Candidate for
Council Member; City of Riverside; Ward 1

I believe our government should be open, honest, accessible and responsive. The Council represents the citizenry and should not dictate to it. We should actively solicit citizen input on ideas, programs and expenditures.

While I am seeking the opportunity to represent you, I do not pretend to know how to spend your money better than you do. I will ensure that people have the opportunity to speak on proposed Council actions and I will listen.

I believe we have paid too much attention to downtown and not enough to the neighborhoods. It is wrong to refurbish City Hall when it takes three to five years to get your broken sidewalk fixed. We should not spend $10 million redoing the downtown mall while water pools in your gutter.

We need to continue development of railroad grade separations in the city to alleviate congestion. We should also lobby for funding to separate the railroads at the Colton crossing. This will not reduce the number of trains passing through Riverside, but it will let them move more quickly.

Riverside needs jobs for the people who are already here more than we need new housing developments for more people who commute to Los Angeles and Orange Counties. We should dedicate our last developable land to job producing uses.

Our public safety departments are stretched too thin. We cannot continue to annex new areas and approve major new projects without considering the impact on public safety. Each annexation or large project approval should be accompanied by an analysis of how many additional police officers will be required, what will the fire response time be, how will we serve water and electricity? The timing and funding source to provide those needed resources should accompany the approval of the project or annexation. If we can't afford the infrastructure, we can't afford the project.