The Economy, the Regional Jobs Initiative and Cleaning Our Air

By Jerry L. Duncan

These items are together because they are all related. We can, working together as a region, successully address these issues.

For the first time, there is a comprehensive regional effort made up of the public and private sector to develop a short and long term comprehensive strategy to address this critical issue. It is known as the Regional Jobs Initiative (RJI). I have been very proud to play a role in the development of this effort and have been very consistent in my commitment to implement the changes needed to see it succeed.

The government of the City of Fresno has an important part to play in this effort. The implementation of the City's RJI tasks will result in a vastly improved customer service attitude as well as significant improvements in our efficiency. The changes will not be easy to accomplish but are well worth the hard work it will take to achieve them.

In addition, I will continue to work hard to keep District Six as business friendly as possible. The District is thriving economically and I intend to do everything I can to keep it that way. The efforts to simplify business interaction with our City will continue and so will the effort to keep fees and taxes low.

In addition we must and we will clean our air. As a region, we are starting to work together to address this problem. As a region, we can clean our air and still preserve our economy and the quality of life we enjoy.

The solution to this issue will not be made with emotional or headline grabbing over-reactions but rather with rational approaches to making sure our limited resources are directed at the highest payoff. If we do this we will achieve the clean air we all desire.

I will continue to support rational and common sense solutions with measurable improvements. In addition, I will continue to oppose proposals that are fronts for political agendas. This is too serious a problem for it to be handled any other way.