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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - 65De.ey January 19, 2016 City Council Meeting Correspondence 65D - ORANGE COUNTY TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY'S PROPOSED 2016 BUS SERVICE PLAN Date of Sender Corresp. 1 1/19/2016 Santa Ana Senior Center and Southwest Senior Center Representatives I: WgendaL&hibitt_Cmsponden� 2.dw January 19, 2016 7!. ,",19N,3:55 CITY ` r, C 1. r.. Mayor and City Council, City Hall, City of Santa Ana Subject: OCTA's Recent Changed Direction to Our Senior Mobility Program Dear Mayor and City Council: We are your seniors from both the Santa Ana Senior Center and the Southwest Senior Center. We respect you as our leaders of Santa Ana and expect you to focus on protecting our rights as citizens and taxpayers of this great city. As you may know, out of the many miles provided by the Santa Ana Senior Mobility Program, 85% of these miles are from home to Senior Center and back, which we are grateful that OCTA in allowing us to continue to do so. You should know that from these miles, 7% of the trips are for taking seniors to the store and buy food and THAT is what OCTA is not allowing us to do anymore and THAT is why we are writing you this letter. We think that OCTA thinks we are seniors that live in Newport Beach and that we are well off. We are not. Some of us are disabled and some of us no longer have people in our family that can help us with our basic transportation needs. If you take away our ability to go and shop for food, you are purposely being hateful toward elderly poor people that need to get their food. This is not a luxury, it is a necessity. A very basic necessity for all human beings. Another 8% of the trips are for excursions to enrich our lives. That is what has triggered their "horror" on how they believe their OCTA money is 1 being improperly used. But, as you know, OCTA does not cover all the cost for this program. The City puts in its portion to support this program and has been doing so since the beginning of the program in 2001. And since that time, they have known that we on occasion have gone to the Richard Nixon Library or a museum, or the beach, especially since there are no beaches in Santa Ana the last time we checked. True, a handful of excursions in a full year at times has been a visit to the Temecula wine tasting facility and to a nearby casino. Okay, don't allow us to go to these very rare fun trips, especially since we are poor and they don't think that poor seniors should have the right for society to support them to have fun on a rare occasion. But their extreme hateful reaction is throwing away the baby with the bathwater and are not allowing us to use the mobility program to take us to the market to support our basic right to buy food. The senior center staff routinely submit the trip reports to OCTA honestly and truthfully since the start of this program many years ago. What has changed? We don't know. For some reason, the OCTA leaders have decided to start this hateful campaign against the poor. Does OCTA only want to put their money in toll roads and express lanes in our freeways so they can go fast from their luxury homes in their luxury cars to their favorite golf course or gourmet restaurant? Where is their sense of compassion, their sense of fairness, their leadership stand forjustice? Help us. Don't let OCTA bully Santa Ana. We are the heart and soul of the county. Without our people, their golf courses are not manicured, their babies are not taken care of, their houses don't get clean. Can't they afford to give us a crumb to help us with our transportation needs? Is the new trend a real trend where our leaders advance their careers by being hateful to the poor, to minorities? Is this America? Can OCTA meet us half way and let's us at least continue being transported to the local markets to buy our daily bread? That is all we are 2 asking. We may be old, but we can still think for ourselves. Some of us are working on a plan to reach out to the media so they can report on this bad treatment from OCTA. We read, we vote, and we continue to struggle. Please help us through this struggle. Sincerely, Santa Ana 01�. Cid Q0\1; Southwest Senior Center a 3 aorc tae Cc --r 2 L'Mjh © d p 5 e � h o�nkC titer V 4Z i P A.P. d7iLu._ `tel k� c 7-'r �-;i5-o/ A k-ti?la�� 5,t�,�� a S,t tL S.ts.vw,tiU Z' �;7 V62 �CXPnci Gi_ �.�ex - 1Nl o rt coo avl��I��f'Q�eZ va h� SaMf7, ?, i