Health Committee Meeting – Public Health Commission Annual Update – November 13, 2025
Health Committee Meeting – Public Health Commission Annual Update – November 13, 2025
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors Health Committee (Supervisors Tam and Miley) convened on Thursday, November 13, 2025, to receive the annual update from the Public Health Commission. The presentation covered the commission's mission, membership, committee structure, strategic priorities, and recent work on cancer care equity. Supervisors engaged in extensive discussion about commissioner training, vacancies, stipends, coordination with the Board of Supervisors, and the oversight of Measure A/C/W funds.
Discussion Items
- Public Health Commission Annual Update: Chair Mitzi de la Penya Medina and Vice Chair Sally Miss Kelly presented. The commission focuses on health equity, community capacity building, and policy/system changes. The current roster has openings in Districts 1, 3, and 5, and an at-large seat will open soon. New commissioners often lack experience with county bureaucracy and the Brown Act, so the nominations committee is developing training tools. The commission restructured its committees: Health Equity in All Policies, Nominations, Steering, and a new Strategic Initiatives committee with ad hoc work groups on housing, mental health, immigration, etc. The 2025 strategic retreat emphasized alignment with the Board of Supervisors and the Public Health Department. Cancer is the leading cause of mortality in Alameda County, and the commission launched a series of panels on social determinants of cancer care, starting with a breast cancer awareness event in October that drew 32 participants from institutions and the community. The commission also filled a seat on the Measure A/C/W oversight committee and is examining how results-based accountability is applied.
- Supervisor Q&A:
- Training for new commissioners: Supervisors Tam and Miley agreed that countywide centralized training (e.g., on the Brown Act, Robert's Rules) would relieve the commission of this burden. Supervisor Tam suggested an online AB 1234-style course. County Council staffing constraints were noted.
- Language access: Supervisor Tam announced her office is developing a language access policy and asked the commission to partner. Chair Medina offered to share San Mateo County's best practices.
- Measure A/C/W oversight: Vice Chair Kelly asked how results-based accountability fits into the new combined oversight committee's look-back function. Agency Director clarified that RBA is applied at the contract and program level, not as a formal function of the oversight committee, but feedback informs future contracts.
- Cancer data: Supervisors inquired about geographic variation and environmental factors (e.g., I-580 corridor pollution). The commission noted that cancer prevalence and mortality vary by type and location, and that UCSF provides a zip-code-level data tool. Lung and prostate cancer have high mortality rates in the county.
- Stipends: Supervisor Miley noted that while most commissions are unpaid, a stipend could improve equity and participation, but criteria need to be established countywide. Chair Medina added that transportation support and interpretation services (as done in San Mateo County) also lower barriers.
- Ad hoc work groups: The commission explained that ad hocs are tactical, agile groups that research issues to avoid duplication. One group already sunsetted after finding overlapping work. Supervisors cautioned against duplicating efforts of other commissions (e.g., Mental Health, Housing and Homeless).
- Commission size: With 25 seats (4 per district + 5 at-large), the commission is unusually large. Vice Chair Kelly noted this ensures district representation but makes it hard to fill seats and reach consensus.
- Future engagement: Supervisor Miley will ensure his liaison (Aaron Armstrong) attends commission meetings quarterly. The supervisors encouraged the commission to present recommendations to the Board.
Key Outcomes
- No formal votes were taken, but the following next steps were identified:
- Supervisor Tam's office will contact the commission to collaborate on a language access policy.
- The commission will invite Supervisor Tam and staff to discuss geographic cancer data and environmental health initiatives.
- The Board will consider centralized training for all commissioners, potentially through an online module, and will revisit the issue of stipends with a criteria-based approach.
- The Health Committee will hold a joint meeting with the Public Protection Committee for a deeper dive into homicide data.
- The Public Health Commission will continue its ad hoc groups and present recommendations to the Board in 2026.
- The agency will explore cross-departmental support for boards and commissions within Alameda County Health.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning. I'd call to order the uh health committee meeting for Monday, November 10th. Quick word take a roll. Supervisor Tam. Present. Supervisor Miley. Present. Any instructions? For in-person participation. The meeting site is open to the public. If you'd like to speak on an item, you can fill out a speaker's card in the front of the room for remote participation. Use the raise your hand function. And teleconferencing guidelines are posted at www.acgov.org. All right. Thank you. Okay. So we have one item this morning's information item, public health commission annual update. Supervisor Wilde, um commissioners are coming up to the podium. Just uh some context. This is our uh regular update that the public health commission provides to the health committee annually, and we also have Director Kimmy Watkins Tart available online if uh you want to elevate your teasing. Okay, ready? Good morning, Supervisor Miley and Supervisor Tam. Thank you for having us here today. We'll provide an overview of the Public Health Commission, just our annual update about everything that's been going on and just some of our milestones accomplishments and then what's going on with our committee work. Okay, I'm gonna just skip over this. Oh, before I forget, let me introduce myself. So my name is Mitsi de la Penya Medina. Um I am the chair of the public health commission, and I am from District 5. And I'm Sally Miss Kelly. I'm the vice chair of the public health commission. I'm at large but live in district five. All righty. So our mission remains the same. So our here, our goal is to focus and prevent on health equities, building community um capacities and champions, as well as policy and system changes within the committee, and then as or commission, as well as advocating and for the underserved communities of Alameda County, and as well as accountability for any initiative that is taking place, and then as well develop a vision for the future. Okay, I don't know if this works. Okay. So currently, um, what you have here is our roster. As you can see, for the most part, we are pretty covered in district four and district two, and at our at large seats. We do have a few openings for district five as well as the district one and then district three. With that being said, a lot of our commissioners are um in the newer end, so um, they have either recently joined us this year or the previous year. Um we still do have a few longtime commissioners, so we still have um Zee, um Commissioner Harper, and then as well as Nestor, Commissioner Castillo. Um, but I do want to note um Nestor will actually be leaving us this um this year, so he will be stepping down from his seat, making another at-large position open. All our commissioners come from all different backgrounds with different experiences, um, and everybody has been great at trying to get involved. I am sure some of these commissioners have reached out to some of you, um to both of you to get um more acquainted, understand what your priorities are as well as how they align to what the department um the department has also prioritized. Next slide. So we did recently update our bylaws and um sunseted a couple of our committees, and now we have this structure which includes the health equity and all policy and all policies, nominations, steering, and strategic initiatives. So the strategic initiatives is a newer committee, and it's more focused on these ad hoc groups that um are temporary groups. The focus at either an initiative regarding to access to care, housing, mental health, immigration, to name a few, um, and they are led by our commissioners in groups of two or three, where they really then develop a strategic plan on how we want to approach certain initiatives and also then some of them have even reached out to some of the BOS to collaborate more and further these discussions and see what's possible. This is an effort to really have a cohesive dynamic between the BOS, the department, and then the commission itself. We want to make sure that there's alignment.
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