With high-profile gubernatorial candidates blanketing the media, it is very hard to attract press attention to “down ticket” offices like school board races. So I am all the more appreciative of the newspaper editorial boards that spent the time to interview and research my opponent and me, and make endorsements for the County Board of Education.
I received endorsements from all of the newspapers that chose to endorse candidates for this office:
- The Daily Journal
- The Examiner Independent
I am grateful to the city council members and county supervisors who nominated me. Obviously, it is one thing to run a good campaign, and it is another thing to be an effective policymaker. If I win, this will be my first elective office, and that's when the real work begins. I promise to do my best to provide high-quality education for all the children in the county.
I am honored to receive the Sierra Club's endorsement after a rigorous interview process. I have also been endorsed by other individual leaders of environmental groups like the Committee for Green Foothills and the Greenbelt Alliance. So what do environmental issues have to do with education you may ask?
I take a long-term view on many public policy issues, and in the case of both the environment and education, these are two critical areas that we need to make investments now because the payoffs may not come for many years. Middle school and high school teachers know this - they have to work each fall with new students who either did - or sadly, did not - receive the fundamentals of math and English during the first 5 years or so of elementary school. We need to make sure elementary school students get the fundamental building blocks to succeed in later years.
Similarly, I believe that investments that we make now in environmental education and school facility and land use decisions will result in long-term impacts on our local communities, health, and environment. Every school board decision needs to be cost-effective and balanced against other needs. But we also need to consider that the children we are educating now will be buying cars, homes, and making other consumer lifestyle decisions that will impact our air, water, and environment throughout their life. With global climate change and declining natural resources, we owe this to our future generations.
I am very pleased to have won the endorsement from the San Mateo County's Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO which serves as the umbrella organization for 110 affiliated unions, representing 70,000 union members and their families in the County.
My views on labor issues were captured by a comment that one union member made about me this summer. He and I were talking after a dinner function as we cleaned up and put away tables, and he remarked, “You talk like an executive but you work like one of us.”
I've been working as a Chief Operating Officer for the past 3 years, and prior to that I worked as a corporate management consultant for 7 years. I have helped restructure compensation systems, reorganized and “rationalized” business unit headcounts, and designed cost reduction plans. I have also, however, worked on labor issues as a legislative advisor in Congress and I understand the need for worker protections. In high school and college, I earned money for college by working in 6 different restaurants, cleaned homes, and also worked on an assembly line in an Alaskan salmon cannery. I respected how hard people around me worked as hourly wage-earners and understood some of the challenges they faced working with management.
If I am elected to the Board of Education, we will undoubtedly face many tough budgetary decisions like what the San Mateo Union High School District just went through to cover a deficit. As one who understands management and labor issues, I have a unique perspective that I carry with me as I listen to different sides of some very tough issues. With this experience, I hope to be able to make the best decisions possible that will benefit the children of San Mateo County.
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