With the election upon us, and Folsom’s future at stake, the candidates vying for 2 seats on the Folsom City Council, were given the opportunity to reach out to voters via MyFolsom.com. Incumbent Jeff Starsky, along with challengers Roger Gaylord and Chad Vander Veen have answered the call. As of now, neither incumbent Ernie Sheldon nor challenger Rob Ross have replied.
Here are their statements, the order of which was chosen at random:
Jeff Starsky
As your representative on the Folsom City Council for the last sixteen years, your former Mayor, and most importantly, your neighbor for the last 32 years, I am asking for your vote to let me continue to serve you and keep Folsom a vibrant, prosperous and great place to live, work and play. I know governmental processes and continue to work to improve efficiencies in the City’s systems to deliver cost-effective services to our residents.
I bring 35 years of business and legal expertise as well as 20 years of public agency management experience to the City. My fiscally conservative approach to government has resulted in a balanced budget for 16 straight years. I have streamlined your city government through increased efficiencies and tough negotiations with the City’s employee unions. We’ve maintained our senior services, library services and youth sports programs while cities around us are eliminating theirs. As a result of my commitment to public safety, we are and will continue to be one of the safest communities in California.
Folsom has one of the lowest unemployment rates of any city in California because of my efforts to recruit and retain both large and small businesses in Folsom. Just this year I helped bring Voxpro, Mikuni and Vision Service Plan to Folsom, adding over 1000 new jobs. I’ve help shepherd this City through the worst recession in its 70 year history and have been part of the team that has built a City that today stands as one of the best cities in California.
Folsom is recognized nationally for the quality of life and livability of our great City. In the last two years, our city has been named the Best City to Raise a Family, Best Suburb, Best City for Young Families, Best City for Young Professionals, and Best City for Job Seekers in Northern California. We were recently named one of America’s 50 Best Cities to Live and the 33rd Wealthiest City in America. These awards do not happen by accident. I am part of a great team of City Leaders who worked hard to make this happen.
Folsom’s future is very bright. Folsom is and will continue to be one of the most desirable places to live in California if I am re-elected. Our strong employment base and my plan to bring more diverse employers to the City will guarantee our tax base for years to come. My conservative approach to government will assure that the city staffing levels will not exceed our budgets and our city government will remain efficient and effective. Public safety will remain my highest priority and I will commit the necessary resources to keep Folsom families safe.
My careful approach to growth will assure that our existing property values will remain high and the cost of public services will remain low. I will continue to bring new parks and recreational opportunities to Folsom including the development of the Johnny Cash Park. Folsom’s opportunities are limitless. With the right leadership, Folsom will continue to be the best city in California.
Vote for me on November 8th and let’s Keep Folsom Strong
For more info about Jeff, go to www.facebook.com/JeffStarsky2016/
Chad Vander Veen
My name is Chad Vander Veen and I want to represent you. I want to represent your family and your values. I want to represent the future you hope is in store for the next generation of Folsom residents.
Looking around our city today you may be wondering why it makes any sense to vote for a challenger. After all, Folsom is a fabulous place to live and I am grateful every day to call Folsom my home. There was a time, in the mid -1900s, when residents of cities like Buffalo, Detroit, Akron, Youngstown, St. Louis and Pittsburgh probably asked themselves the same thing. Everything was great so why make any changes?
Sixty and seventy years later, a few of those cities are only now starting to recapture a portion of their former glory. It’s not that they had poor leadership. Rather, it’s that their leadership wasn’t visionary. I’m not running for Folsom of 2016. I’m running for Folsom of 2036 and 2056.
Our council, to date, has done by most measures an admirable job. However, in looking forward the council seems content to count on solutions from the 1960s and 70s to handle challenges of the 21st century.
For more than a decade I worked with state and local government officials across the country. I traveled to dozens of cities and met with hundreds of mayors, governors, councilmembers, bureaucrats and department heads. In that job my goal was to find out what in government worked best – and what didn’t – to make cities, counties and states work more efficiently and more effectively with ever fewer resources.
A good portion of that decade was spent looking specifically at how cities prepare themselves for the future. In short, cities that prosper in the 21st century will do so because they understand what it takes to be a smart city. As the former editor of a magazine dedicated to smart cities, I know that what it will take to maintain our quality of life in Folsom is a holistic understanding of our city systems – transportation, energy, water, waste and infrastructure.
Binding them all together is technology. All of these things within those systems – traffic signals, sewer pipes, emergency vehicles, smartphones…even each of us, provide useful data on how to make our city work better for everyone.
So you see, that’s why I believe it’s important to elect people who understand the future is going to be about much more than uninspired suburban sprawl and property taxes. That’s why I believe we must start electing people who aren’t content with the idea that the way we’ve always done things is good enough.
I’m Chad Vander Veen and I’m running for the future of Folsom. I hope you’ll join my effort to ensure that we don’t look back one day and remember when things used to be great. Together we can create a better future starting November 8th.
Thank you.
For more info about Chad, go to www.facebook.com/chadforfolsom/
Roger Gaylord
Folsom City Council Challenger Roger Gaylord
I represent homegrown leadership. My background is uniquely suited to serve our city. I was RAISED in Folsom. I care about Folsom, both issues we’ve faced previously, and those we’ll face in the future. I’m an entrepreneur, Utility Commissioner, father, volunteer coach and professional security expert. I’m just one of the first who like me, will step forward & lead Folsom into the future. I envision a city that honors its unique history and positions itself as a city of the future. Folsom is that city.
