Dear Citizen:

Happy New Year, and thank you for your support and friendship.

As we begin this new year, I wanted to provide a summary of the County’s accomplishments in 2007, and the challenges and priorities we face for 2008. Overall, it was a busy and productive first year for me as a County Commissioner. Let me first say that it’s a wonderful position, with so much opportunity to make a difference—for the entire community, and individual lives. It is a great mix of policy and execution, which suits my interest in style. And for the most part, even in a challenging environment, we at the County were able to work well together—across party lines, and across a broad array of departments and offices.

Most importantly, I think we made some very positive strides in cleaning up a mess that was left by some reckless decisions in prior years. The “cleaning up” we did in 2007 will put us in a strong position to take big steps forward this year and beyond on our key priorities. While we have a long way to go, I was proud to see in a recent survey that the citizens’ view of “County Political Leadership” was at its highest point in years.