LETTER: Steve Fields: a strong experienced leader

Fields: a strong and experienced leader

As someone who has been a close friend of Steve Fields for more than eight years, I want to set the record straight in response to Jeni Craswell’s Aug. 28 characterization of Fields’ experience and passion for the issues concerning Redmond. Moreover, I believe Craswell should have been up front about being the mayor’s former campaign manager and a current activist in his re-election campaign before she discredited Fields’ experience.

Craswell asserted that Fields has “no experience and no indication of a desire to gain that experience.” Her statement ignores Fields’ more than 25 years of experience working with or in government agencies — including his most recent 11 years of service at the City of Seattle and King County reducing costs and improving services.

He is attending many commission meetings, meeting with former and current city commissioners, talking at length with current and former city staff and conferring with professional experts on a range of issues concerning Redmond.

Fields is running for mayor because so many of us have asked him to run. Many of us feel we don’t have a voice. You only have to watch the council meeting the week after the election, where in the last five minutes, the mayor explained that he thinks the two recent levy propositions lost because people are happy with the way things are going. In reality, I think people voted them down because we don’t trust the way our city is being managed.  (You can watch the council meeting here:http://redmond.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=609)

The failed propositions, which the current mayor spent considerable resources campaigning for, indicate that he does not know what the people living in Redmond consider to be important. The mayor spends a lot of his time with regional organizations, and the consequence is evident in the gap between his vision and the priorities of Redmonders at-large. I don’t see how the mayor is going to advocate for Redmond regionally, if he doesn’t even know what we consider to be priorities at home.

Fields is a strong leader. He is restoring people’s confidence by ensuring that we Redmond residents are a central part of the decision-making that affects our future. His campaign is spearheading much-needed, vibrant political discussion about Redmond and the direction we are headed. It’s been a long time since most of us felt our opinions mattered.

If you want a new administration — one with approachable leadership, and experience in getting local government focused on priorities we need now, please join me in voting for Fields.

Tony Martin

Redmond