The Willow Glen Resident | August 14, 2002

August 14, 2002 Willow Glen, California Since 1992

Rep. Zoe Lofgren meets with WG residents

By I-chun Che

Residents gathered at the Willow Glen Senior Center, 2175 Lincoln Ave., for a chance to discuss their concerns about health care, immigration and other issues with Rep. Zoe Lofgren during an Aug. 3 town hall meeting.

Willow Glen Neighborhood Association (WGNA) President John Gibbs, who was invited by the Democratic congresswoman to open the forum, said that the wide variety of topics covered in the meeting show that residents care about issues that go beyond Willow Glen.

"It's important for the residents to hear why their representatives vote in a certain way, and it's important for the congresswoman to hear from her constituents," Gibbs said.

This was Lofgren's first of four planned town hall meetings. She has represented the Willow Glen community since 1994.

She chose the senior center to hold the meeting because Congress is currently facing the privatization of Social Security, an issue that deeply affects seniors.

"I believe we should be in a society where when you are old, you will be taken care of," said Lofgren in response to a speaker's concern that some senior citizens receive free health care by lying about their financial conditions.

"If people are cheating, we should deal with it," she added. "But I don't want to be part of a country that doesn't have a heart for the helpless or the elderly."

She promised to fight the privatization of Social Security because, she said, privatization would increase costs, cut benefits and force seniors and future retirees to depend on a "roller coaster" stock market.

Her comments elicited general applause from the audience of more than 100 people.

Another Willow Glen resident, Mark Protsik, a 42-year-old patent agent, asked Lofgren to support a bill that will develop a national health tracking system to monitor, investigate and prevent certain chronic disease and relevant risk factors.

"The U.S. medical system treats people only when they are sick," Protsik said. "There is a lack of reliable information to develop a prevention strategy. This particular bill can find out the risk factors and improve the quality of the life of all Americans."

Lofgren said she was unfamiliar with the bill but would vote in favor of it.

Medical care and Social Security were only two of the issues that Lofgren touched upon in the interactive forum.

During the meeting, which lasted 1 1/2 hours, Lofgren also addressed residents' immigration concerns.

While some residents said stricter laws are necessary to keep immigrants from taking job opportunities from current citizens, others were upset by the current mistreatment of immigrants in the United States.

The discussion became heated, and Lofgren asked one man to leave after he interrupted a woman who supported a more tolerant attitude toward immigrants.

Lofgren spoke about the importance of a balanced immigration policy.

"We need to realize that we are living in a community that is created by immigration," Lofgren said. "We need to allow people who are taxpayers and hard workers to have legalized status, but we also need to do a much better job on our borders to keep illegal immigrants out."

Another controversial topic that arose at the meeting involved U.S. military activities overseas. Former WGNA President Kristina Cunningham said the United States should be careful not to escalate the conflicts in the Middle East. She was also concerned about rushing into war with Iraq.

"We are proponents of peace, not war," Cunningham said. "I'd rather have taxpayers' money spent on improving people's lives domestically than on financing military actions."

It was the recent rash of corporate scandals that worried longtime Willow Glen activist Maguerita Barry. The 73-year-old Barry said it is both wrong and unfair that many people have lost their retirement money due to the corruption in big corporations.

"It's become accepted for the big companies to bend the rules and cheat people," said Barry, a retired special education teacher. "That kind of corruption should not exist in the United States."

Lofgren said she would continue to push Congress for laws that mandate corporate accountability.

Joanne Cordova, a Willow Glen resident and mother of a child with autism, expressed her disappointment at the shortage of funding for special education.

Lofgren said that, according to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the federal government pays for 40 percent of special education funding, while the state and local government pay for the rest.

"But it's a war between members of Congress," Lofgren said. "Whoever is in power controls the committees and the appropriation of funding."

But Lofgren promised that she will make sure funding for special education is allocated properly when Congress meets in September.

At the end of the meeting, Lofgren said she is committed to bringing all the ideas discussed at the Aug 3 meeting back to Washington, D.C. She also encouraged people who had shared concerns at the meeting to unite.

"We need to communicate with people in other parts of the country to raise the stakes and to make our concerns a public issue so the president will have to address them," Lofgren said.