Candidate for
Council Member; City of Ridgecrest

My Campaign Platform

Ridgecrest Police Dept. Economic Development Social Programs Sales Tax Increase Mandatory Trash Collection

Restore & Defend our Constitutional Government

Elected office is a loan of trust. When you are elected to the city council, the people are saying, "We're going to trust you for four years". I believe that public service is a high calling, and one that is sorely undervalued.

I am on the public record of numerous city council, school board and local Bureau of Land Management meetings. I have been an outspoken advocate of Constitutionally-limited government.

To demonstrate how I would approach city government issues, let me give just a few examples of recent issues that have been dealt with by the council this past year:

Ridgecrest Police Department: The RPD has taken much more severe cuts than the Parks and Recreation Department due to the city's declining revenues. Our Parks and Recreation Department costs the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide recreation for the community. Somehow that does not seem like a job that government should be involved in, especially given the current budget crisis that we're experiencing and will continue to experience for some years to come. I believe people would rather have quicker response times from our police department, reduced rates of drug and crime-related activity, better streets to drive on and a strong city infrastructure. While I would fully support maintenance of the parks we already have, I would not support any future park expansions, at least not until the city's primary responsibilities to its citizens are adequately funded.

Economic Development: The city has expended a lot of time, effort and money in the past trying to grow our community. Examples: a new business park and a senior retirement village at the cost of over $2,000,000 of local revenues. I fail to see why the city is getting into land development. This is something that government was never intended to get involved in, yet they are. It seems to me that 2 million dollars could have helped to keep the police department funded or fixed a street or two.

I don't think we are going to see our city growing to the size that some seem to envision. All that it would take is one BRAC to reduce China Lake's mission or -- God forbid -- close this Navy base entirely in which case Ridgecrest would become a ghost town almost overnight. We are not going to be another Bakersfield or Lancaster anytime soon, and the chances of Ridgecrest becoming a bedroom community are even more remote. Therefore, I would rather see the city put its efforts, time and money into hiring adequate numbers of police officers, fixing and maintaining our streets, and hiring back those city employees we had to let go. We need to strengthen the city, not weaken it.

Social Programs: Right after one of the recent budget reductions where city employees lost their jobs and department budgets were seriously cut, the council voted to give a $20,000 gift to a local special interest group who had lost its Federal grant funding. The council took this money from the Police Department budget. This action reminds me of the story of Davy Crockett when he was United States Congressman from Tennessee. The title of the story is "Not Yours To Give". I believe this story best describes what our city council did. Actually it is even worse, considering the poor fiscal climate that the city is experiencing and the compounding fact that the council is now asking the people to approve an increase in local sales taxes.

Sales Tax Increase: Speaking of the sales tax, I am and have been openly against any increase in taxes, sales or otherwise. When I have debated the issue, I have tried to reason with the council on the irresponsible approach they are taking. I wanted to protect the people by providing a much more responsible and accountable approach. The more responsible approach would have been a Special rather than a General sales tax. With a Special tax, the people can ensure that the money could only be spent where it they want it (e.g. Police & Streets). Also, the council could have placed a sunset clause on their proposed tax increase which would phase out the tax when the city's financial climate improves. As it now stands, this council or any future council can spend this money wherever three votes will take it, much like the $20,000 gift that was given to a special interest group, and this tax increase has no sunset + it is forever.

Mandatory Trash Collection: In the past year, the city again revisited implementing a mandatory trash collection program. Have you heard of the age-old adage "follow the money"? I'll get back to that in a moment.

One of the supporting arguments for implementing mandatory trash collection was that hazardous waste is contaminating the ground water around the landfill. I have no disagreement with that position but mandatory trash collection won't resolve this problem. The fact is that there are no provisions to sort or separate any of the trash collected. So, if hazardous waste were placed in anyone's household trash, it would just be picked up and dumped at the landfill. The county currently spends about 12 hours per year for hazardous waste collection here at the Ridgecrest landfill, to detour hazardous waste from reaching the landfill. Increasing those hours is how I would attack this problem, not forced participation in yet another mandatory government program.

Another argument used by supporters of mandatory trash collection was that we have so much illegal dumping. Prior to having to pay land fill fees and back when it was open 24/7, people illegally dumped their trash. The fix to illegal dumping is as it has always been: enforce the laws that are already on the books. And for those who have commercial trash bins: secure those trash bins to keep people from dumping in them. We don't need mandatory trash collection; we do need to enforce the laws we have and apply some common sense.

Some say that because other communities have mandatory trash collection, so should we. Here again, some people want to group us with cities that are nothing like ours. There is no compelling reason that I have yet heard or seen that justifies implementing a mandatory trash program. Some will argue that we need it for recycling + but we have local resources for recycling. Again, there is no good reason to force people to have their trash picked up.

Now back to "follow the money". The issue over mandatory trash collection for the city has little to do with a concern over reducing the waste stream or the environment: it's about money. What mandatory trash will do is increase the city's franchise revenues. More government instead of less government in our lives? If elected, I will stand against this and insist on keeping government out of peoples' lives.