 Good morning, everyone. I'm Caleb Baskin from the Baskin Grant Law Firm. Thank you all for coming to learn about the year 17 cap report. I'm here to present on the economy findings. And as many of us have seen and heard over the last few years, there's been a lot of discussion of a so-called economic recovery that is supposedly pervading the local and the national economy. Unfortunately, as many people in the community will probably tell you, and as the data is going to tell us, if there is a recovery going on, it's certainly not the typical type of economic recovery that we've seen during previous economic cycles the last 20 years. The data that's been collected over the last 17 years of cap, and in particular since 2007, highlights a variety of economic trends that are impacting the county. The data strongly suggests that if there is a recovery going on, what is being seen is what's called a jobless recovery. This is an economic phenomenon where, even though the economy might be getting bigger, getting bigger just a little bit, the number of jobs is either stagnant or declining. One of the things that really interests me about cap is that this isn't just anecdotal. It's not just who said what to whom. It's really a statistically significant cross section of our community. And the data that I'm going to present today tells you what that cross section is feeling and thinking about the economy. On the upside, more people than two years ago feel better off financially. Unfortunately, that number of people is less than a third of survey respondents, so some feeling better, but not a whole lot of folks. 30.6% of the respondents felt better off in 2011 over the prior year. Unfortunately, that's well off of the high water mark of about 40% of folks feeling better off financially from 2005 and 2007. Additionally, this year, there was an oversampling of data done of South County to see whether there was any particular impacts of trends happening in that part of the county. And the oversampled data said that even worse than that 30% number, in South County, the number's only 25% feel better off financially this year over last year. So that an indication that not only is this a countywide phenomenon, but in particular, South County is being hit particularly hard from an economic perspective. So what is the data telling us at best? We've got an economic upswing, but it's certainly not pervasive, it's not touching even a third of the county according to respondents. So why is this going on? Why don't community members feel better off financially now than a couple of years ago given the economy is supposedly improving? Well, one of the things that the data will tell you over the last 17 years is that housing costs have been a significant factor of discomfort for folks for many years. However, this year only about 23% of folks identified housing costs as the number one factor in why they're feeling economically less better off. And that's a significant drop, 35% and 41% back in 2005 and 2007 place housing costs at the top of the list. What the data tells us is that there have actually been really dramatic decreases in income levels and that that's what's making folks feel less financially stable. In 2011, nearly 20% of respondents reported that their financial stress was caused by a decrease in income. And that was an all-time high percentage since Cap started asking that question. Similarly, 17% of respondents reported their employment status as a number one stressor, again highlighting the income issue. Basically you've got two factors that are weighing equally heavy on folks. On the one hand, they feel like they're making less and on the other hand, they feel like life is costing them more within the county. So it's a pretty significant double whammy. The increasing cost of living that typically shows up in the Cap report is showing up in a new way this year as you're seeing decreased income levels coupled with a relatively expensive housing market despite prices going down. In 2007, 50% of the respondents spent less than a third of their income on housing, okay? Now that number is only 44%. In contrast, people spending over 75% on housing has doubled since 2007. So think about what you think's been going on in the housing market, think about the price decreases that have been going on, yet somehow the number of folks in our county spending over three quarters of their income on housing has doubled in the last four years. Again, you've got multiple factors that are weighing on folks presenting a really challenging economic situation. So what's the upside? What's the takeaway? What do we do with this data that the community is giving us? And the data tells us that the single most important thing to respondents is jobs. And I don't think that that's a difficult conclusion to draw from the data. You've got a number of folks reporting difficulty finding local employment opportunities, whether they're underemployed, unemployed, or commuting out of the community to find work that'll allow them to afford to live here. So what I take from the data is that this is a challenge that shouldn't be tackled just on a household by household or even a municipality by municipality basis, but it's a challenge that needs to be tackled by the community and the county as a whole with all of the different municipalities working together. What the data tells us is that the single most important step that can be taken is to create an environment that encourages jobs to be created, that attracts businesses that have jobs to provide and encourages an entrepreneurial spirit amongst those in the county to create those jobs. I encourage you to read the rest of the data. And going forward, I encourage you to look at the data as something that helps inform you as you're making decisions about how you're going to engage in the community, whether the economy is something that you're passionate about, whether it's the environment that you're passionate about, whether it's public health that you're passionate about. Look beyond the anecdotes and your own individual experiences. Take a look at the data and see how that informs and may help direct you into something that can be a real meaningful impact in the community. