Arcata Mayor Sofia Pereira Stepping Down to Get Task as Humboldt’s New Director of Public Health | Dropped Coast Outpost

UPDATE: The City of Arcata has introduced that Pereira will be stepping down from the two her placement as the city’s mayor and her seat on town council the Friday right before she is scheduled to commence her new job as Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services’ Director of Public Health. A letter from Pereira to her constituents can be uncovered farther down in this publish. Our headline has been current to mirror the totality of this news.

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Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Products and services release:

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Sofia Pereira was initial elected to the Arcata Town Council in 2014 and is currently in her second go-round as mayor

Department of Health & Human Expert services (DHHS) staff Sofia Pereira has been named the department’s new director of Public Health and will be stepping into her new purpose June 27. Pereira is changing Michele Stephens, who was promoted to Assistant Director of DHHS in March right after serving in an interim potential due to the fact April 2020. 

Pereira previously worked as a legislative analyst for the division from 2014 by means of early 2017, at which time she still left to do the job as a group supervisor and then a software director for She Need to Run, a nonprofit that focuses on increasing the selection of women of all ages who operate for political business. She returned to DHHS in 2019 as an Emergency Preparedness Analyst for the Public Health Branch and was promoted to Application Coordinator for the identical system significantly less than a year later on. 

Throughout the county’s COVID-19 response, Pereira has served as the Functions Main doing work closing with Stephens and Health Officer Dr. Ian Hoffman and overseeing around 200 team operating in communicable ailment investigations, tests, human services and vaccination. 

In her new capability, Pereira will concentration on guiding Public Health packages and expert services by means of the new lens of COVID-19, whilst integrating lessons acquired through the pandemic and continuing to improve the community’s health and preparedness. She will also advocate for continued financial commitment in Public Health by the condition and federal authorities and do the job with neighborhood associates on the Public Health Strategic Strategy and Neighborhood Health Advancement Prepare, which concentration on extensive-time period efforts to deal with health-relevant difficulties in the group. 

DHHS Director Connie Beck claimed, “Sofia has well-set up interactions at both equally the regional and state amount, which will be advantageous in her new job.” 

As Public Health Director, Pereira will be liable for the Communicable Ailment Plan and its continued expansion owing to COVID funding the Public Health Clinic Public Health Nursing Environmental Health Maternal, Boy or girl & Adolescent Health applications which includes the Women of all ages, Infants & Small children nutrition method the department’s condition-of-the art laboratory and a range of grant-funded applications focused all around enhancing the health of our communities.

Pereira retains a Bachelor of Arts in Interaction from Humboldt Point out College.

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City of Arcata Press launch below:

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Council Member Sofia Pereira will be stepping down from her&#13
position on the Arcata City Council, powerful Friday, June 25.

Pereira was very first elected to the Arcata Town Council in 2014 and served as a Council Member for&#13
around 6 consecutive several years, serving as Mayor in 2018 and 2021. She has represented the location on&#13
Governor Newsom’s Council of Regional Homeless Advisors and has served the local community on&#13
numerous boards for organizations together with the Humboldt Waste Administration Authority, Arcata&#13
Home Partnership, the Redwood Region Financial Advancement Commission, in addition to her&#13
assistance with Humboldt Condition College Liaison’s Working Team and the Humboldt Bay&#13
Municipal Water District’s Water Good quality Job Drive.

City Manager Karen Diemer describes Pereira as, “a champion for housing, preserving these most&#13
susceptible in our group, fully commited to breaking obstacles to create racial equity and&#13
protecting powerful community infrastructure to support citizens and corporations,” and added, “Sofia has&#13
a sharp mind for establishing reasonable general public policy that will provide this local community for generations&#13
to appear. She will be missed as an Arcata City Council Member, but I am selected we will continue on&#13
to reward from her leadership at the County stage.”

In a letter submitted now, Pereira shared the issues of her conclusion to resign in order to acknowledge&#13
her appointment as Humboldt County’s new Public Health Director:

Expensive Arcata,

I am submitting my resignation from the Arcata City Council, powerful Friday, June 25,&#13
2021. Setting up June 27, I will begin a new chapter as the Public Health Director for the&#13
County of Humboldt, Department of Health and Human Products and services. I am honored and&#13
enthusiastic to choose on this new role to provide our neighborhood and strengthen our community’s&#13
health and wellbeing. Nonetheless, this final decision was not taken frivolously and prompts me to&#13
mirror on our time collectively due to the fact December 2014.

Serving the people today of Arcata as a council member and your mayor has been an immense&#13
privilege. I am grateful to have been entrusted with the stewardship of our metropolis spending plan,&#13
providers, and setting up for the long run. I am grateful to all who engaged with the city’s&#13
work, pushing us to do better and be much better.

Collectively we highly developed the development and protection of economical housing and made&#13
the tenant-centered rental aid plan to hold our minimal-earnings neighbors housed. We&#13
expanded our metropolis path technique and improved harmless routes to school. We developed new&#13
partnerships to guidance our most vulnerable, connecting mental health workers with our&#13
police section, and strengthened partnerships with company providers like Arcata&#13
Residence Partnership to broaden products and services for the homeless.

I am grateful to have shepherded some of these achievements, and nevertheless, I could not&#13
progress these procedures alone. I want to express my appreciation for my existing and&#13
previous council colleagues, our metropolis supervisor, and metropolis team for their commitment to our city&#13
and for what I discovered from each and every of them in the course of my time on the council.

I have the utmost confidence that the metropolis council will proceed to progress the get the job done of&#13
making Arcata a more equitable, healthy, and livable community for all Arcatans. Arcata,&#13
you are in great fingers! And I will go on this mission for Arcata and the County. My&#13
vocation in general public service began effectively prior to I was an elected official, and I will continue to&#13
provide the public’s interest outside of my time as an elected official.

Thank you all over again for the option to direct and guide our local community as a result of several&#13
complicated problems. The work to strengthen our community’s health and wellbeing will&#13
take all of us, and although I will no more time be on the town council following June 25th, my&#13
motivation will proceed.

With gratitude,&#13

Sofia

PS: I hope to see a lot of of you at a Crabs video game or the Saturday Farmers’ Sector!

Beforehand: HUMBOLDT Keeping UP: Arcata City Councilmember Sofia Pereira on What is Next for Her Metropolis and Getting a Little one During COVID