www.montereycountynow.com MAY 1-7, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 21 When some 2,000 leaders from county governments across the United States converged for an annual legislative conference in Washington, D.C. from March 1-4, they had a long list of issues to focus on. County workforce needs, land use, disaster preparedness and artificial intelligence rated on the top of the list for the group, coordinated by the National Association of Counties (NACo). Among the attendees was Monterey County Supervisor Wendy Root Askew, who lives in Marina and represents District 4 on the Board of Supervisors. She is also a member of NACo’s health committee, and chairs a subcommittee on Medicaid and indigent care. She and her 2,000 county colleagues arrived in Washington less than a week after the U.S. House of Representatives had approved a budget resolution directing the House Energy & Commerce Committee to reduce the federal deficit by at least $880 billion over 10 years—with apparently no other way to achieve those cuts than by slashing Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for some 72 million Americans who are unable to afford private insurance. This came just a month after President Donald Trump had been sworn into a second term, and Republicans were moving swiftly to slash spending. Askew—who also serves back home on the governing board of the Central California Alliance for Health, which administers Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California) locally—has traveled to the Capitol for legislative conferences like these before. But the backdrop this time felt different to her—it was crisis mode. As she met with congressional representatives, however, it felt like something else entirely. “There was this whiplash of, it’s business as usual, and a recognition of, this isn’t business-as-usual,” she says. The part that unsettled her was the latter, and she felt it in every meeting she had with about 10 members of Congress. “It felt like they were unaware of the crisis we were experiencing,” she says. “They were either unable to acknowledge or unaware of the dire circumstances playing out around them. There was an inability to do anything other than go about business as usual.” She felt a startling disconnect. Back home, protests were happening with urgency; on Feb. 3, “A Day Without Immigrants,” Monterey County schools experienced 25- to 45-percent absenteeism. Dozens of teachers stayed home too. Askew left with a sense of bleakness: “I walked away realizing our congressional leadership is not prepared to be in this fight with us,” she says. “That was a sinking feeling.” Just after returning home, she headed for another conference in Yosemite National Park, the CivicWell Policymakers, bringing together about 100 local California elected officials— mayors, county supervisors, city council members—to brainstorm how to build resilient communities. “It got me thinking about a framework to take all my fears and worries and put them back into local focus,” Askew says. “If there ever was a time to build local relationships and our local networks, it is now.” There are 535 members of Congress, counting both the House of Representatives and Senate combined. There are 3,069 counties across the country, governed by some 19,350 elected county-level officials. There’s the simple matter of math: Your voice is much more likely to be heard by your local representative than, say, the president of the United States. Monterey County residents are represented by five elected officials at the federal level, 12 at the state level and at least 336 on the local level, counting city council members, school board members, fire district and water district board members, and others, serving in nonpartisan elected roles. County Supervisor Glenn Church emphasizes that this can make local government more responsive: “They don’t pave the roads red or blue.” “Especially with our political climate nowadays, it’s more important than ever to connect to a community-based institution,” says Watsonvillebased Mayra Bernabe, an organizer with Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action (COPA), a coalition of churches, unions and other groups. “There is just a feeling of powerlessness: I don’t have control and I can’t do anything. But I can connect to my community members, and hear their concerns and their worries, then lift up their concerns and worries. “Health care, mental health, housing—there are big problems that feel like we can’t do anything about it. How do we convert these problems into issues that become tangible that we can find a solution for? We then identify who it is we can go to to make that change. We are inviting people into public life.” Lots of people find their way to local government by first engaging with partisan national issues or candidates. That’s how it was for Tyller Williamson, now in his second term as mayor of Monterey. Williamson was a community college student in San Diego when Barack Obama was first running for president, and he signed up to volunteer, starting with phone banking. By Obama’s second campaign in 2012, Williamson had moved to Monterey. He attended a weekend training for the Obama campaign in the Bay Area, and was assigned to create and lead a neighborhood team in Monterey. “Oftentimes, people are just waiting for somebody to lead it. When you get things going, other people will join you,” he says. “Sometimes it just takes one person to get things going.” Williamson didn’t think much about local government until after Trump was elected the first time, and he joined the nascent Indivisible movement. There was camaraderie, but he wanted to see more tangible results. “I wasn’t seeing things getting done,” he says. “I am really action-oriented and I thought, ‘instead of complaining about it, maybe it is a chance to make things happen.’ “I felt like, we can’t just throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do. We have to find those opportunities where we can actually influence change.” For his first foray into local gov- “PART OF OUR WORK IS UNLEARNING THE LIE THAT WE DON’T HAVE POWER.” SARA RUBIN Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (center) talks to elected officials from his district (from left, County Supervisor Glenn Church and King City Mayor Mike LeBarre) at the Capitol on April 9. At right, Salinas City Council members Tony Barrera and Andrew Sandoval joined the relationshipbuilding trip.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==