I have had the privilege of serving this community in many of its essential segments.  These include city, education, business, healthcare and county.  This has given me an opportunity to see our community in operation and assist in assuring we continue to make it the best place to live.

Our family moved here almost 40 years ago, and we have had wonderful experiences living in Arlington.  I would like to use the experience I have gained from living, working and serving in Arlington to continue to enhance the quality of life for every citizen.

This is a unique city that has the feel and comfort of a smaller city with the amenities and benefits of a larger municipality.  It is important to balance these to continue to capitalize on Arlington’s uniqueness and allow citizens to enjoy their lives while enhancing our total quality of life.

My focus will be on the people of Arlington, their property and their prosperity.  Because of its uniqueness, we have the opportunity to make Arlington an even better place to live, work and play.  It is important to continue assuring our citizens have safe, secure neighborhoods in which to live.  Thus, our first responders having the best tools and techniques to care for our community is a priority.  In addition, it is imperative our community and first responders strengthen the foundation of trust that we have built and forge a close partnership, so we work as an efficient team to maximize our safety and security.  We need to ensure our infrastructure is maintained and improved.  We must provide great value for the services delivered while keeping our taxes low.  Our neighborhoods, our streets, our parks, our libraries, etc. should reflect a care and concern for our citizens and enable each to enjoy life fully and safely.

Accordingly, we need to identify and recruit businesses that can provide good paying jobs, particularly, high tech jobs, while continuing to support the growth of local companies.  This has a twofold benefit.  It gives opportunities to our citizens to enhance their quality of life with better career opportunities and expands the tax base, thus, allowing us to keep our property taxes low.  It also adds to the overall attractiveness of our city.

Also, we must do all we can to provide the best educational and preparational opportunities for the most precious members of our community, our children.  It is imperative that all of our institutions partner in providing the training and experiences for our youth that will ready them for excelling in the opportunities of tomorrow.

We are living in dynamic times and are positioned to ensure that we all realize our dreams and aspirations.  We can accomplish even more as we work together to make our dreams realities.  Therefore, I would like to use my knowledge of the city and community leadership experience to benefit the people of Arlington as Mayor.