In a recent interview with KSBY, Mr. Rick Haydon, city manager of Santa Maria, when speaking about the Mayor’s Task Force, stated that the people on the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Safety “have a history dealing with at-risk youth.” To be clear, this begs the following questions:
After so many years of dealing with this “gang” problem in the Santa Maria community that ultimately resulted in an unprecedented number of deaths and that put Santa Maria on the FBI’s watch list, Rick Haydon and Mayor Alice Patino want us, the community, to have confidence in the Mayor’s Task Force and their policy team?
Haydon and Mayor Patino are expecting the community to have confidence in a task force that has decision makers on it who have been here prior to, during, and after the infiltration of our community by MS-13?
Haydon and Mayor Patino want the community to trust that they will create a long-term solution without community representation being at the table? To be clear, just because you live and work in the community does not mean that by default you represent the community. Take note from their website who their members represent. There is no one representing “the community.”
We invite your attention to violence prevention strategic plans from San Jose, Salinas, and other cities of the California Cities Violence Prevention Network that stress the importance of inclusion of community from the very onset of building a strategic plan.
Does anyone else see a problem with this? One Community Action invites you to read the recent Santa Barbara County grand jury report about the Mayor’s Task Force that substantiates this and other concerns.
In this same interview, Haydon stated, “One Community Action has never verbalized what committee they represent.” Verbalize? From October 2015 through April 2016, Mayor Patino and Rick Haydon attended One Community Action meetings.
So why does One Community Action have to verbalize who we represent when Haydon and Mayor Patino have both personally attended our meetings? Haydon, Mayor Patino, former Police Chief Ralph Martin, and Councilman Bob Orach all sat and listened (or so we thought) at one of the One Community Action presentations. And Haydon has the audacity to ask who we represent?
Or are his intentions to purposely mislead the public? Simply put, Haydon is either ignorant or is intentionally attempting to mislead and lie to the public by stating he does not know “what committee we represent” as a means of denying access to our voice. In either case, it represents serious incompetence in executing his position, which supports our lack of trust and vote of no confidence in his leadership.
To be clear, One Community Action represents the community, plain and simple. We are not loyal to any political, institutional, or agency affiliation. We are humanitarians and Santa Marians, loyal only to the fair treatment, respect, and safety of all members of our community.
In response to what Mr. Haydon alludes to as those “having a history of dealing with at-risk youth,” take note that One Community Action represents a community which is composed of a diverse group of professionals (both active and retired), who through the course of their professions and personal lives have dealt with and continue to deal with underserved youth. Not “third-stringers,” like Mayor Patino recently referred to in a July 12 Santa Maria Times article.
In summary, One Community Action represents the families who know and love their kids better than any institution or agency, but continue to fall victim or are unable to receive the assistance they need because of failed city leadership—failed city leadership demonstrated by City Manager Haydon, who obviously does not feel it is important to understand our community or recognize who One Community Action represents.
Of course, this could also be because he does not live in our community.
Pete Flores is a Santa Maria Valley resident and leads the One Community Action Coalition. Send your thoughts to letters@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 20-27, 2017.