There are already enough bullies in the lunchroom. Now some members of the U.S. House are effectively trying to take our kids’ lunch money -- by putting forward a bill that guts school lunch programs. An ill-advised update to the Child Nutrition Act came out late last month that jeopardizes free and reduced school lunch for millions of children. This legislation is moving quickly, and we need to stop the provisions that could lead to empty stomachs from coast to coast. Taking away kids’ school lunches is being hailed as the fiscally responsible thing to do, even when we know the opposite is true. When students are hungry they can’t learn. Providing lunch to children whose families are struggling with food insecurity is a simple investment to make sure that those children are learning. It’s just common sense. The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill includes sneaky provisions that would gut the school lunch program -- and would roll back years of progress. [1] If passed, more than 7,000 schools would have their school lunch eligibility revoked. And those more than 7,000 schools? They serve more than 3 million kids [2] Rep. Tim Walberg is a member of the critical House Education and Workforce Committee which will be taking a look at this language over the next week or so. It is critical that he hears that we must protect hungry kids, not take away their lunches. [1] http://goo.gl/I85mAI [2] http://goo.gl/YU5Z7I

There are already enough bullies in the lunchroom. Now some members of the U.S. House are effectively trying to take our kids’ lunch money -- by putting forward a bill that guts school lunch programs. An ill-advised update to the Child Nutrition Act came out late last month that jeopardizes free and reduced school lunch for millions of children. This legislation is moving quickly, and we need to stop the provisions that could lead to empty stomachs from coast to coast. Taking away kids’ school lunches is being hailed as the fiscally responsible thing to do, even when we know the opposite is true. When students are hungry they can’t learn. Providing lunch to children whose families are struggling with food insecurity is a simple investment to make sure that those children are learning. It’s just common sense. The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill includes sneaky provisions that would gut the school lunch program -- and would roll back years of progress. [1] If passed, more than 7,000 schools would have their school lunch eligibility revoked. And those more than 7,000 schools? They serve more than 3 million kids [2] Rep. Glenn Thompson is a member of the critical House Education and Workforce Committee which will be taking a look at this language over the next week or so. It is critical that he hears that we must protect hungry kids, not take away their lunches. [1] http://goo.gl/I85mAI [2] http://goo.gl/YU5Z7I

There are already enough bullies in the lunchroom. Now some members of the U.S. House are effectively trying to take our kids' lunch money—by putting forward a bill that guts school lunch programs. An ill-advised update to the Child Nutrition Act came out late last month that jeopardizes free and reduced school lunch for millions of children. This legislation is moving quickly, and we need to stop the provisions that could lead to empty stomachs from coast to coast. Taking away kids' school lunches is being hailed as the fiscally responsible thing to do, even when we know the opposite is true. When students are hungry they can't learn. Providing lunch to children whose families are struggling with food insecurity is a simple investment to make sure that those children are learning. It's just common sense. The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill includes sneaky provisions that would gut the school lunch program -- and would roll back years of progress. [1] If passed, more than 7,000 schools would have their school lunch eligibility revoked. And those more than 7,000 schools? They serve more than 3 million kids [2] We're calling on Rep. John Kline, the chair of the education and workforce committee, to clean up this bill and protect our kids before it hits the House floor for a vote. [1] http://goo.gl/I85mAI [2] http://goo.gl/YU5Z7I

There are already enough bullies in the lunchroom. Now some members of the U.S. House are effectively trying to take our kids' lunch money -- by putting forward a bill that guts school lunch programs. An ill-advised update to the Child Nutrition Act came out late last month that jeopardizes free and reduced school lunch for millions of children. This legislation is moving quickly, and we need to stop the provisions that could lead to empty stomachs from coast to coast. Taking away kids' school lunches is being hailed as the fiscally responsible thing to do, even when we know the opposite is true. When students are hungry they can’t learn. Providing lunch to children whose families are struggling with food insecurity is a simple investment to make sure that those children are learning. It's just common sense. The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill includes sneaky provisions that would gut the school lunch program -- and would roll back years of progress. [1] If passed, more than 7,000 schools would have their school lunch eligibility revoked. And those more than 7,000 schools? They serve more than 3 million kids [2] Rep. Virginia Foxx is a member of the critical House Education and Workforce Committee which will be taking a look at this language over the next week or so. It is critical that she hears that we must protect hungry kids, not take away their lunches. [1] http://goo.gl/I85mAI [2] http://goo.gl/YU5Z7I

