JIM TREES
OCCUPATION: Ber Tre Appraisal Service (Owner); Village Street Coffeehouse (President)
OCCUPATIONAL BACKGROUND: Publisher Single Vision Newspaper; Member Toastmasters International; Small Business Owner; Corporate Sales and Management; Sears, Roebuck and Company, Management; Sears Federal Credit Union Board of Directors; Parents without Partners President
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND: Oregon School of Insurance, Insurance Law, State License; National Security Agency, Communications, Certificate; South Western Oregon Comm. Coll., Business Law, Certificate
PRIOR GOVERNMENTAL EXPERIENCE: United States Navy
If elected, I will strive to implement two monthly work sessions to improve communication between citizens and government.
1.) A combined citizen and city council session to address citizen concerns and current council agenda items.
2.) A combined business owner and city council work session to address business concerns and current council agenda items.
This is a time to be frugal. Spending as usual while implementing new tax funded programs will cause additional tax burdens on the already over-taxed citizens. Rather than plan and spend as usual, now is the time to prioritize and trim existing expenditures wherever possible. There are areas such as public safety (police, fire, etc.) that could benefit from additional funding. Trimming the fat from the budget would allow additional funds to support these priorities without raising taxes.
Example #1: Why build new parks when the cost to make our current parks more user friendly would require a fraction of the cost.
Example #2: Why continue building high density housing when the cost for the city to provide services is greater than the revenue received. This only causes an additional tax burden on the single family dwelling owner.
(This information furnished by Jim Trees)