I guess it is in the way I was raised, but I have never been
a fan of doing just enough to get by. I have always been a person who takes
pride in doing more than what is expected and one who can never just rest on my
laurels while others around me pick up the slack. This is a value that has been demonstrated in
my career as an electrician, my 10 years in public office and in my schoolwork
now at American Military University. This is a value that I am confident will
always be a part of what I do.
From the day I first took office as Mayor, I did more than
what was expected. When our city was hit
by 16” of snow I put on my carharts, safety vest and hard hat and was out
clearing snow off of storm drains. When
a citizen who was driving by commented “I never expected to see the Mayor out
doing that” my response was simply “well, maybe you should”. I was playing on
the auto insurance commercial, but it was true to my style and values. I never
put myself on a pedestal and I never asked anyone to do anything I was not
willing to do myself. It was common to
see me picking up trash, doing maintenance at the park or volunteering with our
community organizations on a project.
This value is also what first got me involved in emergency management.
As Mayor it would have been easier to just let others deal
with emergency management. I could have
just sat in my office and let staff deal with writing an emergency plan or
dealing with the impacts of the five Presidentially Declared Disasters (PDD’s) that
occurred while I was in office, but instead of passing off the responsibility to
someone else, I took on the challenge myself. I took time off from my paying job (the job of
Mayor pays $8000 per year salary, I can make that every month as an
electrician.) and spent a total of eighteen weeks at EMI, CDP and TEEX (one
week at a time spread out over 4 ½ years) gaining the knowledge, skills and
ability to develop a qualified comprehensive emergency management plan as well
as our multi-year training and exercise plan. It did not cost local taxpayers as
much money as it would have either. In spite of the fact that this training and
all related cost were legitimate expenses, I went out and raised money from
local businesses to offset cost to local taxpayers. These donations as well as all expenses are
all well documented in the City of Pacific ledger. In exchange for my taking this training, our
taxpayers not only got a complete Emergency Management plan but we were able to
stay in house in writing, conducting and evaluating our preparedness with three
disaster exercises. To hire a consultant
to do all of this would have cost our city at least $25,000. The total unreimbursed cost to our taxpayers
was less than $1000. Additionally, as a
result of what we accomplished, we qualified for EMPG grants (Emergency
Management Preparedness Grants) totaling over $28,000. This money was used to
expand upon work already done and to provide for citizen training programs that
were conducted. In the 2011 campaign for
Mayor, my opponents made a lot of fuss over my training but I will leave it up
to history to say if it was of value to our local taxpayers. What my political opponents claimed was
corruption was actually someone caring enough about our city to do a little
more than expected. I am confident that
history will prove this, what I fear what might happen if a disaster hits our
city now as the current Mayor has done his best to dismantle everything that we
accomplished. He has fired most of the
trained staff and has no idea of what the plan even contains.
In the 2011 campaign my opponents kept stressing that I used
taxpayer’s money to set myself up for a new career. If that was the case I would not have
thousands of dollars in student loans now. Yes the classes I took fed a new
found passion for emergency management and the skills I gained will be used in my
future career, but only because I am backing them up by pursuing a degree in
emergency management now. I will admit
that as a result of classes I took while I was Mayor, I have a better
understanding of what I am learning now at AMU, but those classes by themselves
were not what was going to earn me a new job.
It is the belief in hard work and doing things outside of myself that
will earn me that new career.
I have no regrets for what has happened over this past few
years. Although I hated to lose the
election, especially as a result of a campaign of lies and twisted truths, it
gave me back the time to focus on my schooling.
If I had won, I most likely would not have started my classes at AMU
yet, or at least would not be taking a full load of classes (I still have to
work full time as well). I doubt I would
have had the time to put the extra effort into my classes that has placed my on
the Dean’s list for academic excellence (I have held a 3.95 GPA since May
2012). Either way it has allowed me to
speed up my plans to transition into this new career.
I know what history will eventually say about my service as
Mayor. I know that the already disproven
claims of corruption will fade from memory as more people learn the truth and
recognize what I accomplished. They will
see that by doing things in a unique way we were able to keep taxes low, demonstrate
fiscal responsibility and most of all establish an attitude where everyone did
more than just what was expected; but that is all in the past. What I am excited about is what history is
going to say about the future. I know that I will make a positive mark on the
field of emergency management/ homeland security. I know that because I will never be one to
just sit back and do just enough to get by.
I guess it is just the way I was raised.
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