Greetings Councilors,
My name is Tim MacKenzie. I am a resident of Mountain View. I wanted to reach out about a recent development in Mountain View that I hope might be of interest to our neighbors. This week, I was informed by city staff that Mountain View will be providing free period products in women's restrooms within the city. I had commented on that topic at council meetings several times over the past year and a half after being inspired by a report in 2019 about the town of Brookline, MA providing period products in all municipal bathrooms. This is a growing movement, as Scotland became the first country to make period products free in November and the Santa Clara County supervisors approved $1M to address period poverty locally. Mountain View has committed to taking a step in this direction, and I was hoping that our neighbors might show a similar interest in providing free period products in municipal bathrooms. I would advocate that all municipal bathrooms should have period products as trans men menstruate as well. I wanted to reach out to council to find out if there would be interest in Menlo Park taking a similar step and to learn how I could best help the process. I am more than happy to make a comment at a city council meeting about this topic, but I wanted to reach out earlier to gauge interest on your end.
Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to hearing back from you.
Tim MacKenzie | he/him/his
Postdoctoral Researcher
SURPAS Advocacy Coordinator
Snyder Lab | Stanford University Department of Genetics