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm here to speak on health. And I think one of the things that's always exciting about the CAP report is it's one of the richest sources of data for those of us who are doing health planning and looking at are the interventions that we're doing making a difference. And obviously it interacts with every other thing, including the economy. And so one of the important things to think about is that we did have an increase in numbers of persons that are uninsured or underinsured. That's actually about 20% of our population, which is almost 50,000 people in our county that don't have health insurance. And that went the wrong direction, which is not surprising, giving the link between the economy and health coverage. But there are wonderful opportunities on the horizon. And so one of the takeaways is yes, we have a lot of folks who do not have a regular source of healthcare and don't have health insurance, but in 2014, we should be able to put 10 to 17,000 people if the Affordable Care Act stays on track. And that's certainly something that a lot of health advocates are working for into regular insurance through the MediCal program. And the insurance risk pool, which will subsidize insurance for people who are working, but are lower income also is being worked on right now. And California is really leading the way. And just as California is trying to do that, I think locally we try to do that and try to keep those visions of having everyone have regular healthcare, having health insurance, and having a regular doctor foremost in our minds. And so we do have a lot to do. We have a lot to do in terms of making sure we keep elected officials in place who believe in health reform and also that we take this data and we use it to make sure our community gets access to healthcare. The other thing that our data tells us is we're not doing great in the obesity department. In fact, we're slipping in a direction that is of great concern in terms of the healthcare system. Many, many people are coming up and hitting different obesity scales now, adults, kids, and we really need to work on that from a community perspective. And it does take a team effort to do that. And I know we have many organizations looking at how we can do better and we need to keep making sure education, health, business, and even our land use policies facilitate exercise and facilitate access to good food. Now, we are a community that has great food and we're so blessed to have these farmers markets, but we need to make sure they're affordable for everybody. And one of the things in our cap data this year is we did do an over sample in South County in the Pajaro Valley and all the indicators really are much, much worse there. And so we have to make sure everybody can access that great affordable fruits and vegetables that we have to contribute to the community. The other thing that's new about the cap this year is we added a quality of life question. And statistically, this has been found to be very significant in health planning in that people who feel healthy, people who have a good sense of quality of life generally use the healthcare system less and are healthier and do better. And so it links over to many, many efforts and we're very glad they added that question because UCLA and many other sources of tracking health planning have found that to be a very helpful measure in terms of are we really making a difference on the ground? The other thing we have to work on as a community is we really use the emergency department too much. And I just want to put in a pitch for this that even people with health insurance are using 25% of them answered that they use the ER as their regular source of healthcare. Not a good idea, really a bad idea. If you have health insurance, you should stay with your primary care doctor, get a regular relationship, get your annual physical and get in and see people when you can prevent things, when you can head them off at the pass, not just show up at Dominican's emergency department and go, you know, I have some pressure in my chest. Well, when were you seen last? Well, two years ago. Now, please get the word out. We want people to have a medical home and work that. The other thing that the data spoke to me about, and I'm kind of going off script here, Mary Lou, is we still have a lot of work to do on drugs and alcohol. We really have bad statistics around amphetamine use and drug use in this community. It affects our kids, it affects adults and those individuals end up not prospering and actually having horrible health outcomes and impacting not just their families, but the criminal justice system and the healthcare system. We have, and the data shows this, a very tolerant attitude towards drugs and particularly marijuana, and we need to look at that. We need to look at what messages that sends and what that means in terms of people ending up in trouble without meaning to be and then we don't have a robust treatment system that can accommodate that. We wanna get people early, not making that part of their lifestyle. The other thing too, I think it needs to be looked at, is our prenatal issues and young women having babies. And this is, again, a statistic in South County that isn't a good one in terms of teenage moms. We need to support those moms and we need to find a way to have them not have more babies and hopefully have young women make good choices for themselves and work on some education around pregnancy prevention. But we do have a lot of hopeful things. One of the things that's great about this community is the Health Improvement Partnership Council, which brings all of our health leaders together to work on this and also the fact that we have health reform on the horizon and let's make it work and let's make it work locally. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Farah Subama, Director of Migrant Education for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District and I am honored to discuss highlights from the education section of the CAP report. The identified community goals for education are at the entry and exit of the K-12 experience. There are two community goals that are established. One goal is that by the year 2015, more kindergartners will be better prepared for school through participation in high quality preschool. The second goal is that by the year 2015, all students will graduate with skills and knowledge required to compete in a 21st century global economy. Today I would like to highlight some data elements related to demographics, access to childcare and preschool, K-12 academic achievement, high school completion and graduation, college and university enrollment and completion and community satisfaction with educational system. The student population in Santa Cruz County is slowly decreasing and becoming more diverse. Over the last 10 years, student enrollment in Santa Cruz County has dropped by 4% and enrollment in California schools has actually increased by 3%. In the same time period, the percentage of Hispanic students in Santa Cruz County has increased by 8% and the percentage of white students has decreased by 9%. Also, the percentage of English learners in our county has increased to 29%. This compared to California's numbers which are actually decreased to 24%. And the Pajaro Valley and Faisal District, the number of ELs is double the state average. Through enrollment in childcare and preschool program, I'm sorry, though enrollment in childcare preschool programs has increased, the number of students on wait lists has grown much more dramatically. For example, in the migrant and seasonal head start of the Pajaro Valley and Faisal District, over the last 10 years, enrollment increased by 8% but the wait list