Transcription
When we last talked about the inventory, uh, program about a month ago, um, we didn't have the actual inventory numbers, amounts that were calculated for this upcoming fiscal year. Now, um, we have them. I just wanted to point out the large, uh, gaps between the allocations for each district. All of our districts have needs that we try to address through the inventory process. We know that this need is not always captured in the medical numbers through the inventory process. Last year for District 5, we were able to serve residents in an unincorporated area of the county through a food service organization. And these are residents who are hidden throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains in the rugged parts of the mountains, uh, where there's no transit, no health centers, no community kitchens, no food pantries.
And so I met with the grantee this week who had asked to just come in, meet and let me know, um, what they were able to do with the inventory grant. And they were able to purchase a, a vehicle, one vehicle to distribute food. Um, and that completely changed his ability to serve the residents and really changed the lives of those residents. And, and, you know, he was very grateful, saying it wouldn't have been possible through any other means. I feel that I have to do my due diligence for my constituents, um, by respectfully asking your reconsideration of the allocation methodology to, um, have a little bit more of a balanced approach.
I wanted to bring back an idea that President Lee brought up in our last discussion. This would be, um, reducing last year's allocation. Last year we had a portion of the allocation that was, you know, a million dollars per office, and then the other 2 million was divided by, by equity, the, the equity or the medical numbers. And this time it was just straight equity. President Lee's suggestion was just to reduce last year's amounts by $500,000 each. That would amount to another savings of about a half a million dollars. I know there is interest in returning back more money to the general fund. I'll make that motion. See if anyone would be willing to, to second that change.
>> I appreciate you liking my motion earlier, but now that the print is already in ink and I think there's people have looked at these numbers. I think trying to get our colleague to agree to reducing these numbers might be very difficult.
>> Creating more a balanced approach is what got us into this mess to begin with. And I'll tell you, my district, even though I have 20.19 shared medical enrollies, it doesn't truly reflect the needs of my community because my community has been underserved for generations. And this doesn't even do it justice. I would ask for my district to actually receive more, uh, than what I'm allotted because it, it doesn't take into account historical inequities of underservice throughout the 12 years that my predecessor served. He took no part in inventory grants, which is also reflective of, of the underserving of, of that specific community. And while the votes don't come from South County, it, that is not what guides me and the needs of my community guides me.
I kind of contest the medical enrollies because I don't think that it really takes into account the kind of underserving that my community has. Um, I'm sorry to use your community, uh, Supervisor Young, but there's been also historically underserving in, in your district in the East Side. I grew up in the East Side. We both grew up in the East Side, but there has been a turnaround in the East Side in terms of services. There's agencies that serve there. There's a lot of, of collaboration. Um, there's different groups that actually serve the East Side in a way that I think is very different than what they did when I was growing up. When I was young, I was doing the surveys at Mayfair Initiative. It was called Mayfair Initiative before it was called Somos Mayfair. And I was working for the city of San Jose. I went door to door and got the feedback that eventually created some of what Somos Mayfair is now. So, I know the difference. I know what has been, um, served in the East Side and what isn't now.
The sad thing for my district is that Gilroy continues to have the same lack of services to the point where in a data point of sexual abuse, there was 300, um, sexual abuse incidents and of those incidents, only 14 people, all from South County, used the child advocacy center that is in San Jose. That is a struggle for sexual abuse survivors and their families to get to San Jose because of the distance, because of the poverty, and the generational lack of investment in my district. We still don't have a child advocacy center. We're providing vouchers for them to get to San Jose. So, I'm trying to really rectify, uh, the things of the past in the way that I think your predecessor, Supervisor Young, did for the East Side of San Jose, right in her capacity as a supervisor.
I understand the concept of equity and as a former council member in District 8, there is three country clubs in my district. I received one of the, uh, lesser amounts when we had this, this concept applied at a council level. I understood that and I still advocated for it and I still voted for it, even though I knew my community was going to get less. I understand because in the greater concept of it, uh, the East Side of San Jose, seven trees in, in District 7 had more issues. Even downtown District 3 had more incidents and more issues than my district did. I think what we need is an actual conversation around equity and how we apply it. We need to just move ahead in terms of what this inventory budget is and as we move forward, um, after the budget, we can figure out what that formula actually is.
