I’m guessing most of the Grok Faithful are familiar with the areas of interest of the regular contributors. A few examples would be Ann Marie Banfield and education or Claire Best and law enforcement/justice system corruption involving the youth center.
I don’t want any of the many people worthy of mention to feel slighted, so I’ll leave it at that for now.
To give full disclosure, I am a Wheeler constituent, but one of my many areas of interest is the executive council seat currently occupied by the retiring Ted Gatsas. If you don’t know who his constituents are or who YOUR EC is, here’s a district map, which I suggest bookmarking for when you have discussions with people less informed about the EC and its role in Concord.
To back up for a quick moment, another item on my radar is the RTK crusade of Laurie Ortolano, someone also deserving of mention in the first paragraph. While in court, I observed her mentioning “the quiet phase”(of fundraising) in her RTK case against the City regarding the new arts center. I had never heard such nomenclature before, but it spoke for itself, at least to me. Look it up if you want, but I’ll give my own crude definition and keep it short. Before the public unleashing of a monster fundraising project, potential, generous donors are targeted and solicited. It’s a concept similar to down-ballot candidates obtaining an endorsement of an up-ballot candidate, someone who has been in equal or higher office, or even a private citizen pillar of the community. It’s desirable like your kid’s favorite professional athlete wearing a particular sneaker so s/he wants to be wearing the same one.
Because the executive council is a body of only 5, a candidate must campaign to 1/5 of the population. Though District 4 is a densely populated area that’s smaller in square miles than Districts 1, 2, and 5, it still consists of 20 towns. That’s 20 political subdivisions that have their local busy intersections for sign waves, 20 dumps(or “transfer stations,” if you prefer) for weekend literature distributions, and 20 communities with local pillars to recruit the support of.
Speaking from her pre-nursing experience in project management, Terese mentioned the 3-legged stool. The legs are time, money and quality. She went on about it at the podium on how the surplus or lack of one of such things affects the demand on the others. You get the picture. I will also point out that one of her commonly used phrases is “we’re going up against a Goliath.” Let’s talk about those “Goliaths” for a moment, and I don’t mean Davey Hansen’s dog.
A few of such “Goliaths” include, but are not limited to; money, name recognition, and connections. Burns has plenty of money. Ryan Terrell has plenty of name recognition. Senator Reagan and Mr Stephen presumably have plenty of connections. Terese is a private citizen political outsider and therefore disadvantaged. Pundits might even call her an underdog, but remember that Underdog always saves Sweet Polly Purebred in the end.
What can you, the reader, do to help? You can look again at the map.
If you live in or have ties to any of the 20 communities in District 4 or know someone who does, gather some intel. Find out and write down who the influential locals are and where the large political signs(for our side, not the enemy camp) are usually placed. If you’re feeling even more helpful, look up the addresses of such locations in the local assessor’s database so that owners can be reached out to in requesting their blessings. Find out when and where popular local events are, public or private, and find out who’s in charge of them. Get the contact info so Terese(or one of her volunteer minions) can get permission to solicit, if appropriate or required.
Because Ted Gatsas made his announcement and there are already multiple candidates with filing time still several weeks away, there will be no QUIET PHASE of the campaign process. It’s already an all-hands-on-deck situation. Find your puzzle piece and do your part.
