Craig, thank you for your assessment! A couple of things: You might want to change the first name of Ms. DeLaney to Lara in lieu of Laura. Also, regarding Nakenya, I just want to clear a few things up. She is running a strictly grassroots campaign where her donations have come from plain ole people like me. She does have recurring $250 donations coming in which she is grateful for because signs and fliers can eat up a candidate's expenses real fast. Nakenya also was endorsed by the Young Democrats and received Contra Costa County’s Democratic Party’s vote by 72%. It is important for people to check out her website should they have any questions as to what she brings to the table. She would be the very first black woman holding a seat on the Council bringing much needed change to our community. Her site is below:
Thanks for catching the spelling error! (careless on my part). I fixed. If anyone sees errors in my posts, please feel free to reach out and let me know. I'm trying to do this newsletter during my spare time in between other commitments, without any copy editors, so I'm relying on readers to let me know if I get something wrong. Will do my best to avoid any significant errors.
Thanks for your comments on Nakenya Allen's campaign. I agree about the value of grassroots campaigns powered by "regular" folks instead of special/organized interests. We need more of that in this town and elections in general.
Thats a mouthful! Thanks! While normally we might see a self funded or underfunded candidate as the one to back, this list of candidates has skill sets and experience that can't be overlooked, in spite of funding sources. (And in Martinez, money doesn't necessarily equate to evil, lol...there are long time advocates of a wonderful Martinez that have been funded for decades by some of these philanthropists and we owe them for park dedications and other improvements that they have sponsored.) Shaping up to be an interesting campaign! Worth getting into the details on these candidates!
Agree with your comments. I think campaign contributions are just one of many data points voters should weigh. Campaigns obviously don't pay for themselves, so contributions are necessary for most campaigns, and lots of them are not necessarily a bad thing if they come from people and entities that have the public interest at heart. The red flag for me is when a large percentage of donations come from special interests that stand to directly benefit from the votes of these candidates if elected, and if the motivations of those giving the money can be seen as more personal than simply supporting candidates who share their values and priorities for the city. I personally have a more favorable view of candidates who rely primarily on individual contributions from lots of supporters rather than a few large checks from organized interest groups.
I hope to do an overview soon of the different candidates, their backgrounds and what issues they are prioritizing in their campaigns.
Craig, thank you for your assessment! A couple of things: You might want to change the first name of Ms. DeLaney to Lara in lieu of Laura. Also, regarding Nakenya, I just want to clear a few things up. She is running a strictly grassroots campaign where her donations have come from plain ole people like me. She does have recurring $250 donations coming in which she is grateful for because signs and fliers can eat up a candidate's expenses real fast. Nakenya also was endorsed by the Young Democrats and received Contra Costa County’s Democratic Party’s vote by 72%. It is important for people to check out her website should they have any questions as to what she brings to the table. She would be the very first black woman holding a seat on the Council bringing much needed change to our community. Her site is below:
www.NakenyaforMtzCityCouncil.com
Thanks for catching the spelling error! (careless on my part). I fixed. If anyone sees errors in my posts, please feel free to reach out and let me know. I'm trying to do this newsletter during my spare time in between other commitments, without any copy editors, so I'm relying on readers to let me know if I get something wrong. Will do my best to avoid any significant errors.
Thanks for your comments on Nakenya Allen's campaign. I agree about the value of grassroots campaigns powered by "regular" folks instead of special/organized interests. We need more of that in this town and elections in general.
Wow, thanks for your work at pulling all these reports! Very enlightening on the contributions!
Thats a mouthful! Thanks! While normally we might see a self funded or underfunded candidate as the one to back, this list of candidates has skill sets and experience that can't be overlooked, in spite of funding sources. (And in Martinez, money doesn't necessarily equate to evil, lol...there are long time advocates of a wonderful Martinez that have been funded for decades by some of these philanthropists and we owe them for park dedications and other improvements that they have sponsored.) Shaping up to be an interesting campaign! Worth getting into the details on these candidates!
Agree with your comments. I think campaign contributions are just one of many data points voters should weigh. Campaigns obviously don't pay for themselves, so contributions are necessary for most campaigns, and lots of them are not necessarily a bad thing if they come from people and entities that have the public interest at heart. The red flag for me is when a large percentage of donations come from special interests that stand to directly benefit from the votes of these candidates if elected, and if the motivations of those giving the money can be seen as more personal than simply supporting candidates who share their values and priorities for the city. I personally have a more favorable view of candidates who rely primarily on individual contributions from lots of supporters rather than a few large checks from organized interest groups.
I hope to do an overview soon of the different candidates, their backgrounds and what issues they are prioritizing in their campaigns.
Thanks for reading!