enterprise THE DAVIS
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2021
Sisson backs elementary reopening Urges caution on return to high-school sports
The COVID-19 Statewide Agriculture and Farmworker Education Program is designed to help California’s 800,000 farmworkers stay safe during the pandemic.
By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer Gov. Gavin Newsom this week promised revised plans as soon as Friday on returning elementary school students to the classroom and possibly expanding the number of high school sports that can resume competition. But school districts and county SISSON health officers will County health continue have a officer large say on how things proceed locally. At Tuesday’s Yolo County Board of Supervisors meeting, Health Officer Dr. Aimee Sisson weighed in on both a return to the classroom and resumption of high school sports. Her verdict: students from transitional kindergarten through sixth grade can safely return to school now; junior high and high school
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House committee approves local transit funding By Caleb Hampton Enterprise staff writer Rep. John Garamendi, D-Walnut Grove, secured new federal funding for local public transportation projects and infrastructure, the congressman announced Wednesday in a press release. Garamendi, who is a senior member of the House TranGARAMENDI sportation and Third District Infrastructure Comrepresentative mittee, secured the funding for his district this week in the committee’s markup of the Budget Resolution for fiscal year 2021, which is also
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VOL. 124 NO. 19
Hector Amezcua/ UC Davis photo
UCD aims to help farmworkers By Diane Nelson Special to The Enterprise California’s 800,000 farmworkers have been hit hard by COVID-19, the disease that has infected more than 25 million people and killed more than 420,000 in the United States. Farmworkers are especially vulnerable to the airborne virus that causes COVID-19 because they often live, work and carpool in close quarters with other people. As essential employees, farmworkers have stayed on the job during the pandemic to plant, process and harvest the nation’s food. Agricultural safety experts and communicators at UC
Davis have launched the COVID-19 Statewide Agriculture and Farmworker Education Program to reverse that trend. Funded by a $3 million contract with the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the project provides workers, growers, farm labor contractors, community groups and others the training and safety information they need to reduce farmworkers’ risk of contracting COVID-19. The COVID-19 project is led by experts at the UC Davis Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety, who are collaborating with the UC
Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Communications Team, a network of community-based organizations, and agricultural industry groups. “Our team will work directly with community organizations who are trusted by farmworkers and have already been assisting them throughout this COVID crisis,” said Heather Riden, program director at the Western Center for Agricultural Health and Safety. “Our goal is to amplify their efforts and help them build capacity as they continue to provide critical COVID safety information to their communities.”
By Anne Ternus-Bellamy Enterprise staff writer Some of Yolo County’s poorest families with young children will receive a hand up and out of poverty through a universal basic income pilot project approved by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. The 31 families in the CalWORKS Housing Support Program who have children under the age of 2 will receive monthly payments for a year, up to a maximum of $12,155. That cash assistance, combined with the CalWORKS grant they already receive to
help with housing and other costs, would bring these families’ incomes above California’s minimum poverty threshold ($25,658 for a family of four), according to Nolan Sullivan of the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency. The CalWORKS Housing Support Program provides a state grant to assist families who are homeless or about to be homeless. “Those kids are in the deepest poverty, the most at risk, the most needing of our help across the county,” Sullivan told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.
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Yolo County, he said, has the third highest poverty rate in the state, behind only Los Angeles and Santa Barbara counties, and the children that will be aided by the universal basic income program “are some of the hardest hit in Yolo County.” The 31 families include five in Davis, he said. Covering the cost of the $400,000 pilot project will be several different sources, including $100,000 from the county’s cannabis tax revenue; $100,000 from First 5 Yolo; and $75,000 from the state’s Office of Child Abuse Prevention.
The program will be especially active in areas of high agricultural employment, such
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Fundraising would bring in the remaining $125,000 needed. Yolo County’s supervisors were unanimously in support, but several expressed interest in expanding the pilot project from one year to two, if additional funding can be secured, and possibly expanding to families with older children. “One year, by the time you get started and finished, you’ve hardly had a chance to make anything happen that you can measure or assess,” said Supervisor Don Saylor of Davis. “I
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“As employers across the state implement new COVID-19 Emergency Temporary Standards, we want to be a resource for them so they can take all the necessary steps to ensure a safe work environment,” said Riden.
County supervisors OK universal basic income pilot project
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The team is also working closely with farmers and others in the agriculture industry as they navigate state COVID-19 workplace safety standards, establish protocols and provide employees the tools they need to stay safe on the job.
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