the room who work on such critical issues. My background has prepared me well for this job as county supervisor. I've worked in education as a career college board of trustees led the Soquel school bond campaign back in 2001 on health care as the executive director of the Santa Cruz A's project and as a part of the team that created the Children's Health Initiative, which provides a health insurance for 10,000 kids here in Santa Cruz County. As a member of the board of supervisors, I've worked very hard to lead on many of the issues that we've talked here today. County government has to work to find a way to say yes to things to think creatively. Santa Cruz is a great laboratory. We should take advantage of that, create creative programs and work to address the challenges that we face. It's not just a question of money. It's a question of letting lose the creativity of program directors and the community in order to solve our common problems. I think we can do that. I have a history of working together with others and that's why I have the support of so many members of school boards, the board of supervisors, city councils, fire boards, the county office of education, neighborhood association leaders and business leaders, because they've worked with me in the last three and a half years or sometime before that, and they know that I'm someone that you can work with and you can effectively get something done. We need in Santa Cruz to be able to lead not only in our county, but in the state of California. We have a history of doing that and I'm confident that we can continue to do that into the future. Thanks again for holding this forum. Thank you for your leadership, Danny in particular. You are an incredible leader from the first district and we're well represented by you. Thank you, John. Mr. Friend. Well, thank you for not just having this forum, but allowing us to be up here. One thing that I can't say enough of, and I feel like I do say it every time, is how much of a privilege it's been to even be up here and to be able to run. As I've spent the last six months meeting with people in my district, I've learned that there are a lot of voices that aren't being heard and there are a lot of people that wouldn't even have the privilege to be sitting where we're sitting to even give this an opportunity. And those are the people that we need to represent. Those are the people whose voices that we need to bring to the board of supervisors. Some of their stories are heart-wrenching. Some of them are really remarkable when you think about the area that we live. We live in one of the most beautiful places in the world, but we've seen what threats to funding and cuts to funding have done from everything from our local roads to social and health and human services, public safety, and now even proposals to pave over prime farm ag land in our area. These are things that I think quite frankly we actually can overcome. I think that similar to the national, totally failed national debate, and this shows you why local elections really do matter because this is where we live and this is where impacts can be made. I think that we just in many ways need to get the politics out of policy, local public policy, and be willing to take chances on things. One of the things that cuts does present is the ability for you to take risks. And as Supervisor Leopold said, empower the staff and empower nonprofits to actually do what you do best, not get in your way in these kinds of situations. Take those risks, remember who it is that we serve, and remember that there's a lot of people that aren't in this room that couldn't even make it here because they're working two jobs or whatever it may be that we need to remember who those people are and their voices just as equal, if not more important than many of ours in this political process. So thank you for having me. Mr. Arnold? Yes. I think there's been a big cover-up by the political machine. I encourage you to go to Gary Arnold Man Against the Machine because you'll have a lot of reasons to vote for against me there. I think one of the big cover-ups is Operation Cloverleaf and that you can appreciate. You can thank your line Sentinel newspapers that Sentinel is owned by, the stock is owned by Bill Gates and Bank of America. They also own the Mercury and the Monterey Herald. So you're kind of sitting in here in a shell here, not getting the full information. Operation Cloverleaf is run out of McLean, Virginia. It's distributes aluminum and barium over the Monterey Bay area. It's run by James Lessinger former head of the CIA. And when the USA today did a front page story on it and said it's the worst case scenario as far as health is concerned. We have two people on a board of supervisors that sit on the Air Resources Board. They have the full right and they should have had the authority to make sure that our air is clear. It's injuring people, plants and animals and the fish. The other thing that you've been lied about is the Gestapo meters, the so-called smart meters, put out by PG&E. That's a contract with ICLE, also the World Bank, in which your city of Santa Cruz and your county of Santa Cruz has contracts with. You look at ICLE's IRS report and you find that it says there are purposes to impose Agenda 21. That was signed by Sam Farr, whom Zach Friend worked for. Your board of supervisors rubber stamps Agenda 21 protocols time after time. So if you want somebody out there that will tell you something that the newspapers won't tell you, they won't tell you. Vote for me. I'm the man against the machine. Look at the website. And like I said, there's a lot of content on there for you. Mr. McKinnis. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak today. A little bit about me. I own a small business. It's the Sea Breeze Tavern. It's located in the heart of the second district down on Rio del Mar Beach. And I definitely love Santa Cruz. I've been here for about 15 years and this is where I wanted to live and retire. And I just I want to be a champion for small business in the county and make it easier for small businesses to thrive in our area. I've had a tough time with my small business through the economic downturn and I've had a few problems with our county planning department. But that's another story. I plan on being a resident in this county for a long time coming. And if I'm elected, I will work hard to the best of my abilities to provide the residents of the second district voice in our county. And please feel free to drop by the Sea Breeze Tavern any Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after 6 p.m. And you can talk with me in person. Thank you. Mr. McPherson. Thank you. I pledge to you to continue doing what I've done all my life. And that is give back to this community if I should be fortunate enough to be elected county supervisor. My father said we were very fortunate to be born here. And let's let's leave this place a better place than when we found it. And I've done what I can throughout my life to do that, whether it be the chair of the Second Harvest Food Bank Drive, or my wife, Mary, and I, back in the 80s, established a dropout prevention program in schools. Because you can tell when children are young, some of the so-called troublemakers who need to be reined in, shall we say, to have a teacher, counselor, and a parent get together to talk about what's the problem here. Let's solve it. It's one-on-one. It's been very workable, and it's been very successful. Also, when I was in the legislature, I gave every pay raise that I've received back to the community in education programs and health care programs. It was recognized by the California Wellness Foundation as legislator of the year, along with John Burton and John Vaskin-Selis. I was the author of a KINGAP measure for foster care children to allow grandparents or relatives to really oversee or take the foster children in instead of having some stranger do it and be reimbursed for it. That is a model in this state where this model in this state is a model for the nation today. And also, I was a key vote in the Healthy Families program that provided child care for those six and younger and made it a real point to do so. These are things that I have done in the past and will continue to do so in the future. We have, as I say, some serious health problems, especially with the diabetes issue. We need to be cooperative and get our act together. I will work. I'll continue to work for these programs, and I respectfully ask for your vote for Bruce McPherson on June 5th. Thank you very much. Well, I would like to think the panelists once again. I'd like to make sure I would ask, if I was to ask a question, that every each and one of you would please go visit some of our wonderful non-profits within this county. I obviously know you guys are very busy. Some of you have come through. It's just a great way to get a hands-on opportunity and actually speak to the people that are doing all the work within the county. You guys support them through different fundings. And it's just really important that you guys have a better comprehension as to what each and every one of these people do every day to service the community and the constituents that get you guys elected. We're going to go ahead and wrap this up. I just wanted you guys to know we were here for the Supervisor of Candidate Forum on Child Health and Nutrition, hosted by Go For Health in the United Way of Santa Cruz County. This will be broadcast on Community TV at a later date. Please check communitytv.org for more information. Our co-sponsors of the event are WIC, First Five, Go For Health, Child Planning Council, Second Harvest Food Bank, and the Central Coast School Food Alliance. Just a little input on what Go For Health is. It's a county-wide collaborative to increase access to healthy eating and active living for our youth. Thanks to each of the candidates for participating, and we invite everyone here today to get involved and take action towards positive change in our community. So my name is Danny Keith. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your time. Thank you. Can we get a round of applause for these guys?