for services increased 342% in the same time period. The good news is that nearly all those surveyed understand the importance of quality preschool for their children's success in school. The bad news is that childcare and preschool remain very costly and inaccessible to a growing number of parents in our county. When it comes to the K-12 assessments and looking at star assessments, one of the enduring legacies of the No Child Left Behind Act is the use of the percentage of students who score proficient on the California Sanders test and comparing that number from year to year. In Santa Cruz County, we find that our students have been making steady and consistent progress or growth in these numbers, but the pace has not kept up with the California pace of the numbers of students scoring proficient. For third graders, fifth graders, seventh graders and ninth graders who score proficient on the California Sanders test, we continue to see that steady increase over the last six years. A troubling trend, however, is that student performance on the math California Sanders test is diminishing year to year as we go into upper grades. In other words, as students enter into high school, the growth that we've seen at elementary and middle school is diminishing and in some cases going into kind of negative growth where we're seeing the students are smaller percentages of students are actually scoring proficient on those tests. An important indicator that is used for accountability in California is the Academic Performance Index. And the API is a number between 200 and 1,000 that is calculated for schools every year. It is determined through a formula that uses the number of students who score at each performance band. There's five bands on the California Sanders test. And according to the California Department of Education, the goal is to make annually, to make gains annually and to reach a goal of 800 and to stay above 800. The formula is adjusted every year, which means we need to be careful when making year to year comparisons. The data reveals that our schools have been making steady growth on the API with some schools making huge gains over the last 10 years. One example is Anseldo Elementary School in the Pajar Valley Unified School District started with an API of 349 and has grown to one of 680 last year. In the year 2010, 23 out of the 55 Santa Cruz County schools in the report surpassed the goal of 800 on their API. Six of those schools went over 900. One of the high stakes assessments that students must take at the high school level is the California High School Exit Exam. It's first administered in the 10th grade and it assesses students in language arts and math. Students have to pass this test to be able to get their high school diploma. Again, over the last 10 years, we've seen that the percent of Santa Cruz County 10th graders who have passed the KC has been increasing and keeping pace with California 10th graders. The number is 83% of our Santa Cruz County 10th graders are passing the KC in math and 82% are passing the KC Language Arts section. It's important to note that these students, if the ones that don't pass it will get multiple opportunities in 11th and 12th grade to pass it so that they can graduate from high school. Another important educational indicator and one closely linked to our community goal is a percentage of graduates who have completed their UC CSU coursework. This percentage has remained consistent. We haven't really seen much growth in this area. Last year, 42% of Santa Cruz County graduates had taken all of their A3G coursework. This is significantly higher than California's 35.6%. However, we still have a long way to go to maximize the numbers of students who should have the option to be able to attend a four year university shit out of high school. Cabrio College and UC Santa Cruz have a lot to be proud of. The data shows that over the last 10 years, Cabrio College has increased enrollment by 15% and more than double the degrees and certificates awarded in that time period. It's my contention that they're the best community college in California, but that's just my personal opinion there. My alma mater, UC Santa Cruz, has also increased this enrollment by 41% and it's total graduates by 33%, also doing very good work in supporting students. One of the most encouraging pieces of data in this report is that an astounding 86% of those surveyed are somewhat or very satisfied with their schools. This represents an increasing trend since the year 2000. Even though students are confronting larger class sizes, reductions in nurses, counselors, and other support services, our families are looking to our schools to provide their children with an environment where they will be safe, they will be fed, and they will be productive in learning. The recent report from the California Legislative Analyst Office is forecasting the budget triggers will in fact take place in January and that even with these mid-year cuts, California is gonna be facing a $13 billion deficit for the next year. Also in Washington, the threat of sequestration and huge cuts to federal services looks more likely. Even in these dark times, perhaps especially during these dark times, our families look to our schools, not only to offer students an education, but also sanctuary, support, and hope. Thank you. All right, good morning. It's nice to be back again. John Weiss with Scott's Fly Police. It was a couple of years ago that I had the privilege to present the findings for public safety and I'm back again. So hopefully I'll make the array of statistics interesting because it's hard to listen to all of these facts and figures, even though they're important. I'd also like to thank United Way Applied Research, our local heroes, community heroes that we're celebrating, and everyone who's involved in this to try to help lift the lives of our Santa Cruz County residents. The public safety findings this year have some encouraging signs and they also have a few things to be concerned about. The red flags, there were two. The first red flag was that the crime rate is up from 34 to 39 crimes per 1,000 residents. So that's of concern. Robberies are up 30%, property crimes are up as well. The city of Santa Cruz had an increase of total crime of 18%. So some new challenges in Santa Cruz. Now Watsonville had the highest increase in homicide and arson in the county since 2002. The good news, forceful rape is down by 23%. And Scotts Valley, my town had a drop to 21% drop in crime. Family violence, while the overall stats for family violence in the state and in the county are down, one thing that we know in law enforcement and those who are helping people who are victims of the family violence is that it's under reported. So we know that oftentimes people don't report family violence for fear of reprisals. So that's a concern and one of the statistics that stuck out for me was 10.4% of cap respondents had a friend or family member that's been the victim of family or domestic violence. Our jail population, about 66% of inmates in 2010 were repeat offenders. We always worry about that, that people who recidivate or repeat. And this was very interesting. 