1. Representing the people who live in our community - not those who only want to profit from it

As a journalist in communities across California, I have seen the interests and needs of working and middle class Californians continually bulldozed by special interests, especially developers, financiers, and the public officials they get elected. My first and only interest in public involvement is defending the interests of my neighbors and my family - it is self-defense. I have no interest in business as usual politics. It is, quite literally, time for a change.

2. Preventing over development and increased density

The northwest San Fernando Valley generally, and Granada Hills especially, is built-out; there is no more open land ready to be developed. Residents have to fight to preserve what we have - a quiet, attractive post-war suburb of mostly single-family detached homes. Developers, however, often aided and abetted by City Hall, would like nothing more than to build multi-family residential and commercial buildings up and down every major street - including Chatsworth, Devonshire, Balboa, and Reseda - because that is how they make money. A case in point is a huge, 5-story apartment block on Reseda Boulevard in Northridge, occupying the site of what used to be a commercial nursery, and totally out of scale with the rest of the neighborhood.

City Hall is not looking out for our interests; we have to, and part of that is by electing advocates for neighborhoods who will say "no" - not "let's make a deal." I will never make a deal that diminishes single-family residential neighborhoods, and I will not take money from developers.
Period.

3. Being proactive and preventing problems

Neighborhood councils are always reacting to problems, whether graffiti, or telecom boxes, or overdevelopment - we need elected officials who are proactive, preventing these problems before they happen, not afterwards. That is what they get paid for; the Neighborhood Councils, made up of volunteers who care for their communities, have to hold our elected officials' feet to the fire. I will do that, all the time and every time.

4. Working for "smart growth," not dumb growth

City officials and neighborhood councils should be searching out ways to benefit the communities they represent; there are great examples of rational planning and smart development, all over southern California, of how to do that. All anyone has to do is compare the amenities today in communities like Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Santa Clarita, and the northwest San Fernando Valley, and realize that all were at a roughly similar level of development 30 years ago, to see what has worked, what has not, and what needs to be done. I have worked in many of these areas, and have seen what it takes to protect residents' quality of life - we need to use those examples in the northwest San Fernando Valley, not ignore them.