The Alameda County Board of Supervisors' committee (chaired by Supervisor Tam, with Supervisor Fortunado Bass) met on February 24, 2026, at 10:30 AM to receive informational updates from four county departments and hear public testimony. No votes were taken; the committee received reports and discussed next steps.
26 may have roll call, please. Not a mask, present. Advisor Camp, present. We have a quorum. Thank you. Can you go through instructions on participation? All participants, please state your name for the record prior to your comment. If you wish to speak on a matter not on the agenda, please wait until Supervisor TAM calls for public input on non-agendized items. Only matters within the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed. To notify the clerk that you wish to speak, please listen closely. For in-person participants, please fill out our speaker card in the back of the room and hand it to the clerk. The clerk will call your name to allow you to speak at the podium. For online participants, please use the raise hand function. The clerk will call your name and allow you to unmute when it is your turn. For dialed-in participants, please dial star five to raise and or lower your hand. The clerk will allow you to unmute when it is your turn. If you no longer wish to speak, lower your hand on Microsoft Teams or simply notify the clerk that you no longer wish to speak when it is your turn. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to start with the first informational item, which is the advisory commission on aging. So we'll call um Laura. Laura Michael, uh, thank you. I'm the chair of the advisory commission on aging. Oh, there we go. We are the advisory body for the area agency on aging, and we are appointed by the Board of Supervisors and by the Mayor's Conference to provide advice and oversight to the area agency on aging in terms of funding for local services for seniors. We advocate, we advise, we provide a conduit for information to flow between local seniors, the triple A providers of services, and the board of supervisors, and we are planning to speak in front of the mayor's conference, although we're still in the process of setting that up. I mean, currently we have about 11 commissioners. Our full number would be 21. So we are really looking to get some more commissioners appointed. The board of supervisors has been doing a great job of that lately. The mayor's conference, not so much, so that's why we wish to speak to them. And in terms of our accomplishments for the past year, we are continuing to put out our quarterly senior update newsletter, which has articles on various senior resources throughout the county on Medicare, Medi-Cal, health and mental health issues, recipes, advice. Um, and I think we get a lot of positive feedback on that. We also did a webinar this past year on grandparents raising grandchildren and hoping to do some more webinars in the upcoming year, um, particularly around senior isolation, which is a big issue in Alameda County and elsewhere. Um, we have been advocates, we have signed on to letters. I think I said that before. Well, but we've signed on to letters, and I think the letters make a difference. You look at those letters, and you think is this really gonna help? It has helped, it's helped with the budget impacts on the budget. We also did uh holiday baskets, that's an annual thing that we do. It's as much fun for us as it is for our seniors that we deliver to, and it uh kind of helps get us out to the community. Um we serve on the request for proposal review panel, which you know I've just finished one on INA. We did nine bids and we sat and we rated and provided feedback on the bids for funding for information and assistance fines. In terms of our committees, we have a legislative committee which keeps track of legislation that affects local seniors, helps the commission to determine recommendations to the board of the super board of supervisors. We have uh one um California Senior Legislature member and another one who was previously on our commission. So we are kept up to track on what's happening with them. We also have a public relations and outreach committee that interacts with local seniors, provides information and support through our newsletter, attends the events, as I said, our senior update newsletter, which seems to be well received and has a pretty wide distribution. And we have a services delivery committee, which has been very active, going out to the community, um, visiting some of our funded agencies, meeting the clients, coming back to us and letting us know what's going on and what the needs might be. We're also a presence on the um senior services commission and um the uh age-friendly commission, or age from the council. And in terms of what we want to ask for from Board of Supervisors, just keep an active channel communication open, acknowledge us if we send you information.