50% of the total bookings in our county jail were for alcohol related offenses. So if you don't think alcohol is still not one of our number one problems, methamphetamine, other drugs get all the talk, but alcohol is still one of our biggest problems that we deal with. Juvenile crime. Juvenile misdemeanor and felony arrest rates up to 69 per 1,000 in 2009. These are ages 10 to 17. It was 56 per 1,000. So we've seen an increase in juvenile crime. By ethnicity, there was a considerably larger increase among Hispanic and Latino youth. No doubt gangs play into that. Concerned about crime. Very concerned is a category that respondents replied to. People say there's a decrease from 72% in the year 2000 to 65%. So that's good news. Originally, South County had a higher percentage of concern than North County. And again, that probably reflects some of the gang problems that we're experiencing in South County. Police response times. How fast we get to the emergency. Since 2002, average police response times to high priority calls decreased, which is a good thing for agencies. Santa Cruz, however, had a slight increase. But again, we're talking seconds here. The averages are between three to eight seconds that we respond to emergency call. So overall, we're still getting there quickly, which is important. Law enforcement effectiveness. I'm sorry to report that the percentage of respondents who felt law enforcement is very effective remained below 50%. So it sounds like we could do more work to make people feel better about our response. More Latinos and I felt law enforcement was very effective than Caucasians. Fire response. You know, you gotta love those firefighters. Everyone loves firefighters and they don't like the cops. And we always joke and say, it should have been a firefighter. But we always tell firefighters that God created police officers so firefighters can have heroes too. Under fire response, the data show that a considerable increase in medical calls, not surprising. More and more with fire suppression working so well today, firefighters are going to medical calls more than they are fire calls. But the average response times to high priority calls decreased overall in the county for our fire service. Family violence. The rate of domestic violence calls decreased in the state and county. But as I said before, these typically go under reported. Capitola had the largest increase, the city of Capitola, in domestic violence calls and domestic violence with weapons calls. 10.4% of cap respondents had a family member or friend experience domestic violence. I mentioned that before, but that's pretty amazing that it's that high. Elder abuse. The rate of elder abuse decreased, which is a good thing from 429 cases in 2010 or two 429 cases in 2010 down from a decade high of 652 cases in 2007. However, the number of reported cases has increased by more than 47% over the decade. So while it's gone down recently, overall it seems to have gone up a bit. Child abuse. Substantiated cases have decreased by 50%. So that is good news. And I hope that's not because of under reporting, but because we're seeing less of it. The 2010 child abuse rates in our county dropped below the state for the first time in a decade. So that is good news for our kids. Foster care placements. Over the past decade, the rate of first entries, foster care placements ages zero to 17 has decreased. That's good news. The percentage of kids reunited with parents after 12 months in foster care, unfortunately has decreased from 51% to 22. DUI. Adult DUI rate dropped from 91 to 70 per 10,000 residents. I think the education we're doing with DUI, the visible enforcement has helped a great deal. Juvenile misdemeanor DUI arrest rates have also dropped from kids ages 16 to 17, from 42 in 2000 to 31 per 10,000 residents. A couple more stats and then I'll close. Drug arrests. Total drug arrests per 10,000 fluctuated from a low in, from a low of 90 in the year 2002 to a high of 163 in 2007 to 124 in 2009. And this is a percentage of the population per 10,000. Marijuana continues to be the most common drug arrest of violation for juveniles. And I appreciate the remark before about, we need to do more. We do have a tolerant attitude, particularly about alcohol and marijuana. But I would argue why? Why aren't we challenging our youth to achieve and to have more personal success rather than kill brain cells? A lot of people spend a lot of time defending that or the right to do that, and I'm concerned about that. So I hope that we see decreases in the future. And lastly, disaster preparedness. I'm very happy to report that people are pretty prepared in this county. Well over half of cap respondents say they have emergency supply kits in their homes. Which made me think about this last night as I was reading all these statistics about my emergency go bag and what's missing in it. So I'm gonna be trying to put that together. A couple closing comments. I think it's no question that the biggest challenge we're all facing from these reports is the economy. Jobs is certainly important. We see that in law enforcement, but the economy is what affects all of us. The governor recently defunded Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. So we no longer have a task force commander here in Santa Cruz County. So as chiefs, we all have to come together and fund that on our own. That's a challenge when we're trying to fight gangs here in the county. Also AB 109, the criminal justice realignment that some of you have read about. I'm happy to say that our sheriff Wohack in the county, our county probation chief, Scott McDonald, have worked very hard to craft a response to how we're gonna deal with more offenders not going to prison, but going to our local jails. And what to do with the non-serious offenders. The good news is, the silver lining is that if we do this right, we might have more of a restorative justice model where people aren't languishing in prison so long, but are actually finding ways to get back to work and no longer be in jail. So we're hopeful that this new realignment may have some opportunities for us. Some positives, we have instituted the broad-based apprehensions Impression Treatment Alternative, known as BASTA in North County. We've had meetings on that to mirror the South County BASTA program, which is sort of a broad-based group of professionals to work on the problems with gangs and drugs and youth. And we're reviving our Criminal Justice Council here in Santa Cruz County to try to deal with these issues that we're facing. The community goals for 2015 for public safety include more youth being involved in prevention and positive social activities, and fewer kids entering juvenile hall. The other goal is adult and juvenile violence, including family and gang violence, decreasing