They say “We have the best government – money can buy.” They also say that these days it is almost impossible for incumbents to loose.
Personally I am amazed by the preliminary polling numbers, while at the same time, needless to say, quite excited.
I am also shocked that someone like our Ward 1 City Council Member, who has had a two year head start off the blocks, has done so poorly as to not leave me far far behind in the dust.
Sarmiento has had a campaign budget 10 times greater than my own and resources that I can not even touch. But perhaps while he has “huge” signs, voters are recognizing he still has nothing to say.
I would like to think that 20 years of my own real involvement with the Santa Ana community beats just 2 years of token involvement by our “appointed” incumbent.
Our country is in troubled times, but our community has been in trouble for decades. My hope is that people will compare records and not rhetoric. I would like to think that if people believe I have done well by this community as a “concerned citizen” then they might imagine how much more I could do in the capacity of a Santa Ana City Councilman – that really believes in “walking the talk”.
I believe I could help bring about dramatic change for the better in just two years, rather than just sit on the council seat and do so very little as my opponent has done.
My major complaint; of not just my opponent, but of our current City Government is it’s failure of leadership.
I believe it is no longer enough to be just a good “communicator”, the times today demand a leader to be a good communicator, an even better educator and above all – an accomplished champion.
We need leadership that is not delegated to staffers. Leadership that has their own original ideas and welcomes and encourages others to share their own ideas and efforts.
Santa Ana needs community builders, not figureheads.
In the past, I helped to start and chair my own neighborhood association of Sandpointe, I started the neighborhood umbrella group “Com-Link” in my living room in the hope of engaging the entire community, I worked closely with Don Cribb to turn the vacant downtown Santa Ana Financial District into the Artists Village at the time when city staff was against it, I have set up mentoring programs, worked for years as a Gang/Drug Prevention Program Coordinator, I now Chair the Orange County Tobacco Education Coalition that the CDC says represents the #1 lowest smoking prevalence region in the country that also significantly helped to save California some 86 billion dollars (that’s right – “Billion”) over the last 15 years as stated by Reuters news service 2 months ago, and now I would like to initiate a plan that would effectively make Santa Ana a place where we can all be proud to live.
I do need help though. I need people who read this blog to do something that would give Santa Ana not the best government money can buy, but the best government – period!
I would ask you to call your friends and neighbors in Santa Ana today and encourage them to go to my web site and learn that they have a better choice for City Council.
I would ask that if you strongly believe, as I do, in “Community Oriented Government” that you remember not just how close races can be, but just how high are the stakes.
I would ask you to do something today to help this campaign for a city government that engages the community, and come Tuesday; VOTE – JIM WALKER FOR SANTA ANA CITY COUNCIL.
Thank you
Jim Walker
http://www.WalkerForCityCouncil.com
Jim, you have the vision and the experience to bring that vision through the channels to make it a reality, Community activism is the necessary change the SA community has to make to deal with the problems of gangs and drugs, unemployment and small business creation, transportation and infrastructure maintenance. You are the leader on this issue the community will hopefully see that.