total time: 3.59 minutes
total words: 53
[Patrick Clerkin]: Hello Medford residents, I'm Patrick Clerken, a candidate for one of seven seats on our City Council. I intend to restore reason, balance, and trust back to our governance and community. Alongside this basic promise of civil and open-minded character, I am providing dozens of testimonials from those who know me in my professional, civic, and private life. Located on my website and social media, these span my time as a mechanical engineer and handyman, as an eight-year neighbor in South Medford, and as a service-oriented volunteer or leader. My attitude towards governance is that the public needs leaders who can think calmly and independently, but still negotiate common ground. Although our city isn't isolated from the world around it, the focus must remain local rather than on state, national, and global matters. Medford's problems are complex and tangled enough. We must resist the urge to slay every monster everywhere, or our already strained streets and budget will further deteriorate. Some current city councilors prioritize certain slices of Medford. whether geographic, like particular wards, demographic, like particular generational and economic groupings, or ideological, like partisan leaning. They've forgotten their oath that as at-large representatives, our city councilors are meant to serve the needs of the city in its entirety, as if it were an ecosystem run on symbiotic respect. But I haven't forgotten, nor will I develop this peculiar amnesia. As your city councilor, I will proceed with vision, yet always remain practical, adaptive to ever-changing conditions, and open to partnership. If you've been paying attention to what's happening in our city, you know things are a mess right now, and key resources remain untapped. If you haven't been paying attention, here are the three top issues as I see it. Number one, our budget is so underfunded that we're using financial duct tape to squeeze money out of the equity of homeowners. Number two, our commercial and residential development has stalled because it over-focused on the city as a whole without weighing the traffic, parking, utilities, sound, and sunlight impacts on neighborhoods and including those residents in decisions. Number three, Unclear processes, such as with zoning and road repair, a lack of communication through the common reference of local media, and the absence of physical gathering points like neighborhood bulletin boards, causes information to be scattered without easy on-ramps. Of course, we have other issues to address as well. The state of our roads and sidewalks, the construction of a new fire station headquarters, and a realistic path forward for our high school, to name several. But without addressing the deeper problems of our budget, zoning, and communication, something I'm prepared to do, we will drift further into disunity and bankruptcy. The alternative, which I'm offering in the form of my candidacy, is to have a say in our future, to neither sell ourselves off to the highest bidder out of expediency, nor remain mired in a citywide identity crisis. Here is your chance to help me not only balance our budget, but above all, balance our city. If what I say resonates with you, please volunteer for my campaign, spread the word wide to every Medford resident you know, donate if you can afford to do so, and of course, vote independent on November 4th. Thank you for your vital support. Now let's get it done.
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total time: 3.59 minutes total words: 53 |
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