Happy Thanksgiving: What Martinezians Have to Be Grateful For

While there are plenty of challenges in our city, there are also plenty of reasons to be grateful this Thanksgiving. Here's a few from my list; what's on yours?

Happy Thanksgiving to all readers of Martinez News and Views. I am forever grateful on this day for your support (financial and otherwise), encouragement and feedback (positive and negative) to this experiment in local journalism I launched two years ago. I can’t put into words how rewarding has been the value you’ve placed in this work.

Without getting too political, I thought I’d share a quick list of things Martinezians may be grateful for this Thanksgiving/holiday season as it pertains to the state of our city and community. Of course, this is based largely on my own perspective, but feel free to comment and add your own thoughts of gratitude.

1. While I don’t always agree with the decisions and priorities out of City Hall, I find our city leadership team to be generally hard-working, ethical and committed to serving the public interest (and striving to learn and do better when they fall short). They’ve weathered a challenging budget environment, achieved greater stability in city staffing and resources, and shown a real desire to make meaningful progress on a range of issues, including the marina/waterfront, economic development and housing, which hopefully will lead to more tangible results in 2025. That’s not something to be taken for granted at any level of politics or public service these days.

2. Similarly, I believe the Martinez Unified School District has made positive strides in recent years in prioritizing the academic and emotional welfare of all our students, regardless of background, and helping to put them on a more positive path after the chaos and trauma of the pandemic period. In addition to prioritizing academic success, school board members and district leaders have also focused on addressing racial, gender and other inequities that exist in our education system in an effort to make every student feel valued and respected. And voters just rewarded their efforts by passing a bond measure to complete the district’s rebuilding and renovation of school sites — two years after rejecting such a measure — that will give every student from pre-k to adult education top-notch facilities in which to learn and grow.

3. I am thankful to live in a low-crime city, particularly in comparison to many neighboring jurisdictions, that reflects our city’s commitment to public safety and our residents’ general respect for laws, order, and treating their fellow Martinezians with integrity and kindness.

4. Our voters continue to embrace diversity in their choices at the ballot box — and the value that diverse lived experiences bring to our community and public policy — which will be reflected in the most ethnically and racially diverse City Council in Martinez history.

5. I am thankful for the activism that so many Martinezians show in making their voices heard not only on issues that affect them personally but that affect all our residents in some way, shape or form. We don’t always agree (nor should we) on strategies or outcomes, but healthy dialogue, robust debate and, at times, political conflict are the heartbeat of democracy. Our democracy can’t thrive without those things — and without the courage and commitment of people who expend the time and effort to engage publicly on issues that they care passionately about.

Of course, Martinez, like all communities, is far from perfect, and much work remains to make it a city that truly serves the interests and needs of all its residents — and is a welcoming place for new ones. Our community leaders will continue to hear from me, in my role as a longtime resident and activist, on those issues in 2025, and this newsletter will continue to strive to address the city’s challenges and shortcomings as well as its successes in a balanced, factually based manner that respects all viewpoints (even when they differ from mine). But today is a day of gratitude, so it seems appropriate to keep the focus of this post there.

What about Martinez makes you grateful this Thanksgiving? Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments field below or shoot me an email.

And if you value the service provided by this newsletter, please consider expressing your gratitude with a paid subscription that will help me to enlist more help and resources in 2025 to continue to grow it as a valuable resource for Martinezians.

Happy Thanksgiving!