Letter to the Editor: Food for Thought

Updated: March 3, 2013

To the citizens of Santa Rosa,

It is election time in our little city once again. Here are a few “food for thought” questions I would like to share just to get you thinking.

What type of people do we want to represent us for the next two years? Do we want the previous administration from three years ago to come back in and really leave our city with no money or, even worse, monies that can’t be accounted for?

Wouldn’t it be better to re-elect our current administration? These people have been working in the “red” since they took office in 2011. It has been hard, but they have been slowly working to effectively run Santa Rosa in spite of all the problems they inherited.
Now the people who left our city in such a state think we would elect them again! What for? Do they want to come back and finish the job they started and bankrupt our town? Our current administration has worked to resolve most of their inherited problems and is trying even harder to move our city forward.

At present our drainage problem will be completed with funds received through a federal grant that was given to Santa Rosa. We have old and new programs in progress to help bring the community together. Some of these programs are:

Market Days with a community magazine
A Feast of Sharing at Thanksgiving
Our growing Christmas Parade and Carnival
A Food Pantry brought here through the SRUMC to help
Our needy, supported by our current administration and the police department
The Easter Celebration
Veterans and Memorial Day Celebrations
Last, but not least, our Halloween and Youth Center programs which grew this year.

I am sure there are many more programs worth mentioning, but the progress of these have come to light by our community working together as never before. Do we want to elect people who would rather see our city a “ghost town”? Don’t we need new businesses to help bring in revenue to our community? Wouldn’t new business open up new jobs for our unemployed residents?

What are the motives behind those running for the first time and all of those seeking re-election? Some I know want to continue seeing our community grow and prosper. But for others it feels more like they are running for vendetta than to help our city. They seem to want to split up our votes or possibly our community. Are they running for power or to finish what was started over three years ago? Is it to build a better and safer place to live and raise families?

How can we be sure to elect people who actually live in Santa Rosa and not just using a relative’s address so they can run?
Do we need “bullies” who try to intimidate us into doing things their way or what they want to have done?
This is a lot of things to think about at this important time. I am not trying to ask you to vote for any one person or group of people, but to really think about who you believe will do the most good for our Santa Rosa. I do not really care how people vote. Please just vote. It is our voice that can make the biggest difference when put together.

Again, this is just “food for thought”.

– M.J. Newman
a Santa Rosa resident

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