Thursday, April 01, 2004
Everybody asks: What does Tys stand for?
It's a bit difficult to quickly spit out the standard three-word sound-bite sort of answer to this question when there's so much to be done, so much to focus on... but let me give you my best shot at 'planks' in the platform.
Local Focus
This is a district election and it should be about the issues that effect our local community. After 5 years of volunteering in my neighborhood, my parks, and the district, I'm familiar with a lot of the sorts of issues going on in many of the neighborhoods. I know the leaders in those neighborhoods, the business owners, what's going right, and what's not working. Yes, citywide issues affect what happens here, but we need to work on the simple, practical issues that are right here in District 5.
Effective Communication
When I'm supervisor, I'm going to communicate regularly with the whole district, in many different ways. One way will be with a quarterly town meeting, where we can all learn from each other, find out what's going on, and hold department leaders -from DPW to SFPD- accountable. Another way will be by meeting with the leaders of neighborhood groups, and with interest groups (eg the bike coalition) and work through the issues that are on the table, before they go into legislation, before we need to sue the city to stop another bad idea. A third way will be by working with the local media, like the Sun Reporter, like the SF Observer, like the Weekly and the Guardian to get the word out about issues and their possible solutions. There's many many ways we can do this.
Practical Solutions and Follow Through
We all know some story about some foolish thing the city did and ended up spending too much money, too much time, and left everyone upset at the end of the day. I have many many ideas about how we can solve a lot of the annoying problems we all see and feel. (I don't have all of them, but if we communicate well, we can find people who do have them.) I want to find these practical solutions, and then stick on them and follow through with the various city agencies until the job gets done. I've been doing this in my community for most of my 5 years here: the bathroom in the Panhandle, the DMV parking lot, fighting the ABC for local businesses, keeping on top of developers, getting DPW to help keep the city clean, etc.
District 5 needs solution oriented, local focused leadership that knows the area, and how to get the job done. I believe I'm that leader. Check out my promises page for more specific solutions.
It's a bit difficult to quickly spit out the standard three-word sound-bite sort of answer to this question when there's so much to be done, so much to focus on... but let me give you my best shot at 'planks' in the platform.
Local Focus
This is a district election and it should be about the issues that effect our local community. After 5 years of volunteering in my neighborhood, my parks, and the district, I'm familiar with a lot of the sorts of issues going on in many of the neighborhoods. I know the leaders in those neighborhoods, the business owners, what's going right, and what's not working. Yes, citywide issues affect what happens here, but we need to work on the simple, practical issues that are right here in District 5.
Effective Communication
When I'm supervisor, I'm going to communicate regularly with the whole district, in many different ways. One way will be with a quarterly town meeting, where we can all learn from each other, find out what's going on, and hold department leaders -from DPW to SFPD- accountable. Another way will be by meeting with the leaders of neighborhood groups, and with interest groups (eg the bike coalition) and work through the issues that are on the table, before they go into legislation, before we need to sue the city to stop another bad idea. A third way will be by working with the local media, like the Sun Reporter, like the SF Observer, like the Weekly and the Guardian to get the word out about issues and their possible solutions. There's many many ways we can do this.
Practical Solutions and Follow Through
We all know some story about some foolish thing the city did and ended up spending too much money, too much time, and left everyone upset at the end of the day. I have many many ideas about how we can solve a lot of the annoying problems we all see and feel. (I don't have all of them, but if we communicate well, we can find people who do have them.) I want to find these practical solutions, and then stick on them and follow through with the various city agencies until the job gets done. I've been doing this in my community for most of my 5 years here: the bathroom in the Panhandle, the DMV parking lot, fighting the ABC for local businesses, keeping on top of developers, getting DPW to help keep the city clean, etc.
District 5 needs solution oriented, local focused leadership that knows the area, and how to get the job done. I believe I'm that leader. Check out my promises page for more specific solutions.
