Today is ELECTION DAY.
As we come to the close of this election season, I must share with you that I am happy with the campaign I ran, and I want to thank all of the wonderful people who will have voted for me to be the first Councilmember to represent District 1!
It is my hope that you believe in a San Bruno, as I do, that:
- Protects public schools, preserves public lands.
- Builds adequate housing.
- Brings local solutions to global issues.
However, over the course of this election, the one regret I have is that I was unable to make this election a true referendum on bringing climate action to the forefront of people’s minds.
To recap this year and what I have been up to:
- In January, I started the year off by appearing at the City’s first City Council meeting and declaring that I was going to attend every single meeting thereafter (which I did minus 2 occasions).
- In February, I began to take an active role in the Districting Process, leaving pamphlets throughout Rollingwood informing residents how to make sure our “community of interest” was not split in half (as other draft maps had intended.)
- In March, the U.N. released its final report detailing the current state of Earth’s climate systems and proposed global emission reduction strategies. I studied this issue intensely.
- In April, I organized an Earth Day Rally in San Bruno City Park. It was a challenging but fun experience!
- Over the summer, I started to make Public Comments at Peninsula Clean Energy’s Board Meetings, to spur them to pursue more aggressive action by relating to them the hard truth that we are currently in the midst of a global mass extinction event.
- In September, I started campaigning in earnest, leaving flyers all over District 1 (far more than when I ran back in 2020.)
- Since then, it has been a mix of reconnecting with old faces and meeting new ones – the best part of campaigning hands down!
Overall, I believe people must be made aware that:
- Climate change is accelerating.
- Food and water shortages will soon be “first world problems.”
- It’s one thing for a loaf of bread to cost $6 due to monetary policy and/or supply-chain breakdowns – it’s another thing entirely when rain doesn’t fall where fields of wheat once flourished.
- My goal isn’t to rock the boat, but there is immediate danger that must be averted at all costs. (“Iceberg ahead!”)
I want people to join me in asking more of our elected officials:
Question: Is it not the job of San Bruno City Council to adequately plan for the future? So much focus has been placed on the Recreation & Aquatic Center getting built in a timely manner (and rightly so!), but what about the whole Bay Area becoming one big “aquatic center” in my lifetime?
Question: If you think having heatwaves in late January is fine, and cherry blossoms blooming in early February is normal, and the Bay Area transitioning to a tropical desert climate is great, and all it took was for the Great Barrier Reef to die off …
Failure is not an option, and I refuse to let our political representatives be the custodians of our own destruction.
But as a candidate for local office, I fully understand the importance of prioritizing peoples’ immediate needs and wants, including:
- Speed bumps on Oakmont Dr. and Monterey Dr. so residents must no longer run the gauntlet to exit their driveways in the morning.
- Repaving roads which have been neglected for over 30 years (Fleetwood Dr., Cottonwood Dr., Muirwood Dr., etc.)
- Preventing retired ratepayers living on fixed incomes from suddenly being forced to pay for Stormwater Capital Improvement Projects that have similarly been ignored for decades.
As for national Democrats, I am trying to understand who thought it would be good idea to make “defending Democracy” the final campaign message when Trump and his co-conspirators have escaped any and all accountability.
For what it’s worth, it definitely didn’t help Joe Biden’s approval rating when his biggest accomplishment to date – defeating Donald Trump in 2020 – was relentlessly undermined and discredited, and now “Trump’s Big Lie” has officially become the mainstream Republican position.
Nevertheless, in the final analysis, I believe Democrats passed enough major legislation to deserve reelection.
- The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) allowed cities like San Bruno to fund essential municipal services and economic recovery programs with a grant of $10 million.
- The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) allotted billions to repair our crumbling infrastructure.
- The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) includes billions in tax credits to help in the transition to clean energy resources.
Whatever tomorrow’s outcome is, I am sick to my stomach that Republicans are even able to sniff legitimate power, let alone be poised to take it.
How can anyone trust future elections, when the Party whose supporters breached the Capitol grounds on January 6th to terrorize members of Congress as they had assembled to certify Joe Biden’s electoral college victory, is given back control?
Times like these make involvement in local government ever more crucial, if not absolutely essential, in preserving the light of democracy; for those white slabs, erect in neat rows, which appear before you due north from behind the 76 Station on Rollingwood Dr. – THEY SHALL NEVER STAND IN VAIN.
San Bruno, thank you for giving me the belief I have in myself, I would be honored to receive your support, and your vote, to bring you the future you deserve!