What do you see as the top issues facing our community?
Simply put, my view of the top issues are driven by what you, the citizens of the fifth district say they are. When I started my campaign I developed a simple survey asking people to rank their top three priorities for our community. With years of service and listening to our community on the South End Neighborhood Council I had an idea what I would hear, but I wanted to give a voice to anyone who wanted to be heard.
While the responses have been as diverse as our district, the common themes are crime reduction, street conditions and jobs and business. One of the biggest business needs in the western part of our district is a grocery store – a void that has existed for years and needs to be rectified sooner than later. People who live in the heart of South Tacoma should not have to travel across town or to the next city to buy their groceries.
If you haven't yet, you can take the survey under the 'Polls' menu above.
How are you going to help clean up the neighborhoods?
As your representative on the city council, I will work hard to make sure we are offering the legislative and practical resources to the governmental and private sector organizations that are working to get our neighborhoods clean.
I am also going to be involved. As a leader I believe it is important to set an example for our community. To that end I will continue to be involved in activities like Operation Graffiti cover up, community clean-up days, Blueberry Park restoration and the March Against Crime events. And by 'be involved' I mean actually doing the work of removing paint or covering graffiti, unloading tons of garbage collected in our neighborhoods, pulling the weeds and making the signs.
Recently, KING 5 covered an emergency graffiti cover up for a hard hit Park Avenue neighborhood. Thanks to some hard work in the past to get neighbors organized, the Park Avenue Safe Streets group got more than 20 volunteers out on short notice to remove and cover a lot of graffiti. You can see the story by copying and pasting this address into your browser:
http://www.king5.com/video/featured-index.html?nvid=387483
