Seven mayors of the 12th Congressional District gathered in Oakland to discuss the Federal Government’s shutdown. Starting on October 1st, this marks the longest government shutdown in history and is still ongoing. Residents of the district are already feeling the impact of the federal shutdown.
“We have federal employees who live in Piedmont, and we have folks with businesses that have federal contracts. Although we sleep in Piedmont, we live beyond our borders. We go to hospitals, we travel, we have entertainment, and we go shopping. We’re affected by what happens regionally,” said Piedmont Vice Mayor Conna McCarthy, who spoke at the meeting in place of Mayor Betsy Anderson, who could not attend.
One of the biggest problems the shutdown has created is healthcare.
“We also have a large demographic of senior citizens in our town, as well as anyone who might need level one trauma services, and we would go to Highland Hospital for those kinds of services. So, any kind of lack of funding to services that are provided to us regionally impacts Piedmont residents,” said McCarthy.
As the government shutdown continues and closes in on the holidays, there are serious concerns about the effectiveness of the transportation systems.
“We’re coming up on the holidays. People want to visit family. People have jobs that they need to travel to. We have TSA employees and air traffic controllers who haven’t been paid in a month. Many people pay their bills paycheck to paycheck. They need to buy groceries. They have to get other jobs if they’re not being paid by the federal government. So the impact on travel will be profound as we go into the holidays,” McCarthy added.
Food insecurity has impacted many throughout the Bay Area. With the Federal Government’s shutdown, programs like SNAP and food banks across the Bay Area have felt the reverberating impacts. Recipients of these programs are at immediate risk of food insecurity. Fortunately, many Piedmonters have organized to help support the people most impacted by food insecurity.
“We have many Piedmont residents who are organizing to find ways to supply and compensate for the lack of food resources to our neighboring communities. Some folks in town have connections to certain schools in Oakland or food banks in Oakland that they’re connected with, and they’re asking their Piedmont neighbors to be generous and help donate gift cards for grocery stores,” McCarthy noted.
With the shutdown continuing, there is a strain put on the community. Food insecurity, a lack of reliable transportation, health care, and federal workers are all points of impact in the shutdown. McCarthy made clear her desire for the shutdown to end.
“I think I’m in the same mindset as everyone else. It has to end sooner rather than later, but I’m hoping it doesn’t extend beyond early next week,” she said. “I think the strain on our communities is more impactful every day the longer federal workers go unpaid, and federally funded services are left in limbo, as well as projects. So it’s a huge problem. We are, we are all interconnected, maybe to a different degree, but the impacts of the shutdown affect all of us.”
