The Half Moon Bay City Council met on May 7, 2024, at 7:00 PM in a hybrid format at the Adcock Community Center. The meeting included a proclamation for Mental Health Awareness Month, city manager updates on sustainability and transportation, public comments on a proposed 40-unit farmworker housing project at 555 Kelly Avenue, and decisions on an energy service contract, summer beach management, and a community services grant program. The council approved the consent calendar (including three housing-related ordinances) with a 3-1 vote, and confirmed a new Parks and Recreation Commissioner.
Bienvenidos. Uh, welcome to Hafobaya City Council meeting uh May seventh, two thousand twenty four. Please Councilmember Brownstone. Here. Councilmember Reddick. Here. Mayor Himenez. Here. You have a quorum. May we stand for the pledge? May I have a motion to uh approve the agenda? Second. May I have a roll call. Councilmember Brownstone? Yes. Councilmember Reddick? Yes. Vice Mayor Rarebeck? Yes. Mayor Jimenez. Yes. Motion carries. Proclamation. We have a uh, as you know, uh May is recognized as a mental health month. It's been um through a lot. You know, during the pandemic. Even to this point. Our community, especially all children. You know, we're affected. I've done a lot of work with the with the farm work community. But one thing that actually struck me. Um late twenty twenty into early twenty twenty one. It was done by uh migrant agricultural uh cultural workers. Did a study with farm workers. I was surprised actually to see how mental health affects our farm worker community in nobody ever took note. All the mental health trauma the farm workers have gone through. Anxiety, depression. We're never recognized. The suicide rate of the farm worker community was pretty high. The use of uh drugs and alcohol was pretty high as well. What it came out does have farm worker scope. I don't know if you knew, but in the 1990s, uh there was a high epidemic of use of crystal meth among the farmworker community. The reason they started using uh crystal method, and it was not just California, it was other states as well. So they could actually work long hours because that was the only way they they could make an extra income working overtime. Many of them became addicted. In San Mateo County, I had the uh the opportunity uh to provide support to some of our local farm workers to enter programs, rehabilitation programs. Most of them made it out. And some of them, you know, uh graduated from the program, and years later they relapsed again, and there was no turning back for them anymore. Last year, uh January 2020 January 23rd, 2023, there was a tragedy in Hafon Bay. As we understand, it was related to mental health, high levels of stress.