All right at 1001 a.m.

we will officially call the community health committee meeting to order.

Please call the role.

Councilmember Castillo.

Councilmember Alderete Gavito.

Councilmember Mesa Gonzalez.

Councilmember White.

Chair Govan.

Here.

Chair, we have quorum.

Great.

Do you have any changes or adjustments to the minutes?

Great.

Can I motion to approve?

All those in favor of Ruby?

Aye.

Aye.

Any oppose?

Any extensions?

Beautiful.

We'll move into public comment.

We have one speaker signed up and a couple folks who uh sent some public input or public comments through SA Speak Up or Speak Up S.

Gosh.

Everyone on the committee got their written notes.

So we'll keep those into the record.

So thank you to Nadia, Emma, and Gracie for sending in your comments.

Our person here at the speak in person is Jamie Gonzalez from the Food Policy Council.

You have three minutes to speak.

I was about to say nobody provided a stool for me to stand on.

So good morning, everyone.

I think most of you know me here, but my name is Jamie Gonzalez.

But you know me as the Produce Lady of San Antonio, and I represent the Food Policy Council and River City Produce and Chicho Boys.

I came in this morning because I wanted to make a public comment about the conversations around the budget and the healthy neighborhoods program, amongst many of the other Metro Health programs and public health programs that are potentially being impacted by the uh the decreased budget next year.

I have had the privilege for spending of spending the last 10 years working with many of the community health workers in this community through the Food Policy Council through the variety of programs with Metro Health, especially the Healthy Neighborhoods program.

And while I know that the city is facing deep deficits over the next couple of years, I wanted to come and speak to some of the work and the behind the scenes work that the Healthy Neighborhoods team and our army of community health workers do in this community.

If it was not for healthy neighborhoods and the work of the many community health network workers that I've engaged with over the years, there's so many programs and initiatives that would have not moved as far along as they have.

These are people who are not just showing up for work with a city badge from nine to five going to meetings that they're paid to go to.

It's the evenings, the weekends, the nights, the time that these people spend of their own time volunteering in our community alongside the people that are embedded in the community.

When I think about dialing back the funding for these types of programs, this is the safety net that we have created in the city and and one where we're going to leave a very large gap as we lose this type of worker in our community and the impact of the healthy neighborhoods program.

This is not just community health workers door knocking and meeting with the community, but they are the most trusted people in these neighborhoods.

When there is a new initiative, when there is a project, when there is a program, when a city council member wants to have an event like a community platica, these are the people that are helping spread the word alongside of us.

These are also the departments that have uplifted private public partnerships in the community for many years, but impactfully for the better part of the last five years.

We would have not have started and grown the Healthy Corner Store program without the help of the community health workers and their participation with the food policy council.

And as that program phases out, the expansion of the Double Up Food Bucks program and just bringing that program to San Antonio happens in the heart of the Healthy Neighborhoods team.

This is where Via Coronado gets its legs.

This is also where community members, these are the first people that they go to when they're struggling.

We know that they go to city council, we know they go to your offices, but the people that they trust most, the people that they call, the people that are picking up their children and taking them to practices and making sure that they know about food distributions.

This is your healthy neighborhoods team.

This is that heart of the city.

I worry, and the Food policy council worries, that as this department is dialed back and the other departments in Metro Health.

How do we continue the bridge and fill the gap over the next few years that will occur in public health in this community?

And that is not just healthy neighborhoods.

That is in community nutrition, it is in chronic disease and prevention, it is also in your STI testing programs as well.

The vital resources that we have that the community doesn't often doesn't know enough about.

And I will say one more thing that's going to be a little more of an unpopular comment.

As we look to tighten the city's budget and to find money where money does not exist, I challenge you to look deeper within some of your other processes.

One of them is your RFP process, and I've spoken about that publicly many times in front of several of the city council members, the cost of that, the the gaps in the finance department, and the way that they're assigned to different departments and offices and the arbitrary way that they pay money, collect money, need a PO, don't need a PO, all of this because it is actually not synced up, because those processes are not consistent across departments.

That creates a huge gap.

It also creates money loss that could be used for public programming.

And the last one that I will mention is the marketing department of the City of San Antonio and Metro Health.