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Greetings, D4 residents -
October opened strong with Santa Clara's annual Parade of Champions, an event my office looks forward to each year, and it did not slow down from there! It was the beginning of an unplanned "Santa Clara" theme for my office this month. I was able to join the Bay Area Telugu Association for their 50th Anniversary event at the Santa Clara Convention Center, and I was at Santa Clara University for the historic inauguration of Julie H. Sullivan, Ph.D., as the first woman and layperson to lead as President of the university. Santa Clara also celebrated funding for an all-inclusive Magical Bridge Playground at Central Park. This project was seeded with funding from the City of Santa Clara, as well as the County by way of one of my office's inventory grants.
I also had the opportunity to join an amazing group of community advocates at Be Our Guest, an annual event hosted by Silicon Valley Council of Nonprofits at Excite Ballpark. You should check out all the great entries in the pumpkin contest. My team was proud to bring home the award for Best Use of Technology for our “No Tricks Just Treatment,” which depicted community-based alternatives to incarceration, complete with a moving bicycle chain to symbolize the cycle of incarceration. You can see photos and video here.
Thank you to everyone who was able to stop by to chat at the last #Food4Thought of 2022 at the Willow Glen Farmer’s Market! Before October comes to an end, I hope you can join my team for D4 Picnic in the Park in Downtown Campbell on Saturday the 29th. You’ll find plenty more information on that below, but first I'd like to share some other county-level news and updates from recent Board of Supervisors meetings.
Back in January, Supervisor Lee and I initiated a declaration of a public health crisis in mental health and substance use disorder and directed County staff to take a comprehensive approach to these issues. I continue to press County staff across multiple departments to accelerate their action and I’m glad to report that over the last month there has been notable progress.
This past Tuesday, October 18th, the Board of Supervisors approved
- An allocation of $4.6 million to support rapid action across a range of strategies currently being implemented including growing the treatment workforce and adding housing and treatment slots. (Item #65)
- Adding psychiatric response teams to the Emergency Departments at VMC – Bascom and O’Connor hospital, both in District 4 to provide dedicated psychiatric nurses to support patients that present for care at the hospitals. (Items #35 and #36)
- Adding 29 more staff to the County’s acute psychiatric services on the VMC campus, and plans are in the works to add another 11 soon to bolster the County’s capacity to care for increased volumes of patients. (Items #35 and #36)
- Placing free vending machines in the lobbies of County jails to provide access to Narcan (to reverse opioid overdoses) and fentanyl test strips in places where people can access these life-saving supplies. Going forward I would like to see more opportunities to get test strips and Narcan out to people in the community, not just near the jails, so that we are putting life-saving tools in the places where people might need to access them as we focus on prevention and treatment rather than criminalizing addiction. (Item #21)
The County will provide monthly updates to the Board of Supervisors on these and other accelerated actions to expand access to mental health and substance use treatment in Santa Clara County. The first of these new reports was provided on October 4th and the next will be on November 1st. Key issues will be the system capacity priorities I charged the CEO to meet by the end of November in the following memo approved by the Board of Supervisors on August 30th.
The Office of the County Executive though the Division of Equity and Social Justice has been working with the World Institute on Disability to support the launching of the County of Santa Clara, Office of Disability Affairs. As part of our commitment to community voice, the County has hosted community listening sessions with caregivers and people with disabilities. We are currently in our second phase of community input which includes a community needs and priority survey. We are encouraging all caregivers and people with disabilities who live or receive services in Santa Clara County to complete the survey. The survey is available in multiple languages.
The “Volunteer” section of this newsletter always includes a link to County Boards and Commission opportunities, but this month I’d like to call attention to an opening on the Senior Care Commission. The Senior Care Commission is made up of five subcommittees: Executive, Community Care, Institutional Care, Protective Issues, and Legislative. The role of the subcommittees is to expand awareness for the senior community, participate in resolving concerns regarding senior wellness and safety, advocate for senior programs, and track and advocate for senior legislation. If you are interested you can apply here.
As mentioned, I’d like to close with an invitation to D4 Picnic in the Park in Downtown Campbell on Saturday, October 29! I hope you can join me for a day of music, food, entertainment, and more! We will have food trucks, live music, fall family photo space, a reptile show, garden demonstrations, edible insects, flu vaccines, and more! Bring your own blanket or be one of the first 100 groups to arrive and we will have one for you that you can bring home! I hope to see you there!
As we return to in-person gatherings, please feel free to send an invitation to my office for me to attend your neighborhood or community event. I enjoy engaging with residents and look forward to seeing you all soon.
I am on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Nextdoor and LinkedIn. There you can find resources, news and events.
As always, if you have questions, comments, and/or concerns, email me at supervisor.ellenberg@bos.sccgov.org.
I and my team are here for you.
Be well,
Susan
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