Let’s Show Nestande This District Is Not A Foregone Conclusion

My name is Mark Orozco and I am a long time resident of Beaumont. I’ve seen first hand what happens when elected officials ignore their responsibility to their constituents. Under the State budget crunch of the last few years, our area has suffered disproportionately. Our State Assembly representatives have allowed their personal political ambitions and stubborn partisanship to push them into permanent irrelevancy.

When I look around my district, I’m hard pressed to find any evidence of the leadership our elected representatives claim to provide for our communities. Local infrastructure is crumbling. City and Agency officials take financial advantage of their positions while working families struggle to make ends meet.  A 13.8 percent regional unemployment rate forces my neighbors out of their homes. Our schools have taken to housing our children instead of educating them. Yet despite all this, my elected representatives refuse to even come out to the area to talk about solutions. They simply don’t care!

Growing up, my mother taught me that true leaders ensure that everyone else eats first; a mantra I’ve followed with my own family, with the children in my classrooms, and with the families who make up the Beaumont School District I have the honor of serving. Its a motto I will follow when elected to the State Assembly, a motto which unfortunately stands in sharp contrast to the performance of my opponent, Brian Nestande.

Despite a spectacularly ineffective track record, the two-term Assemblyman from the desert continues to maintain an unbecoming arrogance about the outcome of this election. Mr. Nestande has little about which to be proud. His signature effort over the last two years was directed at a bill he wrote to end school deferrals; a laudable goal which unfortunately highlights his irrelevancy in the legislature. Despite bipartisan support for the substance of his proposal, Nestande failed to move the bill out of committee. Rather than attempt a more effective approach, Nestande has spent the last couple of months touring school boards in the area asking for their support for his failed bill.

When asked by the media why he wasn’t putting more effort into his reelection bid, Nestande responded that he felt no need to come out and campaign in the district saying, “Why spend money now when I might need it later.” In private conversations, Nestande has indicated to me that he doesn’t think voters in this district are paying enough attention to warrant any campaign effort on his part and that all he needs to win in November is the R next to his name on the ballot.

To the great detriment of all the residents of this district, Mr. Nestande has made good on his promise to save his money for his next race, a State Senate campaign in 2014. Despite pleas from numerous civic groups and individual voters throughout the 42nd District, Mr. Nestande continues to shun voters by refusing to come out for an open debate. To date, Nestande hasn’t even bothered to put up the usual slew of campaign signage, something almost every other candidate, at every level, took care of weeks ago.

What does all this mean for voters? It means that Brian Nestande is in it for himself, not for you. He is using this race as a stepping-stone, a short layover, on his trip to the State Senate. Just as Representative Nestande is irrelevant in Sacramento, voters in the 42nd District are irrelevant to Mr. Nestande. To him, you are a foregone conclusion of the worst sort. He smugly assumes that you will vote based purely on his party affiliation and that he has this election “in the bag”.

I’m tired of living in a community that has no voice advocating for us in Sacramento and that’s why I’m running to be your next leader in the State Assembly. But I can’t do it alone. I need your help to send a message this November that we want Citizenship, not Partisanship!

I am running to represent the newly-drawn 42nd Assembly District. The 42nd District includes San Bernardino County; 29 Palms, Morongo Valley, Yucaipa, Yucca Valley, Landers, Joshua Tree, and Pioneertown, as well as Riverside County; Beaumont, Banning, Cherry Valley, Cabazon, Calimesa, San Jacinto, Hemet, White Water, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Indian Wells, La Quinta, and Rancho Mirage.

To learn more please visit me at http://www.markorozco.com
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