By Jeff Redondo – Chula Vistans for a Better Tomorrow
When it comes to being a leader, authenticity and honesty are important. Whether you are an owner of a business, a front-line worker, or a political figure, nowadays people can see people being fake from a mile away. With the internet it is so easy to find anything on anybody secrets are hard to hide.
Sometimes secrets are in plain sight, but due to voter apathy, it is really easy to keep these secrets quiet to claim power. To no surprise, Chula Vistans have voted for a dead candidate, someone who has lied about their qualifications, and others who have stolen from our government. In all of these examples, one political party has helped to hide all of these secrets from the citizens of Chula Vista.
Currently, nothing in the Chula Vista charter disqualifies someone from running for City council. That means we can have someone who has stolen multiple times, lied on city applications about their qualifications, hid DUIs, and had felony drug charges run and possibly serve on the City council. I understand that people are not perfect, but I question whether we should screen people before they run for office.
Being a notary or life insurance agent requires a background check and fingerprints in the state of California before you can be issued a license. Most private employers ask for background checks before you are offered a job. Even on some dating websites you can do a background check before you date someone. You mean it’s OK to work with million-dollar budgets in the City of Chula Vista without a background check but not a fast food restaurant?
Do we need to run background checks for our elected officials? No. Should we? Probably. It seems to me that a specific political party, which currently controls the entire City council, is looking to keep secrets from the citizens of Chula Vista to retain power. The real question is….what other secrets are they hiding?
Unfortunately, it is too late for the citizens of Chula Vista to make a change in this election cycle as every person making the runoff is from the same party. We need to do better and stop one party from keeping secrets and hiding things from the citizens of Chula Vista.
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