and having less of an impact on our community. So I'm encouraged when I open up the front page of the Sentinel today, and I see an article on the top about nipping bullying in the bud. And there is a local Scotts Valley mother and volunteer in our schools, Leah Reed, who got the idea, hey, why not use high school drama students to do skits for elementary school kids about bullying? And the Scotts Valley High School embraces. And so now they're doing skits to teach kids in our elementary schools about bullying and how to avoid that. If that isn't a great example of meeting one of our goals to get kids more involved in dealing with our problems in the county, I don't know what is. So I'm very excited about that. And I would just like to close with a little bit of poetry, which you never expect from a police chief. I think I'm under five minutes, I hope. But I love Robert Frost, and as we surveyed the landscape in our county today, it made me think of his poem, and I'm not gonna read the whole thing, don't worry, about stopping by woods on a snowy evening. And the last of that poem says, the woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. We have a few miles left to go, but I think all of us are on the right path. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Monica Martinez, and I am the executive director of the homeless services center. And when I was asked to give a presentation on the community assessment project in the social environment category, I was honored, and I was also really excited. As a relatively new member of the Santa Cruz community, I was eager to learn more about Santa Cruz through this process. And I also thought, the social environment, I mean, we're in the third year of an economic recession. I'm working on the front lines at the homeless services center, and I probably don't even have to read the report. I could probably write the report on social environment, considering what it is that I see every day. So when I opened the report, and I started flipping through the pages, I found that my assumptions were absolutely wrong. People in Santa Cruz are happy. 98% of the people who responded were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with their overall quality of life. 75% said that they have enough after-school activities for their children. 91% said that they believe that neighbors help each other. When asked what contributes to their overall quality of life, people ranked the following things in this order, scenery and climate, friends and family, and the slow pace. When asked what takes away from their quality of life, the number one response was nothing. The second most popular response was even more shocking. Traffic. Traffic. Okay, here we are at the tail end of an economic recession, and the number one identifiable thing that people say takes away from their quality of life is traffic. Okay, so this shocks me for multiple reasons. Number one is a transplant from Southern California. I can tell you that even on mid-summer, Friday afternoon traffic, there's nothing compared to the congestion that you see down South. And number two is the executive director of the organization that serves more homeless people in the county. I can tell you that this response is nothing compared to what I see on a daily basis. So really, I was like, they've got the wrong girl. Mayor Liu, clearly I am not the right person to talk about the social environment if this is what the report is reflecting. But before I gave up, I decided I'd flip through the pages a little bit more, and there I found that the community assessment project reflects another community. And while it's not the majority, this is the community that faces the day-to-day struggles of trying to survive in poverty. 14% of the population say that they've had to go without a basic need at some time in the last year. And Latinos are much more likely than Caucasians to face that challenge. Homelessness increased by 22% in the last year. And there has been a dramatic increase in people who are experiencing homelessness for the first time, or who've been homeless for over, for under a year. And this is a telling sign of a downward economy. 50% of students in our public schools are receiving free or reduced cost meals. And while this is really great for those students, it's often an indicator of food insecurity in the home. And if you were to ask these individuals on an independent basis what takes away from their quality of life, they would say things such as lack of affordable housing, unemployment, and access to healthcare. So how can there be such a disparity in a community as small as Santa Cruz? This isn't unique to Santa Cruz. Everywhere we look, we see that the gaps between the rich and the poor is growing greater and greater by the day. But what is unique to Santa Cruz is something else that's reflected in the study. In addition to being happy, the majority of people in Santa Cruz are also engaged. 54% of the people who responded say that they have corresponded with a local elected official within the last year. 71% have said they've signed a petition. 80% reported being somewhat or very knowledgeable about local issues. 64% said that they regularly contributed to a local nonprofit organization. And 41% said that they volunteer regularly at a community organization. These numbers are something to be proud of because they far exceed other communities similar to Santa Cruz. So despite the dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots, what we have here in Santa Cruz is a perfect storm of potential. The majority of our community members are fortunate, invested, and informed. And this is a triple threat of civic engagement that has the potential to overcome even the greatest obstacles of economic inequality. So after reflecting on this point, I'm not discouraged that my impressions of what should be in the study was so different than what we actually found in the study. Instead, I'm proud to live in a community that boasts both a beautiful environment as well as compassionate citizens. And I'm inspired by my civically engaged neighbors. I believe that together we can build solutions to homelessness and we can lessen the impact of poverty on our community. And if you haven't already, I urge you to become educated about local issues, start volunteering and become engaged, and start donating to local organizations. Join the community heroes in doing these tasks. And as I close, because I know you're ready to move on and get to the community heroes, I wanna leave you with a challenge. Let's work together to bridge the gaps so that in 10 years when they do another study, even the least fortunate among us when asked the question, what takes away from your overall quality of life? Answers with the same answer as the majority. Nothing, thank you. These are special individuals or groups whose efforts help move Santa Cruz County towards the achievement of our community assessment goals. These are true life heroes. They're found throughout