Oakdale Leader & Riverbank News Endorse Lee Lundrigan

By Lee Lundrigan

"In this election, our commitment to community must support the one who is willing to work with the community, not the one who merely lives in the community. Vote for Lee Lundrigan."

OUR OPINION The Leader recommends:

CLERK-RECORDER: In this non-partisan county position, Oakdale City Council member Bob Deklinski competes with Lee Lundrigan, a Modesto business attorney and administrator, for a position in which the department has been under criticism in recent years. This office is in need of strong direction from a person who has a close understanding of how it functions.

Mr. Deklinski is running on the basis of his position in the Oakdale City Council and as a retired FBI agent with a great deal of organizational background. He pledges to ensure the integrity of the elections process in Stanislaus County and to maintain high standards of fiscal responsibility and public accountability.

Mrs. Lundrigan has been a prosecutor in the county DA's office and an attorney for a large agricultural organization; she is a business attorney who focuses on employment law. She belongs to the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials and the Stanislaus County Farm Bureau. She has run her campaign on a "grass roots" appraoch, making herself available to community groups and personal one-on-one discussions. She pledges a professional and business approach to the clerk-recorder's office.

As a community newspaper, we support a philosophy of local control and a commitment to widespread local involvement.

Lee Lundrigan has been involved in the communities, has made herself accessible to the people upon which the clerk-recorder's position pivots and has the professional background and close working knowledge to the Stanislaus County Clerk's Office that will be required to operate it smoothly and overcome past issues. She even invites residents to call her personally to discuss her views and abilities, and published her telephone number in her statement of candidacy.

Bob Deklinski, on the contrary, has run a campaign dependent upon political connection and endorsement by power-brokers. We do not see that he has made an attempt to contact local people-oriented community organizations, or invited contact by the public, either through the media or via his campaign. He not only does not invite the ordinary person to discuss issues with him, but does not publish his telephone number in the local directory to provide access for those people. A check with information results in a recorded message, "The customer has requested this information not be provided." A recent request at City Hall to contact him received a response that a message would be forwarded, to which there was no response. In addition, Mr. Deklinski ran for City Council after having made a failed bid for the State Assembly, giving us the impression that his concern lies more with political self-interest than the business of the people.

For a person who pledges he will, among other things, "ensure...accessibility..." if elected, he has not been accessible, nor shown a desire to be. We do not believe that his background establishes that he will have the closer knowledge of the Clerk-Recorder's Office than does his opponent, Lundrigan, who belongs to an association of clerks and election officials, and who has has a longtime familiarity with this particular clerk's office.

In this election, our commitment to community must support the one who is willing to work with the community, not the one who merely lives in the community.

Vote for Lee Lundrigan.