AFT 1493 Executive Committee endorses Richard Holober for County Supervisor

At its December 2010 meeting, the AFT Local 1493 Executive Committee agreed to endorse Richard Holober, currently the President of the SMCCD Board of Trustees, in his campaign for County Supervisor. In the following article, Holober explains his candidacy. – ed.

I am very grateful that AFT Local 1493 has endorsed me for a seat on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. The Special Election is an all mail ballot election. Ballots should be filled out and returned promptly to ensure that they are received back by May 3.

I have been privileged to serve as a San Mateo County Community College District Trustee since 1997. Our colleges provide outstanding higher education and job training to tens of thousands of local residents, thanks to the dedication of our faculty and staff.

These are grim times for public education and for all public services. Our hard working faculty has stepped up at this time of need, doing more, with no additional compensation, to make sure that the doors to higher education remain open to our students.

I am not one who simply copes with the catastrophe that is undermining the American Dream. I’ve spent three decades working for social justice. As a union organizer for 20 years, and now as the head of a statewide consumer rights organization, I have fought for people who don’t have the advantages of wealth or insider connections.

When the minimum wage dropped to a 40 year low, I ran the 1996 campaign that raised the pay of two million Californians who labored in poverty. I have worked with the CFT in coalitions to end the tyranny of the small minority of reactionaries at the state Capitol. I signed the Yes on Prop 25 official ballot statement, which won voter approval and established a simple majority for enactment of the budget.

We face an open assault on public sector workers, as evidenced by an extremist Wisconsin governor with an agenda that has nothing to do with balancing the budget. We must mobilize public opinion to make sure that professors, teachers, nurses and other public servants are not the scapegoats for the misdeeds of Wall Street.

These times demand leaders committed to a balanced approach to the budget, making careful reductions while insisting that the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes to maintain our social fabric. I ask for your vote this April in the Special Mail Ballot Election for San Mateo County Supervisor. Please visit www.holober.com to learn more.