San Mateo County may try to improve life for everyone

The Daily News/San Mateo County/Bill Silverfarb, 2/24/15. "Budget outlines lofty goals: San Mateo County Manager John Maltbie has initiative to end homelessness."

"San Mateo County Manager John Maltbie wants to invent a future where homelessness ends, children read at grade level and every foster child goes to college.

Good year for a better future

....  Maltbie sat down with the Daily Journal Monday to discuss the goals he says the county can achieve by 2020 in light of a budget surplus of more than $366 million out of a $1.5 billion general fund budget. The county mandates that 10 percent of the budget is put into reserve but that number is now closer to 20 percent.  ....  The Board of Supervisors has already started to study a living wage ordinance and Maltbie is recommending the board also study a rent stabilization ordinance.

 With a relatively low homeless population of about 1,800 in the county, Maltbie said the resources are available to put them in housing or provide them with the skills needed to succeed in life.  Many homeless in the county, he said, are the working poor who are not unemployed. .... Maltbie uses Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote, “the best way to predict the future is to invent it,” to reflect his own thoughts and to inspire the board toward action."   Read article.  The article includes relevant County budget detail.

Note photograph by Murdo Macleod from The Guardian, UK.  Related - Boston Globe/Lloyd Young, "Chinese New Year 2015", "The Chinese Lunar New Year began Feb. 19 ushering in the Year of the Sheep, according to the Chinese zodiac."

Posted by Kathy Meeh