So, are you a single issue candidate?

By Janelle Egger

Please read about other issues I plan to focus my energies on.

I feel no citizen should be treated as I was treated. I felt myself becoming anti-government, when what I desired was good government. I concluded that the most effective way to improve the situation would be to work from the inside.

So I am asking for votes to bring sunshine and common sense to City Hall. The sunshine is government openness and accountability as provided by the California Sunshine Laws. The common sense is asking questions, requiring answers, and stopping to reconsider when new information warrants it. With openness, accountability and common sense the Council can work with staff, experts and the many wonderful community organizations to address the issues facing the Friendly City.

Like other cities, we have budget concerns. They are not as grave as some, due in part to our Volunteer Fire Department and the movement of Redevelopment Funds to the General Fund. This year's budget shows expenditures exceeding revenues so we will be dipping into reserves. In the short term this is OK, that is what reserves are for. But it means we need to be creative and work together in these tight-money days.

Then there is our future. The job reductions and mill closures that came with automation and decline in the timber industry impacted Fortuna. We need to rebuild an economic base that will support our families and our current and future retail businesses.

Annexation and rezoning of land by the airport is proposed to provide land zoned for industrial uses, but first road access to the area will have to be addressed. We need to use land with access and zoning that is currently available. Next to the freeway is the PALCO mill site, which some want to rezone out of industrial use. I favor maintaining a portion of the mill site for light industrial.

Any partial rezoning of the mill site for retail / mixed-use should require development to pay its way without taxpayer assistance. Fortuna Boulevard is a natural extension of the downtown business district and should be the next area we focus on for mixed-use commercial redevelopment efforts.

To build a strong economic base we will need to do more than simply have land that is zoned industrial. Fortuna has rezoned land in the past only to see it unused. Some communities have been successful in encouraging businesses in addition to retail. I will look to such communities to find proven solutions. We also need to seek assistance from the Headwaters Fund, Arcata Economic Development Corporation and other resources to help us rebuild a sound economic base.

And last but not least are issues I think of as quality of life issues. These include housing for all economic groups, transportation issues, indoor recreation in our rainy climate, maintaining the surrounding rural setting / resource base and addressing a growing mistrust of City government. I think these are essential to maintaining our small town character.

I offer a broad base of life experience. I am a college graduate with a teaching credential. I have worked in the clerical, retail sales, legal, political, and education fields. I have volunteered in grassroots political campaigns, on a county Citizens Advisory Committee, the Democratic Central Committee, served as President of the board for Women for Shelter aiding victims of domestic violence, and on the boards of Redwood Legal Assistance and the Northcoast Co-op. For the most part I have quietly spent my twenty-some years in Fortuna raising my children and in volunteer activities. After a rocky start-- hearing a Council Member suggest pointing a cannon at my former city -- I have come to admire and respect this place and its people.