Mary Mulhern for Hillsborough County Commission District 1

Background:

Lifelong democrat. Small business owner of graphic design/copywriting firm; formerly ran a Fine Arts Consulting Business with national client base; Museum administrator at prestigious Art Institute of Chicago.

Grass roots democratic organizer; married mother of two, citizen advisor to school board, very active civic volunteer.

Goals:

To listen to the voters and be a voice for them, representing their interests, not special interests in all county matters.

To bring leadership, integrity and a voice of reason to Hillsborough County.

Replace divisiveness and dysfunction with cooperation and constructive solutions to growth, infrastructure and planning for the county.

To retain this seat as a strong Democrat on a seven member board which currently has five
Republicans and two Democrats. Both Democrats are leaving - one is term-limited out and the other is running for congress (Kathy Castor, currently in the seat for which I am running).

Issues:

Growth that pays its fair share. Raising impact fees to fair and appropriate levels.

Planning and implementation of policies for sustainable growth.

Absolute integrity in allocation of tax dollars.

Grassroots Support:

Grass roots organizing is paramount in this campaign. My start in politics was as a district leader overseeing many of the precincts in this county commission district (about 1/3 of the precincts in my race).

We already have a base of volunteers and will add to that through other local grass roots organizations.

We are walking precincts, setting up neighborhood meet-and-greets and plan to set up phone banks closer to the elections.

My Republican opponents have a head start on fund-raising but will not have the organization on the ground that we have.

I have done 3-day DFA training as well as Emily's list training, in addition to my real life field experience. I feel confident we can win with a grass roots campaign.

My website will be interactive and I have volunteer web and political advisors that will help me keep it fresh, fun and functioning. Give me a couple of weeks before you see the results at marymulhern.com. You can go there right now for a basic web page to see my bio and issues.

DFA Values:

I believe that public schools that are well funded and not overcrowded ; roads that are not grid-locked, clean water and air; affordable housing and public transportation are true family values. Our families and our future depend on fairness, public service and planning for sustainable growth.

Fiscal responsibility starts with absolute integrity in the allocation of tax dollars. It is a matter of putting the peoples' priorities first. We need to spend on public schools, public transportation, not developer's priorities, first.

We need to spend less now to plan for the inevitable growth, rather than paying more down the road in futile attempts to fix the results of uncontrolled growth.