Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/category/involvement/community-opinion/)
In honoring veterans, Governor Newsom said, “it was time to reflect and remember” and his, “deep respect and admiration” for their sacrifices. Yet, he cut the funds necessary to begin a veteran’s cemetery in Irvine. He forgot that veterans had already paid for the cemetery with their sacrifice…much more.
The situation at the men’s prison in Chino is deteriorating rapidly as COVID 19 has spread throughout the facility. While the prison halted the mixing and transfers of inmates between buildings and yards in early May to stop the spread of infections, this policy is being reversed and inmates are terrified. In their efforts to resist the change in policy their families and friends have organized a “dive by” rally close to the facility on May 23.
This joint letter, co-signed by more than twenty Orange County elected officials, respectfully requests that the Orange County Board of Supervisors work in partnership with communities by expanding COVID-19 testing, follow Governor Newsom’s guidelines, and release federal CARES Act funding to cities as the funds were intended.
California’s EDD system is not working for many Orange County residents suffering unemployment and delays on claims. Residents should seek a bailout from their local government. Orange County should use its $554 million in federal grants for working families. To learn more or support this campaign, please email: alym@ocpoverty.com.
A record Thirty-Four people died “without fixed abode” in OC last month, April 2020, eighty percent to one hundred percent more than then the year before. What to do? Let the State use FEMA funds to simply buy the near empty hotels needed to bring everybody indoors. To yet again do nothing, or next to nothing, is morally unfathomable.
It’s strange how this is thought to be the ultimate test of a “true” homeless advocate, and the ultimate solution to homelessness – the challenge to take a stranger … into your home and rehabilitate them.
The Orange County Veterans Cemetery illustrates a commitment shown by Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva and the California Legislature to give local veterans the option of a military burial site that is closer to home and honors their service. Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva has strongly advocated for the Orange County Veterans Cemetery since 2012, originally AB 1453, with Governor Brown. Quirk-Silva remains committed to getting a veteran cemetery in Orange County.
Irvine has done a tremendous job consistently setting policies ahead of the trend to respond to COVID-19. Like other cities in OC, we want to help our businesses and families that have been struggling. To be most successful, we need the OC Board of Supervisors to take three important actions.
The government uses fear-mongering to advance mass incarceration even with the Covid-19 pandemic. This writer seeks to quell the hate flowing from some fear-mongering by providing an inside perspective, based on his personal experience, on how the pandemic threatens the incarcerated, and by transmission to staff, the entire community.
As the Regional Water Board considers final permits for an ocean water desalination plant in Huntington Beach, Latinx community leaders argue it would infringe on our fundamental human rights to a safe climate and clean water; countering an OpEd by a League of United Latin American Citizens lobbyist.