The Bigger Story
I admire Nick Welsh. He reminds me of a gumshoe journalist in some old movie: a reporter who knew how to dig and spit out a straight story, no matter who they pissed off. I am flattered Nick referred to me in his article about the Santa Barbara County supervisors giving themselves a raise — which I support — all $56,000 of it. But I see a significant hypocrisy on their part, which I also described during the hearing though it did not make it into Nick’s story.
On most Tuesdays, I volunteer at a food distribution program in North County that serves as many as 170 farmworker families. Farmworkers, who are essential to our regional economy, have heavy physical jobs, and face seasonal layoffs, do not earn a living wage. Our farmworker families are food challenged, extremely housing challenged, and clothing challenged, not to mention other hardships they endure.
Two highly respected organizations — CAUSE and MICOP —presented to our supervisors a compelling study calling for a higher minimum wage for farmworkers. The supervisors put the study aside. In effect, while getting a large pay raise for themselves, they are looking away from the pressing needs and injustice our farmworker families suffer.
