Hello Herndon

I must begin by thanking Patch Editor Leslie Perales for giving each candidate for Mayor and Town Council the opportunity to blog on matters of interest in the coming election. I decided my first blog should be about why I am running for office and why I am qualified to be on the Town Council.

I am running for office because I believe that with my experience I can make a difference for the better in our daily lives here in Herndon and because I believe it is the duty of all citizens to engage in public service.  With three seats being vacated by incumbents, the Town needs to have those seats filled by persons with the right qualifications to govern.  I am a lifelong resident of Fairfax County, have lived in Herndon since 2004, and am a member of the Virginia and DC bars with over 20 years of legal experience. 

As a private citizen, I attend and frequently comment at Town Council meetings.  I am familiar with how our Town government operates and the legal questions it faces.  I recently graduated from the Herndon Citizens Police Academy which familiarizes citizens on many facets of law enforcement, including how the canine teams operate and our Town’s anti-gang initiatives.  I have studied Herndon’s 2012 budget and our Capital Improvement Program for 2012-2017 which documents estimated costs of long-term projects in Herndon.

Herndon’s mandated compliance with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act is going to require significant expenditure of money by our Town.  The Capital Improvement Program estimates $12M for stormwater management retrofits and new projects with the actual cost of compliance unknown at this point in time. I believe no other candidate comes close to matching my expertise with regard to environmental law compliance.

I am a volunteer at the Herndon Neighborhood Resource Center providing advice and legal representation on domestic violence matters and I am studying Spanish to enable me to better communicate with our Hispanic residents.  I am a parishioner at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

On a separate matter regarding community service, I went to Haiti in 2009 (one month before the earthquake) with a group of doctors and nurses to distribute medicine and personal hygiene products to the poor. My job there was to translate medical instructions from English into Haitian Creole. You can see a couple of photos from my mission to Haiti accompanied with this article. They were taken outside of a mountain village called Thoman near the border with the Dominican Republic.

I believe that Herndon politics are not about national issues. Herndon’s focus should be on protecting our neighborhoods and encouraging the best kinds of economic growth.  I promise to devote my energies to those types of home-grown local issues that benefit Herndon first and foremost. I promise I will work hard to keep taxes low and ensure every penny of your money is well spent on worthwhile projects that benefit all our citizens, not just a few.

I hope you will vote for me on May 1st. Thank you.

Please let me know if you have any subjects of interest you would like me to address. My next blog will be about Virgnia’s Campaign Finance Disclosure Act. I will tell you what the requirements are for the candidates, where to find their on-line reports, and how high-rollers in Virginia are playing “hide the ball” with their donations.

I have attached my original press release to this article so you can see further
details regarding my background.