WORKING TOWARD A GREENER AND CLEANER COMMUNITY

By Joseph Dovinh

Position Paper

As a resident of Westminster, I have an interest in maintaining the quality and cost-effectiveness of solid waste and sewer services in our cities. One area of concern that I have identified is the dissemination of information to the public about new ordinances and programs such as the "Household Hazardous Waste"--"Sharp's Waste" Program. I believe that the public is under-informed about these developments. I perceive this as an issue that I could work on with the Board of Directors. If elected onto the Midway City Sanitary District Board of Directors, I would advocate for the translation of literature on such important materials into key languages such as Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean so that our residents would be fully informed and cooperation and compliance with Midway City Sanitary District is optimized. (The money for these translations could come from business and community donors). I would also enlist the support of ethnic and local newspapers as full partners in alerting our community to important issues. Furthermore, I would advocate for more direct community involvement in the policy-making process by encouraging residents to come to bi-weekly meetings, and have interpreters provided to those limited English speakers who wish to be heard. I would work hard to keep costs down, but where more money is needed to improve our solid waste services and sewer system, I would not hesitate to go straight to the people to solicit their support in funding new improvements. The idea is to make our cities greener and cleaner to people of all backgrounds, and to accommodate a growing population that continue to make more demands on our capacity to serve and challenge our leaders to work even harder for the benefit of our community.