Candidate for
Council Member; Oak Park Municipal Advisory Council

The Value of Small Representative Governing

I feel the uniqueness of the Oak Park MAC is a very powerful, progressive and hands on approach to taking care of the will of the people in a small "unincorporated" area like ours. Having a good relationship with our Representative on the Board of Supervisors will insure the community wants and needs are met in a timely manner and understood by the County Board of Supervisors which sits in judgement nearly 50 miles from here.

The MAC makes suggestions to and advises the Supervisor who represents this area...Linda Parks currently... on all of the issues that impact our way of life. Because this is the job, I feel the ability to effectively communicate all aspects of a given problem or facets of a good idea is the single most important talent a MAC member should possess.

Currently, the lack of communication between the MAC and surrounding jurisdictions have been a silent detriment and indeed pose a danger to the improvement of our lifestyle in Oak Park. Toxic and hazardous materials cleanups on the County line at the proposed Yerba Buena school construction site, algae overgrowth and mismanagement of Medea Creek and the lack of an interractive and simple way to have discourse with our elected MAC officials currently points to the simple fact that communication is NOT currently the MAC's "strong suit" if you will.

The job of any member of the MAC should be to be vigilant in making sure our level of services and attention from the County matches our tax burden...one of, if not the greatest in the County. Since we deliver such a potent tax base I feel the County should be very responsive to our needs when it comes to probelms with infrastructure, traffic and road problems, policing issues, relationships with utility providers (water serice, trash collection and power providers to mention a few), school Board issues and other health and safety problems as they might arise.

Of course, the MAC must have a good and cooperative relationship with a Supervisor who understands that staying on top of these type of issues assures serving and improving the area we live in which in turn keeps our real estate values growing and helps to generate continued growth in tax revenue back to the County. Political self interest should never come between the message the MAC has for the Board of Supervisors and our Representative. Positive communication of our problems and ideas with our Representative is crucial, since this will be the way the Mac represents the residents.

The MAC should be a representative body giving voice to the widest range of residents possible. The prevailing interest should be making every resident's experience living in Oak Park a better one day to day. For this reason I believe in a maximum of one term of service on the MAC. A MAC with a constantly freshened membership would encourage new ideas and new voices being heard and better ideas for keeping our area growing and prospering being acted upon. A MAC that does not accurately reflect its residents becomes irrelevant and inneffective quickly.

The role of an incumbent member of the MAC should be to make sure the new members are very well versed in the mechanism of the governing machine. Other than protocol and introductions to existing relationships the incumbents should work to help new MAC members effectively communicate their concerns to the County Board of Supervisors.

Preservation of the current quality of life should be the minimum concern of any MAC member. Now that buildout of our area is complete, new and innovative ways to improve the quality of life in Oak Park must be at the forefront of the MAC's activity. The best way to implement these improvements is to continually evaluate the tax revenue generated by our area and be sure to accurately communicate this to the County Board of Supervisors.

In a beautiful community like ours, it becomes incumbent upon the community leaders to seek out qualified and expert contractors in a competitive arena to perform the quality services we need to IMPROVE our area's infrastructure and open spaces as it ages. As a "bedroom" type community, our needs are simple...health and safety issues (like ambulance service, and where to go in an emergency or when you need to get yourself or a loved one to the hospital), policing, programs and activities for the children of the community and quality utility services.

My philosophy regarding the specifics of the political atmosphere that exists in Oak Park is that with the structure of the MAC representing our interests to the County we have the best of both worlds. We don't have to bear the ungainly financial burden of a city government, yet we still garner the benefits of a prosperous and growing County internal political structure. The only way this can be a bad arrangement is if for some reason our Representative to th County becomes unresponsive to our needs. This is not now the case, nor has it been over at least the last fifteen years.

While things are good in Oak Park, this is not to say they can't be a whole lot better!!!

(to be continued)