Malinda Miles

Thinking about the campaign. Did you know that a Mount Rainier City Councilmember has as much influence as the Mayor? He or she does!

Each gets ONE vote on any issue before the Mayor and Council. Each gets to bring up issues before the Mayor and Council. Each gets to represent, build, suggest, and ACT on his or her convictions.

There is no veto power.

If you have been on the Council, you have had the opportunity to exert leadership, teamwork, compromise, and real execution of policies and initiatives that will continue to move Mount Rainier forward.

Councilmembers and residents in Mount Rainier have the power to lead the community in cooperative efforts to improve the quality of life, to build and maintain the infrastructure, to make green a way of life and not just a trend.

As the previous Councilmember for Ward 2, I have done all of those things. As the Mayor of our great City, I have continued to do those things and more. Mount Rainier did not become a destination because the past ten years we just sat around waiting for leadership.

Mount Rainier became a destination because of the work that has gone in over the last twenty plus years.

Annexation is no new idea. The light on Eastern Avenue and Bunker Hill Road was not a new concept, but one that had been worked on for years.

The Mount Green Team is not an accident. As one of the founders of Sustainable Maryland Certified, Mount Rainier's scattered green initiatives became a citywide program.

The activism with the Tree Commission took leadership and support, so I became a Road Side Tree Expert, the first one in the City.

Just as the Tool Shed, the Bike Coop and the Call-A-Bus, are all quality of life programs, and were not Mayor initiatives neither was the youth and recreation committee. They were needs and opportunities that were initiated when I was a councilmember.

Don't believe that being mayor will give any candidate special powers not automatic authority to wave a wand and move Mount Rainier forward.

The opportunity has been there for each Councilmember. Where is the product?

Don't let a single issue of the City cloud your judgment or your decision making. Do a google search and decide for yourself where the leadership has been and continues to be, then vote your conscience and not for unrealistic promises.