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Santa Paula is experiencing growth and our citizens, residents and families want to see the City Council deal with their most pressing issues. Our platform will focus on three major areas of improvement: Infrastructure and Public Services, Jobs and Building a Sustainable Economy, Public Safety and Community Harmony. I believe that people are the most valuable and precious resource we have. I will always put the impact of public policies on people ahead of special interests. I will always demonstrate this characteristic in the manner I treat others and will not compromise my personal level of integrity. I can't do this alone and as a City Council Member, I have to work with others to push forward an agenda of progress. We may not always agree, but I will always respect differences of opinion and seek to understand diverse perspectives. I believe that we can do more together than anyone of us can do alone, so let's work together for the common good of our City of Santa Paula.
Infrastructure and Public Services
Our residents continuously express the urgency to repair, maintain, and improve our city’s infrastructure, starting with our roads, streets, highways, pedestrian walkways and pathways.
As a City Council Member, I will work alongside our elected representatives to ensure we are holding ourselves and City staff accountable to the plan that Council adopted to address such matters. Through dialogue and transparency, we must actively report our progress and share with our community how we are working to meet specific targets and timelines. I will work tirelessly by promoting Santa Paula’s ability to secure our fair share of funds, monies and allocations from Federal, State, and County agencies. In addition, I will work towards building coalitions by producing private and public partnerships that would fund and support our strategic initiatives.
City Council Members must understand the rich cultural diversity found in Santa Paula and we must make government and the services provided accessible to all of our people. This means producing culturally sensitive public information and communication to distributing collateral materials that increase greater understanding, engagement, and participation between our people and their government. By working alongside community stakeholders, we will play an active role by uncovering systemic barriers that reduce political apathy. We must also identify community gatekeepers that we can work with to build trust that fosters collaboration and good will so we can solve the issues that we care about the most.
Jobs and Building a Sustainable Economy
Jobs and Building a Sustainable Economy drive economic development opportunities for working class people to thrive. Let's focus on job creation and grow our small business community by providing them with the tools they need to prosper. Let's advocate for attracting businesses that meet the needs of our residents and their families. If our small business community thrives, we will be able to generate sustainable growth which will lead to increased revenue for our city to utilize in order to resolve its priority areas of improvement. As a City Council Member, I will serve as an ambassador for promoting our City of Santa Paula as a viable place to conduct business and help increase tourism.
I will work and advocate alongside my fellow Council Members, the City Manager, and the Economic Development Team and all community stakeholders to make progress on the Strategic Plan’s Economic Development objectives. Providing the necessary tools for our existing small businesses to prosper is extremely personal and important to me because I’ve seen too much injustice with small businesses not being able to access PPP funds during the Pandemic. I’m committed to opening doors that connect our small business community with organizations that could empower them with the knowledge and tools to grow their business and meet consumer needs. I’d also propose developing a small business incubator in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce and other Economic Development agencies. The primary focus of a small business incubator is to inspire creativity, ingenuity, and innovation so we can produce the next generation of entrepreneurs. This will help with the creation of jobs and build a sustainable economy for our future.
Healing the broken promises by advocating as a coalition of community stakeholders for the expansion of the community college will create jobs of the 21st Century that not only meet the needs of our people but could serve as a hub for new emerging industries that are tied to our rich agricultural history and landscape.
Public Safety and Community Harmony
We all want a safe place to live so let's work towards building greater collaboration between our law and public safety officials and our local neighborhoods.
Community harmony means addressing an array of issues that are hurting working families. We can’t live harmoniously with one another when people in our own backyard are suffering. That’s a core value of Santa Paulans and we must recommit to caring for our neighbor.
These include solving the rising cost of housing and rent, the physical and mental health and well-being of our citizens, illicit drug use and addiction to issues of poverty that lead many down the road to homelessness. My experience in the Non-Profit sector will help bring community stakeholders together to collectively find ways to address community needs. This includes inspiring philanthropy to financially support viable and sustainable programs and services that assist our residents and their ability to navigate through life’s difficult challenges.
Santa Paula’s population is 83% Latino and as a representative of our communities’ rich diversity, I’d like to increase participation of Latino men and women, especially young people onto governance boards, commissions, committees, and taskforces so our local government is reflective of the community it represents. By increasing community engagement, we will inspire community ownership and create lasting change.