A key staff person from State Senator Richard Pan's office was supposed to meet with a group of constituents yesterday (6/2/15) but called to cancel some 40 minutes before the meeting, making it pretty clear the Senator's office had already made a non-revokable decision to not engage with the community. Canceling at the last minute seems to be a thing with our elected reps' staffers. Staff people from the offices of Congressman Ami Bera and Congresswoman Doris Matsui similarly bailed at the last minute, Now Senator Pan's office has done so. One can only assume the lowly voting constituents don't matter as much as someone else.

The map below shows the tour route (orange line) around parts of Arden Arcade that had been prepared for Senator Pan's rep. The tour was focused on the over-concentration of to-go alcohol sales outlets (bottle icons) and some locations where alcoholism has clearly been a problem for the community -- e.g. homeless encampments, crime sites. The tour would also have pointed out the very high proportion of cheap apartments in the local housing stock. Issues like these are of keen concern to area residents and local businesses. Too bad the same cannot be said for some of our key elected representatives and their staffs, particularly the ones who don't seem to want to lay eyeballs on the reality we live with every day.