Over $1 million in funding packages from the county’s Measure K fund were approved by the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. 

Measure K is a half-cent sales tax approved by voters in 2016 that provides local funds for local needs.

Planned Parenthood Mar Monte will receive nearly $400,000 to ensure access to local reproductive health care.  The PP initiative, passed by a 5-0 vote, will purchase a new inventory system and pay for staff training. 

Serving about 13,000 residents a year, Planned Parenthood Mar Monte operates three clinics in San Mateo County that provide comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care, gender-affirming care, behavioral health and family medicine services. 

Supervisors on Tuesday also allocated $190,000 to Sonrisas Dental Health, a nonprofit dental center that serves low-income residents. Funds will go toward the purchase of a van with supplies, equipment and a dental chair that will allow Sonrisas to bring dental care directly to patients. Sonrisas also operates weekly pop-up clinic for farmworkers in La Honda in partnership with Puente de la Costa Sur, an organization that promotes equitable access to education, health, and economic security for residents in the south coast communities of San Mateo County. 

Supervisors also approved a $350,000 contribution to the Baby Bonus program, administered through First 5 San Mateo County.  The pilot guaranteed-income program will make unconditional payments of $300 a month for three years to 400 eligible parents that currently receive Medi-Cal benefits. The project aims to measure the impact of greater financial security on the health and well-being of newborn children and mothers.

Ombudsman Services will receive a $100,000 grant, which provides onsite monitoring, complaint investigation and resolution services for older people in the county’s long-term care and skilled-nursing facilities. Funds will go toward training and placement of field ombudsman, staff and volunteers.

Lastly, in response to San Mateo’s coastal risk from wildfires, storms and sea level rise, supervisors allocated $150,000 to support the Coastal Resilient Infrastructure Strategic Plan. The goal of the plan is to analyze and evaluate coastal infrastructure — roads, evacuation routes, power supplies, water service and more — and identify areas that should be targeted for improvement. They will also hire a grant writer to seek the means to make infrastructure changes through federal, state and other sources.

Ruth Dusseault is an investigative reporter and multimedia journalist focused on environment and energy. Her position is supported by the California local news fellowship, a statewide initiative spearheaded by UC Berkeley aimed at supporting local news platforms. While a student at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism (c’23), Ruth developed stories about the social and environmental circumstances of contaminated watersheds around the Great Lakes, Mississippi River and Florida’s Lake Okeechobee. Her thesis explored rights of nature laws in small rural communities. She is a former assistant professor and artist in residence at Georgia Tech’s School of Architecture, and uses photography, film and digital storytelling to report on the engineered systems that undergird modern life.