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LWV League of Women Voters of California
San Diego County, CA March 5, 2002 Election
Smart Voter Political Philosophy for Kevin Barnard

Candidate for
Board of Supervisors; County of San Diego; Supervisorial District 5

[photo]
This information is provided by the candidate

50 REASONS TO VOTE FOR KEVIN BARNARD FOR SUPERVISOR

"Build what needs to be built. Protect what needs to be protected."
-- Kevin Barnard, 2002

Good Government

Kevin Barnard will ...

1. Show respect for input by volunteer citizen committees.

2. Work to reverse the incumbent's efforts to weaken and dismantle community planning and other volunteer groups.

3. Really hear you -- not tune you out because the decision has already been made.

4. Behave with respect and dignity when sitting in judgment on an issue (no eye rolling), show genuine attention at public hearings (no side jokes with neighbors on a dias), and actually weigh speakers' remarks before deciding how to vote (no illegal backroom dealing).

5. Welcome -- not dismiss out of hand -- community ideas for good planning, parks, open space and new ideas.

6. Provide accessible leadership with a monthly Supervisor's Open Door forum rotating throughout District 5.

7. Push for increased consensus building in the County's General Plan 2020 update to avoid a replay of Orange County congestion and sprawl.

8. Show integrity, doing his utmost to make merit-based decisions, not pander to special interests.

9. Will surround himself with diversely talented, honorable people who share his passion for inclusion, principle and hard work.

10. Appoint unbiased citizens to serve on County committees, not foxes to chickenhouses (big developers to planning commissions).

11. Take the Supervisor job and love it -- not immediately make plans and extract campaign contributions from out-of-town developers to run for higher office.

Security and Public Safety

Kevin Barnard will ....

12. Draw on his background in law enforcement to decrease threats from within and prepare us for threats from without.

13. Collaborate with law enforcement officials in the continued decline (53%) of the regional crime rate during the 1990s -- despite a worrisome 7% jump in city crime year, chiefly in larceny and auto thefts.

14. Champion highly trained, well-equipped, and empowered law enforcement, fire, life safety and defense services personnel who put their lives on the line day in, day out.

15. Promote constant vigilance as a County perspective.

16. Work to assure the 7,300 public safety workforce has the resources to do a first-rate job protecting our citizens: Sheriff's budget is $341 million; District Attorney, $125 million; Probation, $117 million.

17. Pay sincere attention to housing and self-sufficiency needs of special populations: foster children thrown on their own on their 18th birthday, domestic violence victims, mental health patients, substance recovery patients and the homeless.

18. Actively support the existing District Attorney program to track down absentee parents and require them to support their minor children rather than throwing all costs on the County taxpayer.

19. Stay on top of the real need and cost benefits to the public of adding jail beds; the Sheriff's well-thought out plan projects a need for 7,600 spaces by 2020, but that could change with events.

20. Coordinate carefully with State and Federal authorities on maintaining state-of-the-art disaster preparedness, whether brought on by acts of nature or terrorism.

21. Request appointment to the following Board of Supervisor committees where his criminal justice background can make a special contribution: Crime Lab, Dependency Court Reform Oversight, Criminal Justice Council, Juvenile Justice Coordinating Council, and Regional Auto Theft Task Force.

Public Health

Kevin Barnard will ...

22. Give increased priority to public health services (53% of County budget that now receives low emphasis from incumbent) -- foster care, environmental health, kids trapped in poverty, services to aging, disabled and veterans.

23. Urge periodic surprise audits of the accounting records of the public-private collaborative partnerships that operate public health services; this is the number one County budget item # more than $1 billion dollars is annually expended and more than 5,800 personnel are employed.

24. Cultivate strong working relationships with appropriate elected officials in the Federal and State agencies that provide virtually all -- 98% -- of the general funds the County uses to pay for its Health and Human Services Agency operation.

25. Take an active role in focusing resources on public health threats, such as the Valley Center potential cancer cluster mystery.

26. Provide leadership to encourage a realistic recruitment package -- including improved pay and health benefits -- for home health care workers that would allow seniors to stay in their own homes.

27. Provide leadership and coordination in the North County homelessness situation

28. Actively assist in locating solutions to our over burdened trauma and emergency room system in North County

29. Continue to support and build our Drug Court System and County funded drug and alcohol recovery programs

30. Strengthen our environmental code enforcement to reduce our exposure to hazardous materials and industrial by products

31. Support lead-poisoning prevention/ remediation efforts # something that could be completely solved with action by the County Board and where an estimated 9,000 children countywide are affected.

Transportation Gridlock

Kevin Barnard will ...

32. Work for realistic solutions to traffic jams that impact our highways and roads, such as gaining consensus of local residents and affected jurisdictions to spend an estimated $100 million funded but not spent to build roads, bridges and interchange improvements in or around new developments.

33. Will not deceive the public with headline-grabbing but improbable and futuristic additional highways that will never be built for a variety of well-documented reasons.

34. Better link land use planning with transportation planning and funding.

35. Vote against allowing project sprawl without proper infrastructure, creating more and more traffic for the people who already cope with frustrating commutes.

36. Encourage investing in our existing arterials (throughways) and intersections.

37. Favor clean, efficient, safe, reliable and affordable public commuter systems (trains, buses, vans, "flex-trollies")

38. Promote additional express bus routes to downtown and other employment centers, pushing hard for affordable rates, convenient locations, park & ride facilities, and a seamless system that accommodates the Coaster, trolleys and local bus routes.

39. Continue encouragement of employee transportation benefits voluntarily accorded by large employers: subsidized public transit incentives, telecommuting, staggered work hours.

40. Urge public service education to change transportation patterns, such as making elective trips during off-peak hours.

41. Insist on linking land use planning with transportation planning and funding -- for example, developers of sizeable projects should arrange with shuttle companies to run commuter busses from the proposed project to employment centers.

42. Support a proposal to build frontage roads along I-5 where possible to grow two new east-west corridors; in some areas, the land is already available for frontage roadways.

43. Ask the North County Transit Authority to allocate more public busses to school routes, relieving the hundreds of thousands of parents who deliver children to and from school, clogging local roads and freeways.

44. Support investing in our arterial (big streets designed to carry heavy traffic) and intersections.

Growth -- Good and Bad

Kevin Barnard will ...

45. Protect property rights, recognizing there's a huge difference between developer rights and property rights.

46. Fight for fair payment when the County takes personal property for the common good.

47. Seek community character and input as a guide for new development. Support exciting, well served, safe urban options in our north county cities to slow the advance of sprawl development.

48. Ensure proper infrastructure is either in place or paid for by new development.

49. Encourage cities to look within their boundaries and make a commitment to re-development before expanding into unincorporated lands for new development

50. Ensure annexations are done by community plan and acceptance rather than gerrymandering lines of annexation for self serving needs of the city

"What do we need to build?

Infrastructure (roads, transit, water, sewer, energy), the
economy, job base and housing. What do we need to protect?
Taxpayer dollars, open space, property rights,
agriculture, public health, clean and open government."
-- Kevin Barnard, 2002

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The League of Women Voters does not support or oppose any candidate or political party.
Created from information supplied by the candidate: February 14, 2002 18:12
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