Supervisor Ellenberg and I had ad hoc meetings. We had, we met ad hoc to actually discuss some of this. I just don't know that I'm going to subscribe to the concept of a balanced approach because equity is not balanced. When we talk about equity, I would also just look at the bigger context and, um, for District 5, if we're talking about healthcare, for instance, in terms of resources, um, of the 15 health clinics and four hospitals, uh, District 5 only has one health clinic. And so I feel that the resources are being distributed according to need. As supervisors, we know our districts best. We can help the organizations that may not be able to clear the hurdles of getting a contract with the county, for instance, or other ways of funding. I've also really, uh, appreciated how, um, folks have been innovative with this funding that they've received. I would like to be a part of the conversation. Vice President, you would be willing to, um, work with me on that. I am brown-acted with Supervisor Ellenberg and I think the brown act still stands, but I think that we could have a conversation on this at some point.
I get it. My district needs quite a bit more. Obviously, District 2 has, you know, $800,000 more than I have. I'm not going to challenge the, the concept of equity because this is what equity looks like. Do I think that we need to add more to the conversation and take more than what the medical enrollies are? Yeah, the medical enrollies don't represent also probably the number of medical enrollies who had to fall off of medical because of the new changes or their fear of, of public charge or their fear of having the federal government access to their information. The drop in, in medical enrollies, um, probably has impacted my district quite a bit. I understand equity. I'm okay that there is a difference between the, the districts. What we had before was nothing. We had just equal, everybody got the same amount, irregardless of, of districts. Um, this is just a step in, I think, in the right direction. Does it need more adjustments? Absolutely it does.
I have been unelected for a year and three months in my whole life. And in this year and three months, across the numerous boards and committees I've served, I have witnessed East Side being attacked time and time and time again, um, whether it be at this body or in other committee bodies such as VTA and the policy advisory committees where other districts have time and time, and other people. I'm not saying exclusive to this board, I'm saying across the board of my experience, hearing comments saying that East Side is getting too much, East Side doesn't deserve more. And the historical context of this county is that as far back as I can go in my understanding of this county, the policy of Reed Hillview Airport, the redlining history of East San Jose, the way our East Side looks, the way immigration policies have shaped our communities is that everyone else has made decisions for East Side. And the thing is that we are beginning to turn a tide.
Supervisor Arenas, you said something at the last meeting that really resonated with me, that this was disrespectful to quibble over this amount of money. And Supervisor Abbe Koga, what you've presented today is a handout that says at the very top of it, inventory allocation proposal, reduction of $500,000, but at the bottom of the chart, it told us a reduction of $530,000. And I know that members of the public are not able to see this right now. For the sake of the conversation and public discussion, the proposed reallocation, um, attached to the motion on the floor today is to reduce District 1's, uh, inventory allocation by $111,700.99. The reduction, proposed reduction to District 2's allocation is a reduction of $613,822. The reduction to District 3 is $2,926. The reduction to District 4 is $32,117. The addition to District 5 is $230,664 for a total reduction of the inventory allocation across the whole by $530,000.
Are things perfect? No, things are not perfect. What I've witnessed in terms of the efforts towards equity in this county organization is to write the wrongs of history. We're talking about deep history that we're learning. To me, equity is the Latino Health Assessment. Equity is centering children in our policies. Equity are the decisions we make across the board, every single board meeting. And this fund, as necessary as it is to support emerging, growing grassroots initiatives, allowing for smaller organizations or community-based organizations to pivot and respond to what's happening to our world right now, is a step towards us achieving that goal of correcting and writing the wrongs of history through an equity lens.
Supervisor Ellenberg had offered and I seconded at the last meeting discussion that we will be taking on the management audit reports, the various civil grand jury reports, all the investigations and the increase into the inventory process, um, to FGOC for thorough and deep vetting to bring back to the full board for discussion because this is a flawed process that clearly is not achieving the goals that we are setting out to do. A lot of work was done to allocate this equity metric from years past. This was not a short conversation. The last time we had at the board meeting to quibble over this amount of money is not how we achieve equity. And supervisor, I staffed CSFC. I know that's a committee that's close and near and dear to your heart. And I, that was my first assignment as a policy aid, and the warning signs were already there. The movement of people from East Side to South County. The transition of case numbers in DFCS elevating in South County, those are our shared communities. I feel a very strong kindred spirit with the families of South County. Our demographics look increasingly the same. Our challenges are the same. And I have been fully supportive of everything that can be allocated and invested in South County, knowing that our families are crossing boundaries back and forth. They're related to each other. They connect with each other. They go, they go between our districts for services because of the natural movement of families being priced out of East Side, going to the last place in the county that remains affordable, and that's now being priced out. I remember that your predecessor never took part. He did not look at South County with the lens by which you do, which is the lens that I share and fully support. I don't believe that this county operates as a zero-sum game. We don't do that. That's not how this county has raised me. This is not how this board has historically made decisions.
