General Election Candidates: City Council Pos. 3

Cindi R. John

Cindi R. John is a candidate for City Council Position 3 and submitted this statement.

I would first like to address the controversary that surrounding one of the organizations I belong to, the Columbia County Conservatives. We are a growing group that is part of a much bigger following that spans the entire U.S.A. We are American citizens fighting for our inherent freedoms. ALL OF THEM. Those freedoms are the very foundations we were born with and that many of us have continued to fight for on the home front and abroad. The freedom of CHOICE is what we are striving for and will likely not be the last as government mandates more freedom away. 

In our own city, we have been told over and over again that we have no voice when it comes to projects in our city. Line items that should come to some kind of vote, but all too often we are being told we have no choice and no voice. The trail...broadband...The pool...Critical Race Theory and Sex Ed classes.

Select groups are telling us where affordable housing will be built, not caring what those of us in these neighborhoods feel about such projects.

Millions of FREE DOLLARS...are they? Some kind of matching funds will have to be met and with each of these projects there is a dollar amount we have to pay as a city and county.

The mayor spent over $200,000 in severance packages without one word of explanation. He handed $300,000 to the Port of Columbia for a broadband when we have serious infrastructure problems all over the City.

The attitude of "I'm going to do this no matter what you think" by the Port Manager, and her consistent comments of "it's not any of our business" are also things I'm concerned about.

If it's anybody's business...it is THE CITIZENS OF DAYTON. The administrators of these offices seem to forget they work for THE PEOPLE. The School Board is supposed to work in the best interest of our parents and their children. We have let Government Mandates literally tear our community apart by blindly following them. There are RCWs and local policies that could have overridden these mandates months ago but no one bothered to look or listen when they were pointed out. Our system is set up so that Big Government answers to us, NOT the other way around, and yet there are those select few who bully us into believing the opposite is true. 

I would like to know how these voices plan on working with other candidates who get elected, because it will be a combination of all those elected, not just one group. The stage has been set up for no compromise by one particular candidate who has a history we have all seen for non-compliance, and not playing well with others.

We need, now more than ever, a team that can work the big picture, that will work hard for our community to get us back on track and that will build a sound foundation for our citizens to build their homes. A team to bring strength and honor back to our citizens.

I close with an event that happened with my grandson while on our D.C. trip in 2018. We were walking through the American History Museum. We came upon a couple of men as we walked through the exhibit that chronicled the 60s through the 80s. They were an older couple, one was Black, the other Asian.

As we talked about the struggles of the civil rights movement, tears started to fall among us. My grandson just kind of looked away not knowing how to handle such raw emotion. As we continued to walk into the area for the 70s and 80s, I imparted my own struggles of being a single mom and a truckdriver in a man's world. All of us had seen and felt it. At one point we parted with smiles: We had made it.

My grandson didn't understand the tears. My comment was "Baby, I hope you never have to understand the struggle and pain of just wanting to be who you are."