As a resident of the Evergreen area of San Jose for 20 years, I am proud to serve as your representative on the Board of the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority. I am a small business owner who brings experience and knowledge of the issues we often face when trying to preserve open land and wildlife. Working together, we can continue the mission and goals of the Open Space Authority.

Honest and Open Government
As a strong advocate of honest and open government, I welcome your thoughts and input on every policy brought before the Open Space Authority board. Good decisions come from community participation. I am glad to meet in my off hours in the community so you don't have to travel to the open space authority office. I also utilize technology such as phone, email, blogs, newsletters, web, to communicate with the residents of Evergreen, and East San Jose and I hope to improve and expand the OSA's use of technology to better serve our residents.

Public Safety
No issue is more important than the safety of our residents. As a city commissioner, I have worked with community leaders and neighborhood organizations, schools, peace officers, fire fighters, probation department, and the Santa Clara County District Attorney, to make our community and parks and open space land more safe. As a Boardmember I look forward to the opportunity to do more to keep our residents safe.

The Environment
I am proud to be the only candidate in this race with the sole endorsement of the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters. We must all be good stewards of our environment. As a boardmember, I will support sound and sustainable policies promoting clean air, water, and open space. I will reinforce the fact that as responsible citizens, we can each do our own part to contribute to a healthy environment.

Community Services
Throughout my public work, I hear a consistent message: Put Neighborhoods First! I will continue to work to promote, preserve and protect our neighborhood services. Neighborhood clean ups, traffic relief, and graffiti abatement must remain priorities. As a longtime resident, I will also work to preserve and promote the greater coordination of parks and open space creation for the Evergreen and East San Jose communities in our district.

Economic Development
As a small business owner and Vice President of wiotel, I know how important it is to create jobs and spend taxpayer money wisely. I will make sure that the balance of open space, farmland, park and development protect the quality of life of our community. I will work to manage the growth of Evergreen and East San Jose to balance between urban and non urban areas. The policy I support for the OSA is to purchase land from willing sellers. The OSA has never used Eminant Domain, I intend to keep it that way.

Education
As a director, I have helped to design a program to provide natural science education to our children with the involvement of our agency, parents and school staff. I also supported a program to educate our community about the importance of open land, farmland and wildlife preservation.

Senior Services
Our elder residents deserve respect, access to quality housing and parks along with clean air and water. I will work to ensure that the authority supports the services and programs for our seniors who deserve a high quality of life and the standard of living we would all expect.

Health Care
As a city commissioner, I joined with community leaders to try to save the San Jose Medical Center and I will continue to advocate for a full service hospital in San Jose. As one of the world's most prosperous communities, we have a duty to provide our residents access to quality health services.