We need to use the "best practices" of cities on the move, and the City needs open minded strong leadership to do that.

The three most important things I would like to accomplish during my term of office:

To address these critical issues, I will provide the leadership needed to move the City to restore successful program, expand those that are working well, and bring in the "best practices" from other cities.

Crime
For every dollar spent on preventing crime, we save $34 on the other end---the cost of jail time. And that doesn't include the costs of police, district attorneys, judges and courts that come before the jail time! There are no victims when we prevent crimes.

We must tackle the crime problem early with prevention programs that start in the elementary schools and continue through a child's school years. Children with truancy problems and the potential of joining gangs should be identified early and intervention begun immediately. Statistics prove that most local and state prisoners have a history of truancy and/or gang activity prior to criminal activity.

After school programs should be in every elementary school and should include homework help, recreation and a wide variety of activities.

We should bring the School Resource Officer program back into the elementary schools and increase their presence in the middle and high schools. This program should provide safety around a school campus before and after school, and work hand in hand with the truancy program to keep kids in school. These police officers provide positive role models for the students.

When School Resource Officers, Peacekeepers, and gang units were working together, gang homicides were reduced to two in a single year. We can do that again if all programs are in place and working together.

We must return to a neighborhood focused community policing where police officers know the business owners, the neighbors, and their children. The city's proposed Neighborhood Renaissance Program is a step in the right direction with a program that focuses on all the problems a neighborhood is experiencing.

The City's Peacekeepers program is a good example of a program that uses a variety of methods in dealing with crime, specifically gang-related crime. The program's outreach workers identify gang members and wannabees and work to divert them from gang membership. They may help them find jobs or get gang tattoos removed. They may also work with the police to report gang activity. We need to expand the Peacekeepers program to keep a lid on gang activity and recruitment. Gang injunctions are another way to curb gang activity and are used in large urban cities to prevent gang members from hanging out together in public places such as parks, street corners, and shopping malls.

Downtown Revitalization
Downtown revitalization began in earnest under Mayor Joan Darrah when I was on the City Council. Many studies had been done and there were many recommendations as to what should be done. But it wasn't until we brought all of the players together and came up with a plan all could support that we began developing major projects in the waterfront area. Now that key projects are in place, we need to encourage more private sector participation in the downtown revitalization. It is beginning to flourish and we must continue to support a vital downtown-but without unreasonable subsidies from the taxpayers.

A Downtown Entertainment District would be one way to encourage a "24-hour downtown" so vital to the economy. To accomplish this there must be market rate housing and a critical mass of people living downtown. It will require imagination to create a workable plan for both developing and marketing the housing.

Growth and Development
Stockton has a great location in the rich farmland of the Central Valley where agriculture continues to play a major financial role in the economic life of the community. It brings in millions of dollars to the local economy each year. It is important that our agricultural roots be protected and preserved for future generations.

I believe it is important to put in place development policies that will protect the farming operations and at the same time allow the city to grow. This can be done by encouraging infill projects and growing up instead of out into prime farmland.

The city must regain control of the planning process and hold developers accountable for building in ways that protect the environment. This can be done by building near transportation routes, providing mass transportation that meets the needs of commuters, and designing communities where services are within walking and biking distances. We must redevelop blighted parts of our community with new infill projects that provide affordable housing, retail and commercial space, and other mixed uses.

First and foremost we must match our residential growth to job growth. It is one thing to zone land for commercial and industrial growth, but it takes will power on the part of the City Council to slow residential growth so that jobs can keep pace.

Growth must also be balanced with services. The recently adopted General Plan allows for a population of 500,000 to 600,000 people in some 17 villages scattered around the edges of the city. City departments such as police, fire, libraries, parks and recreation are struggling to meet the needs of the current population. We must slow the growth and allow these city services to catch up. We can do this by being very careful in approving any plans submitted by developers and making certain that the services and infrastructure are in place at the same time development occurs.

Education
The Stockton City Council has no direct control over the educational institutions within our city. However, local schools and their performance have a great deal to do with our quality of life and the economic well being of our city. They determine how well qualified our citizens are for jobs and what jobs will come to our area. The fact that 54% of our high schools students drop out of school before graduation is the reason that our schools have been labeled "drop-out factories." This situation must change through a community effort to turn these statistics into a "call to action" by all segments of our community. The future of our city depends upon a partnership of schools, businesses, churches, community-based organizations, and the city to tackle this shocking situation with all the resources at our disposal. The time for finger-pointing and blame is long past; it's time to join forces and work together to make a profound difference in our schools.

There are many ways the city can work with the schools, the parents, and the neighborhoods to improve educational outcomes. We can work together to enforce truancy and curfew laws, provide after-school programs, and lead the effort to get the community involved in the schools. We need to partner with the business community to begin an "Adopt-a-School" program that works with local schools to improve student achievement and training.

City council members and school board members must meet regularly to discuss issues within the schools to solve problems cooperatively. This approach has worked in the past and needs to be started once again.

Jobs
Education has a major impact on employment and the job market. Until we have an educated workforce that can read and write, and is trained in some marketable skills, we will not be able to attract good paying jobs. The business community must be willing to get involved in improving our schools by helping to provide career and technical training to young people who are interested in learning skills not taught in their schools. We must work with union training facilities to recruit and train more young people for the skilled jobs we need to keep our economy going. Career and technical training should be broadened and promoted at all educational levels as many young people do not have the resources or desire to attend college and will fill the jobs in technology, construction, mechanics, and health care that we need.

Improving literacy from childhood through adulthood should be a community goal---one that will make Stockton more attractive to companies looking for an educated and literate workforce. We must invest in our community libraries, support school libraries, and provide the latest technology for our citizens so they become better readers, writers, and skilled workers.

The city must actively recruit businesses with high paying jobs - jobs that provide living wages and health and retirement benefits. We must not settle for big box stores that pay minimum wages and deny their employees affordable health benefits. It is our responsibility to be selective in our marketing approach to ensure our citizens a better quality of life and jobs that offer hope of a better future.

The city must also work to facilitate new startup businesses and industry in Stockton; our goal should be to make it easy for entrepreneurs to invest in our community, not bury them in red tape and unreasonable requirements that cost both time and money. We must also begin to think like a business and cut costs throughout the system without compromising good service delivery. We must become "lean and mean" in our approach to delivering services, and we must embrace technology every step of the way.

Fiscal Accountability
As a business owner for over 27 years, I know how important it is to use your money wisely for the greatest return on your investment. Taxpayer dollars are not play money; the city must collect and spend wisely every dollar it collects and be held accountable for our community's fiscal health. We are in danger of becoming another Vallejo who recently declared bankruptcy due to fiscally irresponsible decisions made over the past decade. Stockton has accumulated huge debt in the past six years and with the economic slowdown we're experiencing, the city runs the risk of insolvency unless budget-cutting actions are taken today to prevent a financial collapse tomorrow.

Working together we can solve the problems we share. It will take you and I and all our neighbors and friends to make it happen, but we can move Stockton forward to benefit all our residents, not just a favored few. As a former Peace Corps Volunteer I live by the philosophy that it is better to teach someone to fish for a living than to simply give that person fish to eat. In Stockton we must empower our citizens to be part of the solution to our community problems and work with the city to solve them cooperatively.