Dick Foreman turns in petition signatures

By: Dick Foreman

Dear family, friends and colleagues,

I am now an official candidate for Tempe City Council having filed 1342 signatures, the maximum amount permitted.  This was an all volunteer effort that collected over 100 pages of signatures in just over 7 weeks.

Kate, Brenna and I have been working hard, and so have many of you.

So most importantly, we wanted to thank the many of you who who joined us in making this possible.

For those of you who can, I now encourage you to have a coffee or get together in your home or location of choice.  If you are able to do this, please contact me to lock in a date.  I am going to do all I can to be a candidate who comes to you and addresses the issues that concern you in your neighborhoods, homes and businesses.

Over the next couple of months I will be engaging our community on a number of issues.  I do not say that lightly.  I truly believe that we are at a serious crossroads in Tempe and this campaign will embrace the challenges before us, not cower from them.  I am not going to run scared from problems nor gloss over them.  I am not going to avoid difficult or tough decisions and most importantly, we will have straightforward, honest discussions as we work together.

Specifically:

1)  I will discuss our economic development tools with an eye towards job creation and payback to the taxpayer, NOT governmental picking of winners and losers in the marketplace via tax subsidy tools with limited or no future accountability or sustainability.

2)  I will be discussing a broad range of educational initiatives to significantly engage our elected leaders at all levels to take action and responsibility for our neighborhood schools and their needs, not just talk about them or blame it on someone else.

3)  I will be actively engaging one of the most dynamic institutions in our state, Arizona State University, including it’s student government, to help us deal with our challenges on a much broader and effective basis.

4)  I will define actions that illuminate budget decisions, involve our community and challenge all public projects to perform the service intended without tax increases and, in fact, with intent to increase project benefits to actually lower service costs and property taxes.

Yes, it can be done.

5)  I will engage a robust debate on all expenditures.  We must recognize the very real, even dangerous position many of our homeowners, taxpayers and citizens are in.  Status quo is for someone else.  Not me.

6)  I will run a civil, positive, idea-driven campaign.  I will tap into my public finance, educational and civic experience from over thirty years of service, most of it specifically in Tempe, coupled with a sturdy defense of small business and taxpayer needs as my guide.

7)  I am committed to taking a fresh look at our major community investments and will challenge whether they are serving ALL of Tempe as they should.  Far too often, community facilities use and policies seem to divide Tempe instead of bringing us together.  Nothing is off the table for this discussion!  It’s time to put Tempe first.

If you can help the Foreman For Tempe campaign in any way or are interested in how you can get more information, please let me know or drop by my website at:

ForemanForTempe.com

I’ll see you on the streets, on the web, in school, at business, patrolling the social network and most importantly, in our community.

Respectfully,

Dick