Why I am asking for your vote for John
John and I were both appointed to this Board, and we are both asking voters to keep us there. Our seats are for different terms, so we appear separately on the ballot. I am asking you to vote for both of us.
- He gets the order rightJohn gathers the facts, asks what they actually show, and then decides. He does not start with a conclusion and go looking for support. On a Board facing decisions this expensive and this permanent, that order is not a stylistic preference — it is the difference between a decision that holds up and one the community comes to regret.
- A quiet voice of board disciplineJohn does not speak more than he needs to, and when he does, it is because he has done the homework. He came onto this Board with the professional background to understand the proper role of a board: setting direction, asking the questions that have to be asked, letting staff do the work they were hired to do, and holding them accountable for it.
- IndependentJohn arrived without an agenda to advance and without anyone's expectations to satisfy, and he votes that way. Neither of us has taken a campaign contribution and neither of us will. We are funding our own campaigns. Campaign finance filings are public, and I would encourage anyone to read them — ours and everyone else's — before voting. A director who owes nothing to anyone is free to vote on the merits.
- The financial background this Board needs nowThe District is facing tens of millions of dollars of deferred capital work. The hardest question ahead is not what to build but how to pay for it: not just what the projects cost, but what reserves and revenues exist, where the gap is, and how it closes. That is what John does professionally. He knows how to finance large projects, pursue grants, secure funding, and sequence capital against what actually has to be built and when. A board taking on obligations of this size should have someone on it who reads a capital financing plan the way I read a contract.
- Properly risk averse about what this District isA sanitary district is public-health infrastructure. When it fails, the consequence is not an inconvenience or a budget overrun — it is untreated sewage in the streets, creeks and beaches of Montecito. Those are not hypothetical risks. Large portions of the plant have been allowed to run well past their expected useful lives. John understands that hope is not a plan and luck is not a strategy, and that the time to reduce that risk is before it happens. He votes accordingly.
I would rather serve the next four years with John Murphy than without him.
A note on this page
This is my page and my opinion. John did not write it and has not asked me to publish it. He is aware of it, and everything on it reflects my own judgment after serving alongside him.