Dear Menlo Park City Councilmembers, I unfortunately can't make the meeting tonight to comment in person. So I am writing to encourage City Council to support the request to San Mateo County Labs to install five air quality monitors throughout Belle Haven. The placement of air monitors to Belle Haven will give us much-needed data on the environmental impacts of car traffic an construction on the neighborhood. As the letter to San Mateo County Labs notes, Belle Haven has never been designated as a community of concern by the air district or CalEPA, a status that has benefited other neighborhoods by prioritizing them for funding and other resources to address the problem. I'm a resident of Allied Arts, an area where air quality does not warrant nearly the same level of concern. When I think about disparities in environmental health in Belle Haven versus the rest of Menlo Park, it's impossible to ignore the legacy of racist real estate practices, city planning decisions, and resident sentiment that shaped Menlo Park and cities around the country. In supporting the installment of air quality monitors, the City is recognizing that the proximity of Belle Haven homes to freeways and major thoroughfares and their associated health risks is not coincidence; it was designed that way. Understanding and quantifying the problem is the first step towards mitigating it. I hope that tonight, you show the full support of Menlo Park City Council for air quality monitors in Belle Haven as part of our City's commitment to health equity. Best, Rachel Horst Received on Tue Sep 24 2019 - 16:20:46 PDT
