Advocacy & Legislation
Our Goals
- Support local, state and/or Federal legislation that provide benefits to seniors in any aspect of life, including but not limited to, financial issues, health care, housing, safety, and services that assist people with disabilities.
- Support political candidates who actively espouse our focus areas and mission statement and work to address the needs of older adults and those who care for them.
- Support organizations whose goals match our focus areas.
- Advocate change of and/or enhancement of public policies and legislation that support our mission and the above focus areas and oppose those that do not.
Advocacy
8 August 2024
Message sent to SB City Council, City Administrator and Chief of Police concerning pedestrian safety and mix of bicyclists and pedestrians on State Street.
28 October 2023
Letter to Santa Barbara County Supervisor Laura Capps regarding her legislative platform addressing seniors quality of life.
5 January 2023
As part of our mission to advocate for a clean and sustainable environment in our region, Gray Panthers of Santa Barbara has joined other local organizations in submitting a detailed letter to two federal agencies supervising the “decommissioning” (removal) of oil platforms in the Santa Barbara Channel. The Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (“DPEIS”) is necessary to evaluate proposed options for removal of oil platforms and related infrastructure and to fully consider their respective environmental consequences. This detailed 20 page letter drafted by the Environmental Defense Center (EDC), points out a variety of critical concerns that have not yet been fully addressed. These include consideration of legal obligations of platform operators, impacts of leaving shell mounds, pipelines and other debris on the seafloor, potential impacts of proposed “partial removal” of platforms, potential releases of toxic chemicals into the marine environment, fishing access concerns, as well as the likely effects of decommissioning on endangered species and residual impacts of other proposed mitigation measures, among other concerns. Further review of these matters is hoped to lead to fewer adverse environmental impacts from the removal of almost all the platforms offshore of Santa Barbara County which are planned to occur over the next decade.
Download & Read the Full Letter Here
18 October 2022
1 August 2022
Part of the mission of the Gray Panthers Santa Barbara Network is to work towards increasing safe, affordable and accessible housing for seniors. In support of that goal the Board of Directors has sent the following letter to members of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and to members of local city councils, urging that needs of older adults be part of each local Housing Element Plan. See letter below:
https://www.sbgraypanthers.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Housing-element-recs-2022-1.docx
24 March 2022
A message sent to local government officials asking that the need for closed-captioning for public meetings be made available as it is especially useful to inform senior adults of local government discussions and actions:
https://www.sbgraypanthers.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Call-for-Close-Captioning-2022.docx.pdf
29 November 2021
Letter sent to Goleta Water Board Directors in support of the Covid-19 vaccine mandate they adopted.