>> Raymondo Armandares.
>> This is Raymondo Armenarees. I'm the executive director at GARAS, Community Agency for Resources, Advocacy, and Services, and we serve South County. We are in complete alignment in agreement with the comments, um, and views of Supervisor Arenas and Supervisor Yun. Um, I remember, um, Supervisor Adams's predecessor, Supervisor Wasserman, and I actually advocated to him to try to get further investment and funding and resources for South County, which were ignored. If you pay attention to the Santa Clara County Juvenile Justice report just released in November of 2025, it shows that 95020, or Gilroy zip code, is the highest for arrest for felonies of youth and it's also the highest for minors who are incarcerated. And so this inventory budget, this, this funding and equitable distribution of inventory funding is a way that we can fill those gaps and address these issues impacting, uh, Latino youth, um, and youth in general in South County.
>> Marty Estrada.
>> I also echo the comments of, uh, Sylvia and Betty. This is about equity. This inventory budget's needed in South County, particularly youth in general, to provide them access to a place called the Hub and services that are related to that. But it goes beyond the youth services. It goes also with their families holistically. We reach out to them as well. We also had a program that we provide supportive services to the Latino population, Latino Latina, in providing health and wellness, and that is gone because the Trump administration shut that down. We need this little bit of pennies that we get from the inventory budget to support the needs of South County. We got to make sure that we keep that inventory budget standing as it is at 7 million, not cut it. Figure out a way. Why don't you cut the monies from the District Attorney, who are getting tons of money? Their budget is massive and they don't need that. Cut their budget and give the, give the nonprofits a hand up with this inventory budget and keep it in place.
>> Christine Fam.
>> My name is Christine Fam and I'm here today on behalf of Healthier Kids Foundation as the manager that oversees our screening program and as a resident of District 1. Across all of the programs we operate, we do find a consistently significant higher rate of need in East Side San Jose and South County, and we encourage the Board of Supervisors to maintain increased equitable funds available for these higher need communities.
>> Victor Vasquez.
>> Victor Vasquez, also representing the Youth Building Peace Coalition. And it's really interesting that we are still having a debate around equity versus, uh, equality. Just want to take a step back. This is part of a larger agenda from our federal government to create this type of crisis, this type of division, these types of discussions where we're trying to scramble for resources and dollars when we know we live in a county in a nation that has enough. We have inflated budgets that support the incarceration of young people that we should be looking at and moving that negative funding into positive youth interventions and empowerment programs. The data shows District 1 and 2, Latinos, African-American communities, young people with disabilities, trans and gender expansive youth, these youth who are marginalized in these communities should have an equitable distribution of resource coming to them.
>> Saul Ramos.
>> Ramos with Somos Mayfair. This has been a courageous and important discussion, right? I think it matters that the county is willing to engage in its defined meaning of equity because often institutions, they tend to fall on sameness and, you know, they call that fairness. What I hear is not whether every district gets the same, but whether communities are receiving what they actually need. And from our perspective in East San Jose, that matters a lot. Really, equity, what it's asking us to do is to respond to live conditions and ask us to recognize where the burden is heavier and where the barriers are getting greater and where the consequences of our resources are most severe. I think directing more inventory items to districts with greater need is not favoritism. It's not imbalance. It's really a responsible and grounded way to address our realities.
>> Um.
>> I do appreciate the conversation. I've also felt that we had to do our part too, as, um, you know, from our offices as supervisors to contribute to the, the overall, um, you know, reductions that we, we have to make. I see the needs and, and I look at the entire county. I fought for the East, um, East Side Connector project and, um, defended it from a lot of criticism. My district has needs as well, and sometimes they're actually more hidden than in other places, and I think there is a lot of discussion that we need to have around this. I would just ask that we do do it before next year. I know my motion is not, um, going to be seconded, so I will withdraw it. Thank you.
>> I need a motion. I move that we approve the item as recommended by staff.
>> Second.
>> That was a motion from Supervisor Ellenberg, seconded by Vice President Arenas.
>> Supervisor Rabbi Koga.
>> I.
>> Supervisor Yung.
>> Yes.
>> Supervisor Ellenberg.
>> Yes.
>> Vice President Arenas.
>> Yes.
>> President Lee.
>> I as well. Motion carries is five.