Candidate for
Council Member; City of Escondido

Our Local Economy

Escondido families have been struggling. We've lost jobs, homes, and a piece of our basic human dignity.

The best way to get our City back on its feet is to invest in the businesses that are already here and put our citizens back to work. Let's make it easier for our Escondido businesses to hire local workers, so that we can keep our money in the local economy. Let's provide training in emerging economic sectors like clean energy and biotechnology to City residents so that they can compete in the 21st century job market. Let's offer universal broadband access to spur job creation and innovation.

City Hall should be an advocate for the small businesses that shape our downtown and the workers that exemplify the best of Escondido but now stand in employment lines, praying for better days.

Protecting Our Families and Businesses

Our families and businesses should be able to live and work without fear. Escondido has become a hotbed of gang-related homicides and crime. At the same time, we have been forced to take police officers off the streets. I support a comprehensive strategy for fighting crime that includes fully staffing our police force, funding prevention programs in our schools, and pursuing state and federal grants to fill the short-term funding gap created by the recession.

In 2004, the taxpayers in Escondido passed Proposition P, which raised property taxes in order to build fire stations for the City's growing population. One of those fire stations sits without a fire engine. We should never have an empty fire station, especially when struggling taxpayers are footing the bill to build it on top of the taxes we already pay. I am committed to taking a long-term funding perspective for all public safety programs so that we never again ask taxpayers to pay for services they'll never receive.

Fiscal Responsibility

Our taxpayers deserve a balanced budget and healthy reserves. The economic recession has put the City Council in a bad position, but the impact of the recession has been deepened by the decisions made in City Hall. North County Fair and the Auto Park have made our economy too dependent on sales tax revenue. Meanwhile, the current City Council has failed to attract new, high-paying jobs, which would diversify our tax base and soften the effects of a future recession. If our elected officials can't attract jobs, then we need new faces, new ideas, and new energy.

The City Council has also approved development projects without acknowledging the true cost of growth. When the City Council approves a project and doesn't include the long-term cost of infrastructure, water, police and fire into the decision-making process, the taxpayers end up paying the bill. Being an effective steward of taxpayer money requires an understanding of the impact of public policy on all aspects of the budget; short-term and long-term, direct and indirect. It's time that taxpayers, small businesses, students, and seniors come first in those decisions.