Priorities
Priorities
A city worth keeping
La Mesa is eight square miles, and I want all eight of them to feel like the Jewel of the Hills.
I love the Village. It's the best main street in East County, and we should be proud of it.
It's also proof that this city knows how to make a street work.
I'd like to take what we learned building that and use it everywhere else.
Two hospitals, parks, a trolley, schools our families stay for. Everything you need is already here. What I want is for that to be as true on your street as it is downtown.
Easy to get to, easy to get around
Parking, the bus, the trolley, and the streets we've let sit get talked about like four different problems.
If you're just trying to get somewhere, they're one problem.
Friday is a good example. Our farmers market is one of the best things about this city and I wouldn't change it. But when the boulevard closes, parking moves into the neighborhoods, and if you live up the hill you can walk down there easily enough and then you're carrying two bags of groceries back up.
That isn't a complaint about the market. It's a reason to think about parking, transit, and our streets together instead of one at a time.
A great city isn't much good if you can't get to it.
Our new City Hall project brings the parking downtown has needed for years. I sit on the MTS board, where I'm done hearing that La Mesa doesn't qualify for the money other cities get. And I want El Cajon Boulevard and University to get the same attention we've given the Village, because those are two of the busiest streets we've got and they've been waiting a long time.
We deserve our share, and I'm going to go get it.
Finish what we start
This is the pattern I keep running into, and it's the reason I'm running.
This community has wanted a bigger library since 2008. The post office is moving into the new civic center, which frees up the space, so we finally have a path to build it.
I want to be the Mayor who sees it through.
That's one item. There's a list. Grant money nobody goes and gets. Streets that have been waiting a long time for their turn.
I'd like that list to be my job. Keep it short, and keep coming back to it until it's done.
We've done it before. HOME is our program for reaching people living on our streets and connecting them with real help, and it lets our officers focus on the work they were trained to do. That's what following through looks like, and I'll protect it as Mayor.
One last thing
A Mayor can't make your groceries cheaper. Anybody who tells you different is running for the wrong office.
What a Mayor can do is make this city easier and cheaper to move around, get housing built on the lots that are sitting empty, and keep more of our dollars circulating right here in La Mesa.
That's a short list. And I'd rather hand you a short, honest one than a long one I can't deliver.
I would be honored to earn your vote.