About District 4

Fourth District, Calaveras County, CA

Altaville | Angels Camp | Douglas Flat | Murphys | Vallecito

People want to know how much you care before they care how much you know.

Former Congressman Tip O'Neill said that all politics is local. There is no better proof of that than face-to-face campaigning. The issues that we discussed on Sunday at a neighborhood klatch were basic public services, meaning police, roads, development and quality of life.

Of course, no one expects an immediate detailed analysis of all their concerns -- they do want to get a feel for how I approach them. For example, the specific police issue was concern for maintaining public safety as population grows and changes. I know that rapid growth introduces a lot of new people, some are new residents, some are out-of-town workers, and some are just passing through. Like change, newness is a fact of life. The biggest danger is to ignore it.

I think my experience on the city council has demonstrated that a new resident can successfully join the old-timer group. (Originally I was the only member who had not graduated from Bret Harte.) By listening and respecting everyone, I first showed how much I cared about our community.

In response to the question about the police, I talked about how, as a unified council, we had prepared for the growth in our community -- by adding more police officers, by expanding public safety resources, and using grants and tourist taxes to fund the increased budget. I also talked about how our police force is truly a community-based organization -- our officers work in our schools, engage at the street level, and understand how much we all value our rural quality of life.

Sometimes new challenges demand creative responses -- Turner, our drug dog, is an example of a new approach to the local war on drugs. Turner shows that this is not a drug-tolerate community; he also demonstrates that the threat is recognized and being addressed forcibly. Keeping drug dealers and their gang affiliations out of our communities is a key step in protecting our quality of life.

Not all changes are good, things are not necessarily better because they are new. Knowledge, discernment and experience are all part of the qualifications for political leadership

Click on Write Lee.