County needs to keep funding for Grey Bears

Grey Bears has nourished Santa Cruz County seniors since 1973, sustained by community generosity and essential county funding. But with proposed cuts to county funding for the next three years set for today’s (Nov. 19) Board of Supervisors decision, we — and other local food programs — face empty plates instead of full tables.

This reduction couldn’t come at a worse time: Santa Cruz has the fastest-growing senior population in California, projected to reach 30% by 2034. Seniors who built the community we cherish deserve services that honor their basic needs.

At Grey Bears, the cuts will chop our food budget in half. For the over 4,100 senior households who receive locally sourced healthy bags of produce from Grey Bears each week and 60,000 community members served a warm lunch meal last year, our food programs provide not only nutritional sustenance but vital connection.

We urge the county to reconsider its funding priorities to support vulnerable seniors. Join us to advocate for investments that reflect our shared values — ensuring all seniors receive the support they need and deserve.

— Betsey Lynberg, Grey Bears board chair, Ben Lomond

Board: Don’t cut vital Meals on Wheels services

My husband Tim Isaacs and I have volunteered to deliver Meals on Wheels all around the mountains weekly for the past 5 1/2 years. While mountain folks can be an independent lot, they are also dependent on community and support services. We have seen the seniors and disabled clients we have brought meals to, and checked up on, go through fire, storms, extreme heat, COVID and frequent power outages. Meals on Wheels doesn’t just meet basic needs, but is also a critical safety net.

We have learned that over the next three years of the county funding period, if the funding is not renewed, as many as a third of all the seniors served would have to be denied meals. And as of now, Santa Cruz County can proudly say that everyone needing and qualifying for Meals on Wheels gets them.

We strongly encourage the Board of Supervisors to reconsider supporting Meals on Wheels for this next funding cycle. A lot of lives depend on it.

— Sally Jorgensen, Santa Cruz

Cut highway funding and fund social programs

In Santa Cruz County there are amazing organizations that provide care for low-income elderly, children without dental insurance, battered women, at-risk teens, etc. These organizations make do on a shoestring budget, often stretching their impact through an army of volunteers. If we lose all that great energy, our county will be immeasurably impoverished, not just materially, but spiritually.

The Board of Supervisors has an opportunity to shift the $3 million needed to keep these programs funded. What’s needed is to shift $3 million from Measure D funds earmarked for a proposed highway expansion project, the exit-only lanes in Aptos, to the county budget. (Legally $3 million would go to county road repair. Thence $3 million in property tax money budgeted for roads would go to the social programs.) This solution is a win-win, since the EIR for the auxiliary lanes finds insignificant congestion relief.

— Rick Longinotti, Santa Cruz

Measure Z: Yes, you can legislate on health matters

A new study just came out that says that by 2050, 260 million Americans will be overweight or obese. A previous letter writer said that we can’t legislate good health through higher prices, but that is exactly what we did with cigarettes. Having massive increases in life-long diabetes affects not just those people but all of us, in terms of higher health insurance and health care costs.

— Cliff Bixler, Bonny Doon

Article failed to mention UCSC female chief

I recently read your article about Sarah Ryan being appointed the first female chief of police in Capitola. Congratulations to her! She expressed her gratitude for all the women who came before and acknowledged that she wouldn’t be where she is without them pushing through the challenges women face in law enforcement. So true. Although your article made brief mention of a woman who had served as interim chief at UCSC for a short time, it completely failed to mention Jan Tepper, who was chief of police at UCSC for 12 years (1991-2003), the first female chief in Santa Cruz County. Prior to her appointment at UCSC, Chief Tepper rose through the ranks at the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Department.

— Christina Floyd, Santa Cruz