There are already enough bullies in the lunchroom. Now some members of the U.S. House are effectively trying to take our kids’ lunch money -- by putting forward a bill that guts school lunch programs. An ill-advised update to the Child Nutrition Act came out late last month that jeopardizes free and reduced school lunch for millions of children. This legislation is moving quickly, and we need to stop the provisions that could lead to empty stomachs from coast to coast. Taking away kids’ school lunches is being hailed as the fiscally responsible thing to do, even when we know the opposite is true. When students are hungry they can’t learn. Providing lunch to children whose families are struggling with food insecurity is a simple investment to make sure that those children are learning. It’s just common sense. The House Child Nutrition Reauthorization Bill includes sneaky provisions that would gut the school lunch program -- and would roll back years of progress. [1] If passed, more than 7,000 schools would have their school lunch eligibility revoked. And those more than 7,000 schools? They serve more than 3 million kids [2] Rep. Duncan Hunter is a member of the critical House Education and Workforce Committee which will be taking a look at this language over the next week or so. It is critical that he hears that we must protect hungry kids, not take away their lunches. [1] http://goo.gl/I85mAI [2] http://goo.gl/YU5Z7I

The Cabot project has been in the Schematic Design phase of the MSBA process since August 6, 2015. The project entered this phase with the current design as the preferred design, and the project team has been working on refinements to the design for the past 8 months. The project team has sought and considered input from the school administration, parents, neighbors and organizations such as Safe Routes to School and the Newton Historical Commission throughout this time and has worked in an open and transparent manner. The Cabot School Building Committee voted unanimously, excepting one abstention, to approve the current design on April 5, 2016. The city’s agreement to purchase the property at 23 Parkview Avenue this winter helped in this process by providing the opportunity to improve the traffic flow around the school site. It did not, in any way, offer new options for the placement of portions of the school building. All land that is currently available for siting the school structure has been available to the team throughout the design process. While there has been a request by the Ward 2 City Councilors to explore alternative design options subsequent to the approval of the current design, these options are not new concepts. Moreover, their request stems largely from meetings with a small group of residents outside the public process focusing on the aesthetics of the design that are, by nature, subjective . Re-examining alternative design concepts now, would obstruct the open, collaborative committee process and would result in costly delays to this and other school projects in the city. If this delay and reconsideration is permitted, a precedent would be set for similar obstructions to this project later in the process and/or to future building projects throughout Newton. Additionally, the community’s trust in the honesty and fairness of the building process would be significantly eroded. Residents of Newton want to avoid the type of delays and cost overruns experienced in the Newton North High School project, not repeat them. This is precisely why adhering to the open, public design process and supporting the design approved by the CSBC on April 5, 2016, is so important.

I have been doing research on childhood obesity in Mississippi; this is an urgent problem for which solutions exist. I believe the children of Mississippi need more than simply a law in words. They need a law in action.

As an Adult Day Service Instructor for DDS, we have been informed our positions are being eliminated from the department.

Hollister is the next cheapest place on the border of Silicon Valley. Rents are skyrocketing. Affordable rentals are nearly impossible to find. Long time residents are doubled and tripled up, couch surfing, living in sub-standard units, homeless, or leaving the area. The upper floors of downtown sit empty. A proposed new homeless shelter does not include the "housing first" solution. We could easily fill 200 tiny houses. This is a critical point in the development of this community.

