Public Service Is What It’s For
When did public office become just another trophy? In today’s world, that seems to be the way things are trending. There seems to be a succession of accomplishments: get a degree from some prestige University, acquire a successful business or three, get a trophy wife, run for a small public office, develop a network of supporters, go after a bigger public office, exchange old trophy wife for a new one, get a bigger public office, and keep moving up the food chain. It’s a series of life goals. But where is the interest in serving the public? Being elected to an office is viewed as just one more goal. When you’ve become a CEO, venture capitalist, or real estate baron, now you can move up the chain of office holding as your next set of career goals. But what about those voters out there? All those people who have a stake in whatever it is you’re trying to govern?
The problem is when an office that serves the public becomes just a popularity contest. Instead of aspiring to solve complicated problems and serve the public, it can become about ego, about being someone in power. It’s high school all over again, where there are the popular kids who have a clique. Generally, they’re not the ones organizing trash pickups.
I have neither run for nor previously held public office, making this campaign for Assessor my first political campaign. However, I have extensive community experience. I have been a regular member of and volunteer for progressive, labor, and environmental causes for 20 years. I have held volunteer leadership positions in clubs I belong to, and am proud to be a Mason because of the opportunities it offers for assisting others. Our food drive has contributed literal tonnage of rice and beans to the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley.
When the Founding Fathers were looking at how our country was to be governed, they were unsure of how to proceed. But they had a vision, a vision of a country run not by nobility, but by representatives of its citizens, placed there by the public trust. I want to be one of those representatives - and with your support and vote, I look forward to faithfully representing you.
