With the Elections Now Over, It's Time to get to Work

Fair Oaks has spoken. Tel Labelle, Misha Sarkovich and Don Ralls have retained their seats on the Fair Oaks Recreation and Parks District Board. Joe Hayes, Jim Livingston and Janet Smith now fill the vacated seats of the San Juan Unified School District Board. Glenn Miller and Kenneth Miller gained seats on the San Juan Water Board. Only three seats important to the Fair Oaks community remain to be filled—the seats of the Cemetery Board, which will be filled at the beginning of 1997. For all of the incumbents and the newly elected board trustees, their work is cut out for them, and it would be in the best interest of Fair Oaks if we all hold our elected officials to the task.

Casting a ballot is not the end of our responsibility. It is up to us to attend board meetings to let our board trustees know what we want. They work for us, but they can't do their jobs unless we give them direction.

In the next few years, it would be nice to see the Parks Board find a way to provide our kids with more extracurricular activities, such as kid basketball, volleyball and swimming. It would nice if the Board became more aggressive in annexing the areas near Hoffman Estates and San Juan Heights. The Parks District would benefit from the added tax base, and the residents of those communities would benefit from finally being part of the Parks District within their ZIP Code. The Parks Board recently hired a new administrator. They need to make him work hard, and we need to make the board work hard. A community is only as strong as the effort its people put into it.

For education—it would be nice to see the San Juan School District get away from the real estate business and get back to tending to the needs of our school kids. No one is happy with the current state of education, and our School Board—often in the national limelight—has the opportunity to become a national leader in its approach and attitude toward education. The education system has broken down, and it will be up to the San Juan School Board to initiate the repair. Perhaps the School Board could join forces with local Parks Districts to find ways to get our kids off the streets and into after-school athletics.

The San Juan and Fair Oaks Water Boards play an historical role. Our founding fathers wrote about the importance of water in California. Undoubtedly, water meters will become a big issue. Folks are still ranting about an Auburn Dam. Forget the dam and save the meters for folks who want them. Our water districts need to find better ways to manage our water systems, and they need to find a way to keep the county from muddying up the pond.

We've got a few things to iron out in the community, and it would be nice to get the shop in order sooner than later, because it's about time that Fair Oaks became a city. We should have done it fifty years ago, When Folsom got out from beneath the County squeeze.

With a little bit of pushing to keep our elected officials in line, we can effect the changes that would become assets in our bid to grow up and move out of the county house.