Primary Election Date: 06/05/2012
General Election Date: 11/06/2012

Who Am I?

I am in my second term as a City Council member and am presently running for Mayor. I have been self-employed since 1982 as a vocational and career counselor, performing expert witness testimony on behalf of injured workers. My company grew to as many as 23 employees with four offices in the Riverside/San Bernardino area. I am a long time Riverside resident having been born and raised here. I am currently 58 years old. I have been involved with several non-profits, such as the United Way (current board member), Community Action Partnership (current member), Greater Riverside Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (past chair), Riverside Chamber of Commerce (past board member), Riverside Raincross Group (past member), and others. I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren (with one on the way). I consider myself dedicated and hard working and found my first two terms as a City Council member very rewarding.

Why Am I Running?

Over my past two terms as Council member, representing Ward 2, I have accomplished several milestones with many more to come. I have taken a low-income area, which at one time was disconnected from City Hall, and through establishing nine neighborhood groups (both English/Spanish speaking) I have connected them and given them a voice. I have worked with many City Departments to improve the quality of life by removing several bad liquor stores and hotel/motels in the area. I've improved the park and recreation facilities and worked with staff to develop structured programming for the children. We have developed a new building for our preschool program, developed an Opera program, and we increased summer reading programs (from 350 participants to over1600). We also began STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) programming in our library and we are currently working to open a music school in one of our community centers. I have achieved a tremendous amount over these past six years and I am ready to expand the benefit that Ward 2 has received into an advantage for the entire City when I am Mayor.

Hold Me Accountable!

Top two priorities are economic development and educational partnerships. Currently the City of Riverside has a 13½ % unemployment rate and it has a very low percentage of students graduating from high school and going onto college. That needs to be improved. High unemployment rates need to be addressed with the return of non-skilled and semi-skilled jobs. We also have skilled graduates leaving school unable to find work. I am currently taking steps to address some of these issues including assisting in the recruitment of manufacturing companies to the Riverside Area, with high paying jobs. At this moment I am working to bring a company to Riverside to manufacture solar panels and establish a showroom of advanced solar and other alternative energies. At present I am assisting UCR in starting up the Medical School, partnering with local schools to help improve reading levels, and assisting in vocational training to come to the area to meet the local job demands. The above items and more need to be addressed by the local government.

My DFA values:

I will be brief. Communication is the key to any successful community. As the chair of the Governmental Committee I have moved to broaden the responsibilities of each Council member by increasing transparency and restructuring the Code of Ethics and its process to provide community members fair and equal access to filing complaints to Council members. This has been in place for about a year and a half. I supported dignity and respect for all city workers and as a result we have been able to arrive at agreements with almost all employee associations rather quietly. Openness and being approachable and available are keys to any successful elected position.

My Campaign is People-Powered!

My first two campaigns, for councilman, have been grass roots. I worked closely with volunteers and employee associations to win my first campaign where I was the underdog, with less money, less experience, and fewer contacts in the world of electeds. I won and received about 60% of the vote in a runoff election. I had approximately 125 volunteers in my first race and about 50 volunteers in my second race. The second I won with 69.5% of the vote against two other opponents. Just like these past campaigns were grassroots, so will be my Mayoral run. Volunteers are the backbone of any successful campaign and my current one will be no different. Energizing the base is what needs to be done in any grassroots campaign.