Candidate for
City Council Member; City of Stockton; District 1

Stockton is a rapidly growing city as of late. This is especially true of District 1. So far I believe that growth has been good and healthy for our city. But growth needs to be very carefully managed by those in charge of overseeing it. There may come a time when growth needs to be slowed or in some areas even stopped for a time.

There are many issues certain to come up in not only the areas I have listed as my top priorities, but in other areas as well. Some of these issues are bound to have input from people who have special interests, perhaps interests opposed by many who live here. My political philosophy, whether involving issues such as those I listed as my priorities or others is this; Democratic government is supposed to be representative government. If elected, my job is to fairly represent the people who have elected me. To do that the public must be well informed on issues concerning them and must be given adequate notice of when issues will be addressed, and particularly when the council will be voting on such issues. Active participation needs to be encouraged and the City Council members need to listen to the concerns of Stockton's citizenry.

In my biographical statement I mentioned that I personally became interested in local government back in 1994 and through the 1996 general election. During that time an overwhelming majority of Stockton's citizenry let the council know that they did not want the City Council to turn to increased gambling as a means of generating taxes for the city and more jobs. Yet the City Council ignored the people's concerns, thinking that they knew what was best for us. This is not representative government. This is government by special interests and I think that's wrong.

A more recent example of how sometimes the City Council seems to make decisions without taking into consideration the thoughts or concerns of people who live here might be the steady moving towards privitizing something as critical as our drinking water. While no decision has been made by the council to do this, they do seem to be moving in that direction. They did decide to consolidate the city's utility, solid waste and collection services with very short and very little public notice.

If elected I will try my best to make sure the City Council gives adequate information concerning all sides of an issue to Stocktonians, prior to making decisions that may have very important ramifications for all of us down the road. I promise to be open to your concerns and accessible.

Thank you.