Financial oversight, preservation of program and connecting with the community
I ran for City Council 4 years ago on a platform of fiscal caution so that cherished programs would not be savaged as was being called for by some elements of the community. As Finance chair and member, I have challenged staff to curtail eliminable expenses so that, for example, a fee for visiting the Baylands and Foothills Park would not be necessary or that Wingspread would not need to be cancelled (both of which motions, I believe were introduced by me). I have supported the City Manager's bottom-up budgeting process and have worked to implement measures for the benefit of the whole community. I enthusiastically supported acquisition of the Arastradero preserve, worked with neighbors to accelerate opening of Heritage Park and as liaison to the Parks and Recreation Commission, championed the Got Space Study which played a large role in the successful adoption of the Mayfield agreement with Stanford for new playing fields. More park and open space acres were added in the last 4 years than at any time since the acquisition of Foothill Park and the restoration of the Baylands. My goal has been to find common ground in sometimes highly polarized situations. For example, I proposed a less restrictive traffic calming set of measures for Downtown North in an effort to end the bitter division that resulted from the extremely restrictive initial measures. The result today is that more than 85% of the neighbors are happy with the revised plan. I supported changes in the College Terrace traffic reduction measures that I also believe will provide additional neighborhood protection yet not result in dumping traffic into other neighborhoods and I co-introduced the measure to provide an impact fee to jump start the Charleston Corridor Traffic Study. I have been a voice for common sense and tried to get my colleagues to focus on the decisions that the Council needs to make.
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