Help Restore City Youth Bicycle Distributions

Dear friends,

Please help us reinstate a valuable City program of distributing unclaimed bicycles to youth by voicing your support at City Council on Tuesday, July 9th, 4:30pm, or by contacting Council members ahead of time.

For years unclaimed bicycles were given by the Santa Cruz Police Department to the Bike Church, which in turn distributed them to various nonprofits like Barrios Unidos, Project Bike Trip, and Green Ways to School. The broken and severely dysfunctional bikes were salvaged by the Bike Church, which makes used parts available cheap-to-free to the community, giving some away through our free-to-youth and adult work-trade programs.

Over the last year, the City has given unclaimed bikes instead to a for-profit business called the Bike Dojo, which has not invited other groups to participate, and which has sold many bikes which are supposed to go out for free to youth. Despite admitting these problems, the City has not taken any action to remedy the situation.

Please ask the City Council to immediately reinstate the distribution of unclaimed bicycles to youth for free through the Bike Church or another qualified nonprofit agency, as required by the Municipal Code (SCMC 2.24.120). The Bike Church is also calling for distributions open to all interested nonprofits in the City, as they were under the Bike Church's management, and for all years prior.

For a more detailed account of the story scroll down to our last blog post.

To contact your Council Members, come to Oral Communications on Tuesday, July 9th at 4:30pm, or contact the Council on your own:

Hilary Bryant: hbryant@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5026
Lynn Robinson: lrobinson@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5020
Pamela Comstock: pcomstock@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5020
Don Lane: dlane@cityofsantacruz.com,  420-5022
Cynthia Mathews: cmathews@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5020
Micah Posner: mposner@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5028
David Terrazas: dterrazas@cityofsantacruz.com, 420-5020

Thanks for your support,

The Bike Church Collective

SAMPLE LETTER TO COUNCIL:

Dear Council Members,

Thanks to the City for its years-long program of distributing unclaimed bicycles to youth in need through the help of the Bike Church. These distributions helped hundreds of youth gain access to bicycles, and I hope they are reinstated without delay.

I also want to express my support for the Bike Church, which offers a great service by teaching people how to fix bikes for themselves, as well as recycling tons of usable parts which otherwise would go to the landfill. The Bike Church is the kind of positive community resource that the City should be proud to have. They have also proven to be the most effective managers of the youth bicycle distributions, coordinating with numerous other organizations to get bikes to youth, while salvaging usable parts from the junk no one else wants. Please reinstate the Bike Church as managers of the program.

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