Thankful for New Mountain Health Center, By Bruce McPherson, Super

from Scotts Valley Times: January 2022

Community Calendar • Arts & Entertainment – Pages 20

FEATURED COLUMNIST

Thankful for New Mountain Health Center

By Bruce McPherson, Supervisor, Fifth District

As we wind up 2021 and look forward to 2022, I want to begin this column with enormous gratitude to our health care providers and social service organizations for the important investments they are making in the San Lorenzo Valley.

On Jan. 24, the new Santa Cruz Mountain Health Center will begin providing primary care services in Ben Lomond’s historic Wee Kirk Church building, which is the site of Dr. Steven Leib’s longtime family practice. Dr. Leib and his wife, Vivian, restored the former church in 2014 and have now retired after decades serving the Valley.

The nonprofit Santa Cruz Community Health Centers is operating the new clinic, which will initially be open 30 hours per week and be capable of serving approximately 2,000 patients with three physicians and support staff. This is terrific news for the Valley, which has long needed more primary care options.

With variants causing an uptick in COVID infections, the “Vax the Valley” clinics in Felton, which opened every Wednesday in December, resulted in 432 people receiving vaccinations as of Dec. 22. This has been a great complement to the COVID testing operation at Mountain Community Resources in Felton. I am grateful to Rotary Club of San Lorenzo Valley and Community Bridges, respectively, for sponsoring the vaccinations and testing. While the response to COVID continued to command a great deal of time and funding within the County in 2021, we also dealt with a number of other pressing issues, namely supporting CZU fire recovery while building resilience against future disasters. Here’s a quick recap. In January, after District 3 Supervisor Ryan Coonerty and I received unanimous approval by the Board of Supervisors, the County filed a formal complaint against PG&E with the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for the unauthorized removal of trees from private property in the burn scar. Those operations, which resulted in dangerous amounts of debris left on the ground, generated numerous violations from CalFire and the Coastal Commission. The County recently settled the complaint only after PG&E agreed to pick up the wood and invest in better services for our residents during future power outages. I also joined District 2 Supervisor Zach Friend in calling on the PUC to investigate PG&E’s “fast-trip” procedures that cut power to large swaths of customers when something as simple as a squirrel comes in contact with a power line.

My office also worked closely in 2021 with San Lorenzo Valley Water District in taking initial steps toward potentially annexing Big Basin Water Company. I thank SLVWD for this effort in partnership with our County’s Water Resources Division and Office of Response, Recovery and Resilience to improve water supply reliability and safety for Big Basin customers, many of whom lost homes in the fire.

We also took a number of steps in 2021 to make post-fire rebuilding easier. First, along with Supervisor Coonerty, I was pleased to win unanimous direction from the Board to provide a pathway for survivors to opt out of the expensive and time-consuming review of site-specific geological hazards. My office also spoke out in 2021 against new minimum fire-safe regulations being considered by the state Board of Forestry that would have made it difficult to rebuild in mountainous areas after a disaster.

We also pushed for an additional $2 million from the Regional Transportation Commission for road repairs, which will help improve key evacuation routes in the Valley, and I applaud the fact that nearly 60 percent of current Caltrans improvement projects in Santa Cruz County are located in my District. The County has also recently completed storm-damage repair projects on Lompico, East Zayante and Alba roads, among others.

Lastly, on the topic of housing, my office is working with District 1 Supervisor Manu Koenig to develop a tiny homes ordinance that would provide an affordable-by-design option with a lower environmental footprint than traditional building.

I am also supportive of the Veterans Village Project that will provide permanent supportive housing units for previously homeless veterans at Jaye’s Timberlane resort in Ben Lomond.

In 2022, among other initiatives, my office will continue working on the Santa Margarita Groundwater Agency, which in November unanimously approved sending its Groundwater Sustainability Plan to the state.

And we will continue advancing a proposal to expand the Boulder Creek wastewater plant to tie in properties along Highway 236 and downtown. n •••

I look forward to serving you in the coming year, and I encourage you to contact my office at Fifth.District@santacruzcounty.us or 831-4542200 if we can be of any help.