Campaign Update

I've had a great week that I'd love to catch you up on...

Last Thursday I had a Meet & Greet hosted by Pat in the Trilogy neighborhood. It was a wonderful opportunity to hear concerns and answer questions from the residents of the 55 and better community. These great people have a wealth of information and come from a variety of places and backgrounds. I appreciated their ideas and truly enjoyed my time with them. Many thanks to Pat for hosting and for all who attended.

Monday evening the Gilbert Small Business Alliance hosted all of the mayoral and town council candidates at a forum held at Warren's Jazz Bistro (SW corner of Val Vista & Williams Field) - great location and good food by the way. Each candidate had five minutes to introduce themselves, explain why they are running for town council and share their goals and vision for the town. The Gilbert Small Business Alliance did a fantastic job putting on a quality event for their members and the best part was getting to mingle with some amazing people - people who put a personal investment into Gilbert by owning a small business in our community. Here are the three things that I think are crucial to Gilbert:

1) Budget - its time for the town to tighten its belt, define the priorities in our community and make a clear statement between the wants and needs in Gilbert. I believe strongly that the role of government is to protect and preserve the freedoms that are innately ours. The top priorities in our town should be police, fire, streets and water. We must eliminate the waste within our town and focus on the needs.

2) Transparency within our town government and clear communication with the citizens. We don't just need good communication - we need good communicators. We need someone willing to sift through the information and convey to the general public the good, the bad and the ugly. Our local government must be held accountable for decisions that they make with our tax dollars.

3) Family Values - As a young mother, I see this town from a different perspective than the other council candidates. I want to maintain and then enhance the family-oriented community we call home - this is the reason that so many people came to Gilbert! Everything that comes before town council needs someone to ask, "Is it true? Is it right? Is it good for the Gilbert family?" I want to be that voice and I have the judgement and common sense to make the best choices for Gilbert families.

Finally, tonight was the Arizona Republic Town Council Candidate Forum - a 90-minute question and answer session moderated by the AZ Republic's East Valley Editorial Board. I was excited about the format - questions followed by 1 minute answers from each of the candidates. The questions were thoughtful and gave me a chance to share my views on a wide variety of topics including Field of Dreams ballfield, the relationship between the Town and the school district, the quality of the streets in Gilbert and lots of questions about the budget - would we favor a tax increase (NO!)? What are the top fiscal priorities for the town? What would you cut out of the budget?

All in all, a very productive week! Lots of behind the scenes work still going on...including a new look to this website...coming soon! **Don't worry, I'll be keeping the blog updates going as I've received great feedback about the need for timely information! Thanks for all of your support! - Jenn