Opinion

I have ridden the train from Watsonville to Santa Cruz.

We see it daily … the effects of limited access to dental care in our community: adults with abscessed teeth and swollen faces that end up in emergency rooms and county clinics, children who are missing school because of dental pain, seniors who are losing weight due to poor dental health, teenagers who have low self-esteem because of dental decay.

Free speech is one of the most basic articles-of-faith for existence of a democracy; vigorous debate of public polices is an integral part of free speech. Both of these values lie at the core of everything “Western Values” stand for and need to be guarded assiduously by us all.