Honorable Members of the Menlo Park City Council, Please amend your budget to reinstate temporary workers at Onetta Harris Community Center. By preserving these positions, you will be taking a step toward addressing systemic racism in our city, and provide continuity to families in the Belle Haven Neighborhood who have been especially hard hit by the current pandemic. Reassure the residents of the Belle Haven Community. The majority of youth participants in the summer day camp program at Onetta Harris Community Center are black and brown. During the school year, they build relationships with the staff at the Belle Haven Youth Center After School Program. The staff members are part time temporary workers who are also black and brown and who also live locally. The students see their counselors on a regular basis while biking and shopping in the neighborhood. Think back to your own experiences in day camp or school; do you remember how difficult transitions were when all of a sudden the people you knew and trusted disappeared? Please keep the temporary staff in their roles to provide continuity for our kids, especially during this time of intense upheaval. It doesn’t cost much to send the right message. Please use the resources we have in a way that corresponds with our values. The wages of these temporary workers are minuscule compared to the total city budget, and the potential very large repercussions of laying them off. Now more than ever, we need to stand behind the workers who deliver the most needed services to the most vulnerable residents of our city. -- Julie Julie Shanson Menlo Park Resident since 2002 Received on Tue Jun 23 2020 - 20:48:30 PDT
