Candidate for
Member, Republican Party County Central Committee; County of Los Angeles; Assembly District 43

I was born in 1961 and raised in San Diego, with southern California roots that go back four generations. After having earned an AA degree in business in the early 1980's, I took the remainder of my college tuition money and opened the doors to my own business restoring vintage Italian motorscooters. In 1997 I built a website which featured over 6,000 items and attracted a worldwide clientele, helping to grow the business into a one of the most successful ventures of its type in the world. I met my wife Brooke at a friend's wedding in 2005, and we were married exactly one year later at exactly the same location! During our extremely hectic first year of marriage, Brooke commuted back and forth from Glendale to San Diego to help me with the sale of the business, and in February of this year I was able to move here so that we could finally live together!

In my lifetime I have seen our great state grow and change in many ways, and while it is easy to look back and say that things were so much better "back in the old days", when the population was smaller and things were less crowded, what really strikes me is that Californians often don't seem to have that individual spirit and zest for life that really used to set us apart and made our culture such a model for the rest of the country - and the world.

As our lives have gotten more complex and more hectic, I believe we have also lost some of our sense of community and our regional identity - and furthermore we have lost touch with our sense of self government and the duties we have to ourselves and our families to take part in the civic process. I think we have let our idea of government devolve from its rightful place as a group of local public servants who work for our best interest into just one more entity which we'd rather not be bothered with - almost as if they were just another corporation to be dealt with like the phone company or your health care provider.

A friend of mine told me a funny story recently that really brings this point home, and I'd like to share it with you. It seems that he had caught wind of some particularly intrusive actions by his local city council about how the residents of his town could decorate their front yards! That's right - these people had actually decided that they knew best how to protect the property values of everyone else's property, and they were determined to force these opinions on their own neighbors. Now remember, council members are servants to the citizens of their city, not the other way around.

Anyhow, my friend decided to attend one of their public discussion meetings - which in his words turned out to be more of a "presentation", since very little interaction was actually allowed by "average citizens" (he says we can thank former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown for that - see the "Brown Act" for more info). Anyhow, if I remember the story correctly the people were told that in addition to regulations regarding the height and density of fences, they were allowed to have no more than three aesthetic elements in their front yard, which might include a gnome, or a fake wishing well (after all, a real well would surely require a separate permit), or a wagon wheel, etc., etc... When asked if a family of gnomes would count as one element, I believe the answer was "yes" - as long they were obviously a family and not some ragtag gang of gypsy gnomes. At some point a woman who must have been worried about using up her allotted number of aesthetic elements even asked if it were okay to put a chair on her own front lawn to sit on!

My friend could only laugh at the absurdity of this whole situation, and when his brief time at the microphone arrived, he made certain that everyone in attendance understood clearly that he would be decorating his yard however he saw fit, and that if any of his neighbors had a problem with it they could speak to him directly to work things out. Furthermore he declared that it was none of the city planning department's business what he did with his own private property and what contractual agreements he could make with his neighbors.

I brought up this story to illustrate in one small way what I believe has gone wrong with government at every level. One of the primary reasons we have lost so much sense of community is that with the state of our economy, many of us have to work so hard just to maintain whatever standard of living which we have strived for in our lives. Because some of us have less free time to spend with our neighbors and out in our communities, we turn to government to settle issues that should be handled on a personal level. My friend owns a nice house with a nicely decorated yard, and he gets along very well with his neighbors. He doesn't need someone whose job he pays for through taxes to legislate to him about how to best handle his own private property, and I agree wholeheartedly with his position.

I have never run for any kind of public office before. I decided to do so when I realized that things will never improve - in fact they are only likely to get worse - if each and every one of us doesn't start playing some small part in making sure that our governments work in our best interest, not in theirs. Stop and think for a moment - wouldn't it feel good to just turn off the TV every now and then, or skip that trip to the mall, and instead take part in a local activity that will make a real difference in your life and your community? Don't fear the government, become the government! Turn off the mainstream news (it's mostly propaganda anyhow), talk to your neighbors, get on the internet and do some research into the real issues that concern you most, and get involved!

This is what I am doing, and I hope that others like you will someday decide to take this step too. And please remember, this is not a paid position. I have no ambitions to become a career politician - in fact, I would like to see that term erased from our vocabulary.

Sincerely,

Vince Mross