our community and they're wonderful examples of what makes Santa Cruz County such a wonderful place. I would begin by thanking the Santa Cruz Sentinel for sponsoring our annual contest to identify people in our community who are the community heroes. We should give them a round of applause. Kathy Conway and I will introduce you to our 2011 community heroes. And as we call them up by name, we ask them to come forward. You will receive a proclamation from Congress member, Sam Farr, Senator Sam Blakesley, Senator Joe Sumidian and Assembly Member Bill Monning. So starting in the area of education, the goal by year 2015, more kindergartners will be better prepared for school through participation in high quality preschool. Our community hero is Irene Freilberg. Or actually, I'm sorry, Freiberg, thank you. Irene is a longtime beloved owner and director of Growing Years Preschool, a board member of PACE, the Professional Association of Childhood Education, a member of the Santa Cruz Childcare Planning Council and a seeds of early literacy master coach for first five. Her leadership in the area of early childhood education and high quality preschool can be felt in classroom educations across the county as teachers everywhere have benefited from her mentoring and coaching to improve their practices to prepare children for school. Irene's goal is to help children become enthusiastic learners by helping them acquire the skills necessary to be ready when entering kindergarten. This is accomplished through a preschool curriculum that focuses on the child's interest in the social, emotional, intellectual and physical areas of development. Thank you, Irene. The community heroes in health. The goal is by the year 2015, 98% of Santa Cruz County children, zero to 17, will have comprehensive health care coverage as measured by the California Health Interview Survey. Araceli Castillo. Araceli has worked for Salud Para la Gente for over 10 years as a community health outreach worker. She assists with the implementation of health outreach programs that include helping families with their health insurance needs. More than simply assisting with paperwork, Araceli routinely goes above and beyond, calling families to remind them of needed documents, following up on pressing matters and always doing so with courtesy, respect and a smile. Araceli regularly does outreach in the community to make sure clients, especially youth, still have and are maintaining their insurance and she works to ensure they are receiving the best care possible. Congratulations. Our next community hero, Leslie Connor. Leslie has worked on access to health issues for many years. As the program and policy director at the Health Improvement Partnership, she led the Healthy Kids Coalition to increase children's access to health insurance. Her facilitation, leadership style and collaborative approach have created ever improved outcomes for outreach, enrollment, retention and utilization of MediCal, healthy families and healthy kids. She has brought together providers in the safety net clinics, hospitals and private practice to bring medical insurance to children and adults. She is a wonderful leader and is now the executive director of the Santa Cruz Women's Health Center. Congratulations, Leslie. Our second health goal, by the year 2015, the prevalence of childhood obesity will decrease as measured by the percentage of children under five years who are overweight or obese will decrease from 15% to 12% and the percentage of children from five to 19 years who are overweight or obese will decrease from 26% to 21%. Danny Keith. For seven years, Danny Keith has been blending his business experience, personal and professional networks, enthusiasm, time and passions to positively impact hunger in our community. As the owner of Santa Cruz Skate and Surf Shop, Danny brings a passion for kids to his work with Second Harvest Food Bank. He started the Grind Out Hunger program in 2004 and uses this program to educate elementary to college students about health and nutrition, including information about diabetes and obesity. Food donations from this program have increased from 40,000 pounds to 280,000 pounds of food. He is a bold thinker and his enthusiasm is contagious. Thank you so much. Our heroes in natural environment, the goal. By the year 2015, reduce water pollution. Health of rivers and ocean is improved by reducing erosion, chemical and biological pollution and improving riparian corridors. Steve Plesch. Steve Plesch has been a dedicated volunteer and leader with Save Our Shores for two and a half years. He is a trained sanctuary steward who leads dozens of beach and river cleanups with volunteers of all ages each year. He has volunteered over 150 hours with Save Our Shores, far exceeding the initial commitment of 50 hours. He loves to clean beaches. Clearly. All of those efforts are multiplied as he leads events that involve 10 to 50 volunteers each time. Steve is especially dedicated to the cleanliness and health of Santa Cruz County's rivers and waterways and is rarely seen without his Save Our Shores sweatshirt or a T-shirt. Steve understands the importance of clean waterways and coastlines for a healthy and sustainable Santa Cruz for all residents and visitors. Congratulations. Also in this category, John Ricker. For three decades, John has made it his main study, passion and employment to protect and enhance the environment through his role as division director of water resources for Santa Cruz County. John has become a leader in various forms of water resources and environmental protection. Over the past 20 years, John developed a wastewater management plan that has helped San Lorenzo Valley manage its growth and mitigate the polluting of over 13,000 septic systems. This plan has had significant impact on the San Lorenzo River and has become a model program for the state of California. John's extensive breadth of knowledge and his unique ability to collaborate with others have earned him a celebrated respect of his peers. Congratulations John. Goal. By the year 2015, develop a local sustainable food system. All community members have access to affordable locally grown food produced in a sustainable manner that preserves farmland fertility, Lloyd Williams. Lloyd has served as a member of the Land Trust Board of Trustees for 30 years, including six years as the board president. A real estate attorney by trade, he has provided the land trust with tens of thousands of hours of pro bono legal work. He has thus played a critical role in the protection of more than 3,000 acres of land, including farmland. Lloyd's professionalism, patience, and sense of humor, along with a tremendous personal commitment to the environment, have made him an invaluable asset for the environment. Congratulations. In the area of public safety, the goal, by the year 2015, more youth will be involved in prevention and positive social activities, and fewer youth will enter the juvenile delinquency system. Our first