'The Need is Greater Than Ever'

Editor:

Happy 2025. Let’s take a moment and look at some of the events of 2024 and of 2020 (Top 10 Stories of 2024, Dec. 26).

In 2024, Sen. McGuire was in town for the annual food drive over the Christmas Holidays. The need is greater than ever, as the food bank is now serving 15 percent of the population, 21,000 individuals every month, 5,000 more than just two years ago.

Arcata House Partnership’s safe parking program came to a close due to lack of funding for its $477,000 annual cost. This much needed program served 128 people and provided more than 14,500 “bed nights,” nights that weren’t classified as unsheltered on the streets.

As the need for services from the food bank increases and the safe parking program comes to a close, Arcata City Hall made an additional $5 million discretionary payment toward its pension debt, which increased the total spent on this debt, for just one year, to $7.5 million, 15 times the safe parking program budget.

In 2020, a similar loss of service occurred in Eureka. In early 2020, four people were brutally attacked in Eureka in four separate attacks. Two survived. Two were murdered. Eureka City Hall then cut $1.1 million and six positions, including four officers, from EPD as it spent $5.7 million on pension debt.

These are just two of the many cuts to local services.

Sen. McGuire, as you are so vocal in proclaiming the community food drive raising $56,000 and 22 tons of food in 2024 is a great contribution for those in need, where is your concern for all this loss of service at the local level?

How can Mike McGuire and friends, private sector, make up for all that Mike McGuire and friends, government sector, take away, due to this massive debt?

Patrick Cloney, Eureka