For tens of thousands of citizens of Sonoma County being evicted from their homes or worried about rising costs, the shortage of attainably priced housing for moderate income people has become the most urgent crisis in the County. Every political candidate and elected representative speaks of the need to address our housing crisis, but nobody in County or local government has developed a plan capable of adding more attainably priced housing units. As a result—and in the absence of an Attainable Housing Solution like the one being proposed below by the politically independent grassroots Sonoma County Attainable Housing Coalition and the SonomaIndependent.org—the current housing crisis will worsen. Without a bold solution to this crisis, only new rentals coming available and the only new homes available for purchase will remain affordable to only the wealthy. Thousands, or even tens of thousands of our neighbors, as well as farm laborers and other moderate-income workers, will continue to be priced out of our communities. Children who have grown up here will be unable to live as adults near their families, and many senior renters, our must vulnerable residents, will be forced from the community in which they have lived for decades or have chosen for their retirement. They will be priced out by escalating costs and replaced by newcomers who can afford skyrocketing rents or the million-dollar-plus homes, which are, effectively, the only type of housing that the County’s existing zoning and permitting laws allow to be built. The Sonoma County Attainable Housing Solution is a three-prong solution that would allow, at zero cost to taxpayers, the creation, during the next 15 years, of 15,000 new small homes rent controlled at under $900 per unit, as well as 10,000 small environmentally friendly homes in non-profit housing clusters, cost-controlled to under $200,000. Our solution could be implemented this year by a simple vote of a majority of our County Supervisors, along with a modest adjustment to the upcoming Community Separator extension that is up for voter renewal this year. If implemented, this Solution could create 25,000 new rent and cost-controlled units of housing to house 30,000 people who will otherwise be forced to leave Sonoma County, or not be able to move here, because of the skyrocketing cost of housing. An April 24 column in the Press Democrat by syndicated Bloomberg columnist Justin Fox titled "Why Housing is Too Expensive" concluded, “I can’t help but think that this is a case where we may need both less government (in the form of a rollback of zoning and other housing regulations) and more government (in the form of housing subsidies for the poor).” Sonoma County’s Supervisors are taking necessary measures to find and fund solutions for the homeless. What they have not done, and what needs to happen now, is a zoning and permitting rollback that is focused, with laser-like precision, on creating thousands of units of attainably priced, new housing. The Sonoma Independent Solution allows the marketplace to create an unprecedented boom in attainably priced housing by reducing expensive regulations on auxiliary dwelling units, and by re-zoning a tiny percentage of private land in the County solely for the creation of attainably priced housing so that small landowners will be empowered to use the free market to address the County’s housing crisis. For a variety of reasons—from density issues to accessibility to a lower carbon footprint—some of these attainably priced homes would be located near cities. With that in mind, our Solution requires amending the upcoming Community Separator initiative that will be on the November 2016 ballot to allow some of this attainably priced cost-controlled housing to be placed on about 5% of the land covered by the law. The Sonoma Independent Attainable Housing Solution would provide the capability for middle-class landowners to either sell currently unsaleable small parcels of land for non-profit housing communities of inexpensive small homes or to become middle-class landlords of rent stabilized small house tenants, while generating millions of dollars in new tax revenue for Sonoma County. Our Solution has built strong safeguards to ensure that for-profit developers will never be able to take advantage of these zoning adjustments for housing that are not attainably priced. All of the rental units will be controlled so that they can never be rentable for more than $900, plus increases pegged to the local rate of inflation. Those built as part of non-profit Community Land Trusts could never be rented for profit, or sold for more than $200,000 (plus the rate of inflation). In addition, all the new homes created would be environmentally friendly and conscious of their neighbors. There would be no more than two housing communities of no more than 20 small homes per square mile. Most of the new modest, small-home communities would have solar panels to be net generators of energy, and would contain organic gardens to sustain our local food supply. All the new communities would be forbidden from using pesticides, Roundup, herbicides, or GMO seed. They would also not be able to build asphalt roads, or to grow commercial grapes or cannabis. The Sonoma Independent and the County Attainable Housing Coalition believes this solution provides a historic opportunity to reverse the current trend of new housing affordable only for the wealthy, and build 25,000 new units of attainably priced small homes, with zero use of taxpayer dollars, while creating $15 million annually in new tax revenue for the County, and more than $100 million in additional income for middle-class landowners. This solution is comprised of three parts: I. Zoning and code variance for auxiliary dwelling units (“ADU’s”), likes tiny homes, garage conversions and mobile units, to be rent controlled at under $900 per month. II. An allowance for small gree...

I broke my leg on these inadequate roads. Neighborhood roads should provide for pedestrians, and bicycle riders, and skaters, as well as cars.

We are told the Town Council may not grant us permission to volunteer and update the City of Chesapeake Playground at the corner of 116th St. & Kanawha Avenue. We want a high school regulation basketball court. Basketball uprights and rims are being donated. Volunteers are available to put in proper mulch and write playground companies for update and compliant play areas. Vote to update our playground. Permission to raise funds and make a safe and compliant playground.