I will work with you to balance growth and open space, promote safe and livable neighborhoods and lead where you want to go.
McKinleyville is a wonderful town. We all share an appreciation for our quality of life and our neighborhoods. We want McKinleyville to remain a great place to live where we can rear our children and grandchildren.
The McKinleyville Community Services District (MCSD) has been instrumental in the growth of McKinleyville. Growth should enhance and enrich our community life in accordance with our shared preference for rural living and open space. As an elected body in our town the MCSD Board can speak with authority for our best interest and plan for growth accordingly. The MCSD Board should become more active and take more responsibility for advocating and negotiating with the County and other agencies for the services that enhance our quality of life in McKinleyville
Many of the factors influencing the future character of our neighborhoods will come before the MCSD Board. With the passage of Senate Bill #135, the State has broadened the role of Community Services Districts; MCSD will now be able to provide more services and will be more accountable for those services. MCSD will need to involve residents in the planning and decision making process by forming and empowering citizen advisory committees. This is the direction I have been advocating in this campaign. This is a significant change that will have a major impact on MCSD and McKinleyville.
Many decisions made in the next four years will shape our development in the future. Many of our neighborhoods are safe and people-friendly and have traffic calming roadways. Property values stay high because people want to live in these neighborhoods. With planning and negotiation we can promote developments that have open space, mini-parks, low impact lighting, traffic calming designs, and are safe, walkable, sustainable, and people-friendly.
Our parks and recreation programs are excellent and must be maintained and extended. These programs benefit parents and children as well as the whole community. They improve our quality of life and make our town desirable to others who may want to move here. This is good for our businesses, schools, and neighborhoods. Working together we can come up with plans that will maintain and even extend our parks and recreation programs for people of every age.
We must maintain our library. Some have said that MCSD may have to stop supporting our library. Can you imagine McKinleyville without a library? I hope not. We all need to put our library on a sound financial footing. We can design ways that will make it possible to continue supporting our library far into the future. We can be proactive in solving problems when we work together.
I have served the community as the minister of Grace Good Shepherd Church since 1985, as Chair of the McKinleyville Land Trust, Chair of the McKinleyville Area Fund, Chair of the MCSD Recreation Advisory Board, Chair of the employees negotiation committee of MCSD, Co-Chair of the MCSD General Manager Search Committee, Vice-Chair of the MCSD Board, and in 2003 as Chair of the MCSD Board. Over the past years I have attended over 100 MCSD Board meetings.
This is both an exciting time and a crucial time to serve on the MCSD Board. There are many new responsibilities and possibilities. I look forward to returning to the MCSD Board and I will work cooperatively with the people of McKinleyville in promoting a good future for our town.
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