Countdown to the Election

It was pointed out to me today that it isn’t really clear WHY I am choosing to run for office. To me, the reason is extremely clear: opportunities. The “career” candidate states he should be elected because of all of his experience. Experience accomplishing what?  Merced County has one the highest foreclosure rates in the State. We lead the State in unemployment and have some of the least educated people. Our health status reports continually run in the lowest rankings. Why? What has been to to address ANY of these issues? Do we want to continue down this path? I say NO…It’s time to shake things up, and I’m just the guy to do it! We have a MAJOR healthcare corporation investing $160 million dollars in our community: They understand the potential for success in Merced County. We have UC Merced growing and flourishing in our back yard…THEY understand the value in investing in Merced County. We have extremely successful agribusiness in our county: responsible for feeding a significant portion of the world. Why aren’t we channeling our energy into integrating and supporting the successful portions of our county? If elected, that’s EXACTLY what I will do…

The weather has cleared. Today’s agenda included meeting with Senator Feinstein’s staff, but as we were leaving, Diane Feinstein herself showed up and we had a chance to thank her for her support and get a photo with her. We met with Congressman Cardoza’s staff and made real headway on healthcare issues. the high point of the day was when Congressman Cardoza met up with us and we had a chance to meet with Democratic Whip, James E. Clyburn. he told us of his support, as his district has many of the same infrastructure issues as Merced County.

Today was the first set of meetings representing Merced County with the MCAG One Voice Committee. We met with Senator Boxer’s staff on HPSA designations and Medi Cal reimbursement rates. We met with Congressman Cardoza’s staff on Transportation issues and have many more meetings planned for the days ahead.

I am leaving today for Sacramento and our plane leaves tomorrow morning for Washington DC. I am part of a delegation representing Merced County on such topics as water,transportation, economic development, and of course, healthcare. I’ll update the weblog as the trip develops.

There is such a thing as “good government” and we need to strive to attain that status in Merced County. When citizens are allowed to contribute to the vision, they are likely to bond with community leaders. Inclusion is both beautiful and RIGHT. The work of government then becomes redemptive and a healing process between specialty groups, caring individuals and government entities can begin.

I moved to Merced County because it seemed like a great place to buy a home and raise a family. Almost 20 years later, my personal vision has not changed. Even though we have been plagued with challenges, Merced County residents still see the value in remaining here. My vision for the future would be to have thousands of individuals that feel the same way as I do. We do this by investing in our future. This will take a major cultural change for the leadership of Merced County, who spend a great deal of their time resolving short-term matters and immediate crises. Please understand, there SHOULD be time spent on short-term matters and immediate crises, but there needs to be a dedicated effort to invest in the future. Quite frankly, our leadership is making strides in that area: UC Merced and the new Hospital being built by Catholic Healthcare West are examples of “thinking about the future”. But (and you know I’m going to say it) “What Now?”. We can certainly invest MORE in our future by helping CHW get trauma center status! We can invest MORE by helping bring a medical school to UC Merced! And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I see the Merced of 2020 on the same level as Davis, California: where the people ride bikes around town, and it’s difficult to tell where the university begins and the community ends.

I personally believe that participation in a project requires a great deal of dedication and responsibility. To be an effective participant requires being well prepared. There might be reading or data analysis that is necessary to review and even question prior to moving into the decision making process. Participants must be motivated for the right reasons. By that, I mean that sometimes people participate on Boards of Directors or projects because it is prestigious. A perfect example of this is the demise of Merced County’s battered womens shelter, “A Woman’s Place”. I find it hard to believe that a Board of Director’s with as much professional experience as they have could not see that problems were developing. They accepted positions of fiduciary responsibility, not only to the funding sources (grantors and state agencies) but more importantly to the shelter employees and women they serve. Now the county is scrambling to assure that some sort of services are found to “fill the gap”. The executive director, in this case is negligent, but the ultimate responsibility belongs to the Board of Directors. It’s a very sad situation, and the solution is very unclear.

I’m so glad someone is asking the question! Every person, everywhere is affected by air quality: whether they want to believe it or not. There are some tremendously successful (yet relatively small) programs in Merced County. The Merced-Mariposa Asthma Coalition is participating in the air quality flag program that lets students, parents, and teachers know when air quality is dropping and the steps necessary to protect our children. This is such a great first step, and we need to help them expand the program. But then we get back to my mantra: “What Now?” Again, we need to take the data that’s being generated on air quality and correlate it to health data, such as uncontrolled asthma attacks.  Then we need to overlay that data with geographic information, such as proximity to freeways, aerial agricultural spraying, etc. Then create project partners from various groups (in this example, it might be farmers and parents of asthmatic children) to collaborate and work out a reasonable solution.