Candidate for
Council Member; City of Irvine

The current council majority has increased taxes and spending, they refuse to help our cash-strapped schools in any meaningful way, and they are determined to drive the CenterLine train through our neighborhoods.

Just as we stood together to stop the airport at El Toro when our community was threatened, we must now stand united against the threat of the multi-billion dollar CenterLine train.

We must also return fiscal restraint to our city. The city budget has grown $12 million in two years (to almost $100 million) while the council majority voted to increase taxes and assessments. Further, with the $6 million reduction in spending to fight the airport at El Toro, the real increase in the city budget is closer to $18 million in the last two years.

By returning to the budget basics, we can afford to aid our schools with $5 million to save class size reductions and science, art, and music for our children -- and we can do this without raising taxes while improving vital police protection and preserving senior services.

Those are my goals for Irvine.

What has the current council majority brought us? Instead of improving our city, they:

- Busted the budget and increased taxes, spending on unnneded items such as party planners and PR staff, rejecting a modest plan to aid our cash-strapped schools with $350,000, sending instead a token $100,000 (1/10th of 1% of the city budget)

- Broke their promises on the "Great Park" which now seems to have become the "Somewhat Large Park" surrounded by more dense development

- Broke their promises on the Culver set-back in Turtle Rock that will mean more noise, pollution, and dust for local residents

- Presided over a 5.9% increase in crime from 2000 to 2001 # enough to knock Irvine out of the top-10 safest cities in America ranking that it was in for years

We can do better. With your help, we will win in November.