hero is Monica Dacosta. Monica is the volunteer coordinator and youth education director at Unity Temple and has been in this role off and on for over 30 years. She uses her considerable talents as a designer and event coordinator to organize special events, including bras for a cause organized by the Seroptimist organization. I like the way that sounds, I'm sorry. And fundraisers for the Watoto Kenya Orphan Project. She speaks Spanish fluently and teaches a Spanish language class at the Santa Cruz Adult School. In her spare time, she is an active real estate agent and broker. She genuinely is compassionate and incredibly giving of her time. Thank you, Monica. Next, we have Garrett Nyer. I hope I pronounced that correctly. Gary approached the Museum of Art and History two years ago, asking to help clean up Evergreen Cemetery and make it safer for the community. Even though the Evergreen Cemetery is under the perpetual care and maintenance of the Museum of Art and History, there is a strong homeless presence at the Evergreen, often making visitors feel it is unsafe. Over the past two years, Gary has worked with Take Back Santa Cruz and local high schools to spearhead cleanup days. He has also partnered with the Homeless Services Center to do weekly cleanups. His gentle, diplomatic, and positive approach has helped him teach children of all ages ways to respect cemeteries and historical sites. Gary has helped make Evergreen Cemetery feel safer than it has ever been. Thank you, Gary. Sergeant Michael Harms. Last year, Sergeant Harms has actively created, facilitated, and hosted prevention and positive social activities for youth, including at-risk youth throughout the community. Many of these events he has done on his own time. He has created the Teen Police Academy, helped facilitate the Pride program, and organized a youth fair at the Depot Park in conjunction with Mercy Housing. Sergeant Harms has also recreated the Community Service section and turned it into a premier community outreach arm with special focus on youth. Thank you, Sergeant. Goal by the year 2015, adult and juvenile violence, including family violence and gang violence, will decrease, as will the impact of violence on the community. Our first hero is Vicky Osseged. Vicky works with the Probation Department and the Department of Justice with the Victim Offender Dialogue Program and the Recidivism Reduction through Research-Based Rehabilitation and Reentry Program. She mediates first-time juvenile delinquents and their victims so the offender knows how their actions affect the victims. Her efforts with the R5 program work to reduce recidivism rates of high-risk young adults who have histories of criminal activity and numerous incarceration. She has a passion for restorative justice, especially in the area of youth justice system. Her ability to maintain a neutral place encourages trust and dialogue between the clients and their families to ensure smooth reentry into the community. Thank you, Vicky. Carmen Ariaga Kumasaka. Min is licensed as both a registered nurse and a marriage and family therapist. She is taught nursing at Cabrillo Community College and for the Monterey Peninsula Community College and is an adjunct faculty in the Counseling Psychology Program at Santa Clara University. She currently works as the clinical supervisor for Catholic Charities in Watsonville. Being bilingual and bicultural, she has a special interest in working with Latino families, especially pregnant teens. She has served as a memtor and clinical supervisor to the Latino-Latina graduate students, is an active board member for both the Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center and CASA. Carmen is an engaged professional and volunteer strengthening our community by working with children, youth, and families to prevent incidences of violence. Thank you, Carmen. Next, we have Elizabeth Shilling. Elizabeth has been the program director at Live Oak Family Resource Center since its inception 10 years ago. With her direction, the center has become a leader in parent education, an important piece in dealing with the stress of parenting and family relationships. Elizabeth has strengthened the community by offering programs for teens on probation and neighborhood organizing. She launched the Free Youth Futsal League that provides a safe place for elementary kids to exercise that also encourages adult volunteer mentors. Elizabeth's creative mind, optimism, and ability to implement have provided the Live Oak community with alternatives to family and gang violence. Thank you, Elizabeth. Our next awards are in the category of social environment. The goal, by the year 2015, more Santa Cruz County residents will be actively engaged in improving their community through public participation. Adrienne Lemke. Adrienne has been a participant in the city of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation Department junior lifeguard program since he was seven years old. Over the past seven years, he has gained the experience, knowledge, and skills to recognize hazards in the ocean when someone is in danger and needs help. Fortunately for Tim Gruber, Adrienne was in the water surfing next to him when he noticed that Tim was unconscious. With the help from another surfer, Adrienne's quick thinking and acquired ocean safety skills helped to save Tim's life. Congratulations, Adrienne. Michelle Whiting. Michelle is the ideal volunteer most organizations would dream of. As a member of the Santa Cruz Bible Church, Michelle has been central to the success of Project Homeless Connect the past two years. Her particular gift is connecting with people and making things happen, even the seemingly impossible. She is enthusiastic, helpful, thorough, and generous. She effortlessly takes on whatever task needs to be done for PHC and gives other volunteers the perfect environment and support to do what they do best. Congratulations, Michelle. As a group, we'd like to honor the Positive Parenting Program, known locally as Triple P. The Triple P Parent Education Program is a worldwide program that helps parents make small changes that result in big differences in their families. The goal of Triple P is to improve the healthy development of children, reduce child abuse and neglect, and support positive behaviors in children by providing parent education and support through the community. These heroes are expert practitioners of the Triple P program. Andy Castro. Andy is a licensed family therapist with expertise serving families, reunifying after child maltreatment has occurred. He has worked with families who are healing from the effects of substance abuse, trauma, and mental illness. Andy is also the father of three children and brings real life experience to help families set and achieve their goals. Congratulations. Chris O'Halloran. Chris is a bilingual, licensed clinical social worker who works at Dominican Pediatrics and teaches at Sutter. In her work with Triple P, she intervenes early in the first