I wanted to thank the city of San Luis Obispo staff, Mayor Jan Marx and the City Council, for putting on an excellent community forum on the 8th of January at the Ludwick Center, to discuss the 2013-15 financial plan.

The city staff, employees, the mayor and City Council members, listen and care deeply about our residents’ concerns, and it’s our job to ensure that they have a full understanding of what those concerns are.

When I ran for City Council in 2012, I was inspired daily when knocking on doors and talking to residences. The people in our great community have a wealth of knowledge, passion and desire to be part of the problem-solving process. The passion for engagement clearly showed at the community forum for the financial plan, facilitated brilliantly by Don Maruska.

The city will be hosting two other workshops in January. The homeless workshop on the 12th, and the goal-setting workshop on the 26th. Both events will be at the San Luis Obispo City-County Library. I hope to see lots of people there, engaging in local government. The city needs our help to gain additional insight to the concerns of our extremely unique and special community.