few years of life to help parents get information when they need it to prevent parenting and child behavior problems. Chris is also a mother of two boys. She is an expert at helping families connect with resources to build healthier lives. The team, La Menzana, has implemented a bilingual, multi-level system of parent support across the county to provide brief and intensive parenting services across the spectrum of family needs. These heroes are parent educators at La Menzana Community Resources. Donica Erickson. Donica leads the parent education team at La Menzana. She is fully bilingual and has ensured that quality services are available, whether families want brief, intensive, individual, or group services. Congratulations, Donica. Celia Organista. Celia has led the first county-wide Family Resource Center implementation. She has embraced the model and changed services at La Menzana so families get the information they need at the time that they need it most. Congratulations. The next goal. By the year 2015, county residents with disabilities will be able to obtain services needed to support increasing options, pursue goals, and participate in community life at levels consistent with their ability. Betsy Clark. Betsy works at the Santa Cruz Community Counseling Center as Director of Community Support Services, working with adult mental health programs and transition age foster youth services. She has overseen the introduction of two innovative programs in the county, Casa Pacific in Watsonville, a dual diagnosis residential program, and second story, a peer respite short-term stay program for persons with psychiatric disabilities. She oversees many other programs serving those challenged by loss, poverty, and the stigma associated with the diagnosis of mental illness. Betsy brings compassion and a lifelong commitment to working with this population and believes strongly in their ability to recover and be fully participating members of the community. Thank you, Betsy. And finally, our Lifetime Achievement Award, Kathleen Howard. Kathleen is the recently retired superintendent of the Soquel Union Elementary School District. She is a lifetime educator who has brought her belief in education, equity, and children to the Soquel District. She is passionate and relentless about the positive outcomes for her students. Her intelligence and creativity enable her to find solutions, motivate parents, staff in the community, and align all stakeholders on an issue. Kathleen is an outstanding leader who has devoted her career to the Soquel Union Elementary School District. In her 20-plus years in the district, first as principal and ultimately the superintendent, Kathleen empowered her employees so they too love their work. She instituted a sound curriculum and left the district in great financial shape. We are honored to present Kathleen Howard with the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award. Please join me in another round of applause for all of our 2011 Achievement Awards. I invite you to take your seats again. I bet you're tired of standing. Thank you. I'll turn it over to Kathy. In the 17 years of the Community Assessment Project, there have been only two chairs of the CAHPS Steering Committee. Our chair for the past five years, Dr. George Wolf, has been a wise and dedicated leader for the CAHPS. He has worked tirelessly for the achievement of the health community goals, especially in bringing health insurance to the uninsured children and adults of our county. As the health officer for the county of Santa Cruz, he was instrumental in designing the CAHPS in 1994 and determining the original health quality of life indicators and survey questions. Dr. Wolf has decided to finally enjoy a true retirement and step down as chair of the Community Assessment Project. But for his nearly two decade devotion to the CAHPS, he will forever be our steering committee chair emeritus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just to say a few words, and I'll try to keep it out of a few words. We did start this project a long time ago. Louder? We wondered how we could go about truly assessing the quality of life in Santa Cruz County according to our residents. We had a whole bunch of data available to us from secondary sources, but wanted to find some primary data as well to ask our residents directly, what do you think about this? How are you feeling about that? And got together with Applied Survey Research who have done a simply outstanding job in assessing our community, what it is they think about themselves, what they think ought to be done. And we did this not just to find out, but in order to guide our efforts to making the quality of life better in all of the domains, to try to establish collaborations, to do positive things in the community, to reach our goals in the various domains, and arguably have been able to do that. I mean, what an honor for me to stand up after all these community heroes who are out there every single day making positive change for the lives of the residents in our community. What a great thing. By virtue of the fact that you are here today, my supposition is that you are already involved at some level in improving the lot of our community residents. I would still encourage you to do a couple of things and it's all right in here. If you haven't read the report itself, go online either to appliedsurveyresearch.org or to the email address on the back of your program and just fiddle around with it. The data are wonderful, they're incredibly telling and they might stimulate you to think about doing something more than you're already doing. Second is on the back of your program are a list of contacts to become involved in the various goals in the various domains. If you aren't involved, please become so. It's a wonderful, wonderful way to make life better for our residents. Thank you everybody. I'd like again to thank Dominican for their support of this project, the Sentinel for all of their help in the selection process of the community heroes. Susan Bruchke and her great team at appliedsurveyresearch and finally Mary Lou for really being the glue that holds this whole thing together. So thanks everyone. So we're just about at the end of our program. We wanna thank and recognize the people who have been instrumental in telling the story of our county's quality of life through the community assessment project summary report. These are the designer and publisher of the summary report magazine. From Dominican hospitals public relations department, I'd like to thank and recognize Jason Solis and Mike Lee. Packets of their summary report are available at the table in the lobby and please take as many copies of that as you like. Copies of the year 17, 2011 comprehensive report are also available for sale in the library. We'll now enjoy our lunch, which has generously been provided by Hospice of Santa Cruz County. And we wanna thank you all for attending today and congratulations to all our heroes. Thank you.